The Story of Capitalism

Humans work in groups to accomplish tasks that they would otherwise not be able to do. Whether or not they do it for their own gains or for the gains of the group is irrelevant, the fact is, they choose to do it. We have computers, cars, large buildings, electricity grids, running water, etc., not because humans chose to work alone and for their own gain, but because they chose to work together for the betterment of the group as a whole. However, America breeds the idea of the individual making their way to the top, and Capitalism breeds competition. Put these two together, and you have the perfect mixture for the ruthless and greedy among the group to take control away from the others. Who builds our computers, cars, buildings, puts up power lines and lays down pipe for running water? The people at the bottom, the ones left behind. They're the ones still doing the job we value, the ones still working towards the betterment of the group. Who rose to the top, and is making several hundred times more than any of them? The one who decided to be the "executive", the person so far removed from the actual task, they have little to nothing to do with actually providing the service. They are businessmen; they make all the profit by making the wages of the group (the ones who are actually providing you with the essential service of the company) close to nothing. So, they get to take home millions of dollars, the people who actually provide the service live on welfare or in the lower class, and the group as a whole continues to suffer. Why does it continue to suffer? It needs those resources! There's only so much money that a person will need to live well, only so many millions of dollars before it just becomes excess. Wouldn't it be nice if a CEO who earned $40 million running a company of 12,000 last year had decided to split his check with the rest of the company and give them all a $3,000 bonus? I don't know of many wire-splitters or pipe-layers that would say they wouldn't want that check at the end of the year. The math for this still comes out to be a $4 million pay for the CEO, which is reasonable enough, considering no human being nor family of human beings actually needs $4 million, proven by the fact that there are families of workers within that company who would value the extra $3000! Sure my company is hypothetical, but it wouldn't be hard to find examples like this all over the country. There are just a few people who have propelled themselves to the top, and they seem to think the drastically large amounts they earn are justified while they leave behind those who are fulfilling the very services those at the top are getting paid so much to manage.

Is it reasonable that so executives make so much?
It is reasonable that some employees makes so little?

Response: "Why do we incarcerate such a high number of people?" - Lauren

I agree with the main points of your post, that the situation in our prisons doesn't look good, and that it is hard to determine where a lot of our prisoners come from. Part of the problem, I believe, is how we deal with "criminals". Just what makes a person a criminal, and what kind of rationale is used to determine how long they are sentenced?
This is an interesting story I heard from a friend a while back. His cousin had been asked a favor by a friend; she was to give him a lift, just a short ride, only about a half hour. When they crossed state lines and entered the town the cousin's friend had been asked to go to, they were pulled over by the police. Both of them were arrested, and it turns out that a warrant had been put out for the friend, as it was revealed that he was a fairly "big-time" drug dealer. The two were charged, one with the possession and distribution of illicit substances, the other with the voluntary transport of a wanted man. The drug dealer got 3 years, the woman 9. Arbitrarily, she was given a sentence three times longer than the sentence of her friend, since the minimum requirements of the law said that she must get at least 9, whereas the drug dealer hired lawyers that got his sentence knocked down to 3. So, morally, what's the bigger crime, selling dangerous drugs to people of all ages, or transporting a drug dealer who is also a friend when you are unaware of why he is asking you for a ride? I find this to be a failure of our law system, that the minimum requirements imposed by precedents remove any opportunity to truly judge on a case by case basis. This woman clearly did not deserve nine years in jail, morally, but she was forced to serve them and is now considered a convict, legally.
It's cases like this that build up our prisons. Relatively innocent people locked away for an arbitrary number of years so the people on the outside can feel a sense of security coupled with vengeance. If only we could do away with such petty feelings towards those who wronged us, then maybe we'd realize that the cousin was innocent and the drug dealer needed a better education system so s to get a well-paying job.

Are there some criminals who are truly impossible to rehabilitate?

Flying your Opponent's Flag

As an analogy: Two armies with the same flag, same armor and same weapons approach each other in civil war. They both claim to be fighting for the same cause and they both approach the field with the same desire to see their side win. What separates these armies? They must have some disagreement, otherwise they wouldn't be fighting each other.
This is how I view the redefining of the word "patriot". If you say "I am working to make a new kind of patriotism," then you are bound to confuse your opponents. Your argument is different than theirs, and to make clear your differences you cannot simply repeat, "I am trying to be my version of a patriot." Instead, you would say something along the lines of, "You think a patriot is someone who supports their country no matter what, and I think a patriot is someone who plays a positive, active role in the development of their country while still admitting to its faults and mistakes." Why then does this sentence have to include "patriot"? It still makes just as much sense without the word, "I think one should support their country's good, justifiable actions and will protest when it does wrong, rather than support it no matter what." The word "patriot", then, has become an interesting mixture of redundancy and uselessness. Our arguments do not have to be summed up using the same vocabulary as our opponents; they can speak for themselves. I agree with Robert Jensen that we can indeed say "goodbye" to patriotism. We can fly a stronger and more straightforward flag than our opponents by emphasizing the differences in our ideals. By removing the word "patriot" from discussion, we get to the root of the actual issue at hand, rather than getting bogged down in different definitions and opposing views of a particular word. Those who believe in community and the core principles of democracy should therefore not feel a need to somehow be "patriotic"; we can easily let the word die along with it's negative connotations, and move forward with this new-found sense of working together for unity in good and dissent in evil.

What makes a "moderate American patriot", meaning someone who will applaud at their country's best and protest at it's worst, any different than a democratic citizen?
(enough so that continuing to use the word "patriot" would assist such a philosophy?)

How to Waste Money and Lives

The U.S. Prison system doesn't seem to function the way it should. Incarceration rates and amounts in the U.S. are higher than anywhere else in the world. We also have one of the highest rates of death by firearms, behind only South Africa, Colombia, Thailand and Guatemala. In 2004, 29,569 Americans were killed due to gunfire. 16,750 of them (56%) were suicides and 11,624 of them (40%) were homicides. Only 311 were due to "legal intervention", meaning police firings. statistically, 1 out of every 100 people you see are carrying a concealed weapon. So, my question is now, "Why is America such an apparently dangerous country?"
I would disagree with those that say it's our media, specifically violent video games, movies, television shows, music and other forms. It's true, in a way, that our media is constantly pushing violence to its highest extreme, but don't other countries watch and listen to the same things as us? Don't they also have violent histories, corrupt politicians, complex economies and repressed minorities just like us? Then why is it that these other countries have such smaller amounts of death by firearms, such as Japan with less than 60 a year, or Canada with less than 800 a year, or Great Britain with less than 50 a year? These numbers just don't add up, not when you consider their rate versus population: Japan - 0.07, Canada - 4.78, England - 0.38, United States - 15.22! Canada is the second most harmful country I've referenced, but you're still over three times more likely to get killed by firearms in the U.S.
My question remains the same. I don't see any distinguishing characteristic between the United States and the other countries I'm using here that would account for such a drastic difference. And if we really are the most violent, what does that say about our country? History doesn't seem to play any role at all, seeing as how Canada is generally the most peaceful nation in this comparison, but anyone who tries to argue that Japan or England have peaceful histories is bound to fail; just take a look at World War 2 for either or the occupation of India by the English and you'll see your mistake.
I'm trying to find answers to this question on my own, but I don't seem to be having any luck. I'm just running into more devastating statistics, so I'll end this on my main question:

What makes America such a dangerous country?

A Patriot vs. A Rational Lover of One's own Country

Patriotism entails that you hold your country more favorable than any other. This irrational favoritism can be labeled as immoral, illogical and unproductive. It is immoral because you hold the potential to ignore your country's wrongdoings as well as the needs of humans in other places simply because of their geographical setting. It is illogical because all arguments based on whether or not your home country is deserving of this favoritism leads to opinions or judgments that are convoluted and never-ending. It is unproductive because it can be used by either side; you can say that you are not a patriot because you don't support the troops when they are ordered to do wrong and you do support them when they are ordered to do right, which can also come down to a never-ending argument loaded with opinions and personal judgments. What is then left of patriotism which makes it positive? Supporting only your chosen politicians, or only the core principles of the country, or the prosperity of the economic system, all of these are not reason enough to be a patriot, they are simply pieces of your country as a whole that you find preferable.
It is perhaps time then that we abandon the label "patriot" as a whole, and rather, what is needed is to create a term that embodies both an appreciation for the right and a condemnation of the wrong in one's chosen land. Am I not a patriot if I support my country's acceptance of all races, religions and creeds? Am I not a patriot if I condemn my country's war crimes and it's unequal treatment of certain civil rights movements? "Patriot" is not the right word for this. The best definition I can think of for this new term is, "One who values the positive ethical progress of the location in which one resides". This term would allow for both appreciation and protest. It would not make a mockery of political parties that disagree, and instead would value their dissent as an opportunity for rational discussion and a second look at how our common community, America, acts as a whole.

Is there a way for patriotism to be considered logical and ethical without removing the need for a special term?
Is there a way to consider yourself an impartial citizen of the world (an internationalist, a cosmopolitan, and a golden rule universalist) and still hold a willingness to support one's own country without becoming a hypocrite?

Christian Theocracy (America)

The majority of Americans believe in the Christian God of the Bible, but how much of the Bible's teachings are actually becoming a part of our political policies? How is it that the United States Government has the ability to grant marriage licenses to heterosexual couples but not homosexual? Why is abortion a controversy and not a one-sided scientific fact? How is it that we, as a country, have become complacent yet aggressive, ignorant yet dangerous, and freedom-loving yet oppressive?
Every time I watch an American politician give a speech, it somehow invariably ends with, "God bless America", or something like that. But why? Why has it become easier to get elected if you admit to believing the word of God? I don't see many atheist politicians, or people of other religions. It seems to me that Christianity has the monopoly on American politics. We were given the freedom of religion to worship however we wished, and most of the founding fathers were either not very religious or hated Christianity. So how is it, despite what our well-meaning founders attempted to give us, we have become predominately Christian in policy? John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and others would all be appalled at the sight of the ten commandments in a courthouse or at the amount to which the Bible has leaked into our lawmaking. A separation of church and state means that no church should hold any sway in politics, yet we have failed miserably in this regard. The doctrine of Christianity is slowly becoming the absolute law of the land. There's a difference between taking your morals from a single source that you hold higher than all others and purposefully trying to impose those sets of morals into a governing body that is supposed to remain neutral. It doesn't take long before a religion that is becoming law becomes so intertwined with the workings of the system that it becomes nearly impossible to take it out. As these laws infect the system, politicians that favor keeping these laws become easier and easier to elect. If the majority of a generation is forced to agree with Christian values through law, the next generation will become more accepting of those values, and so on, until there is little left to distinguish country from church.
Now, I'm not saying that this is definitely what I believe is going to happen. I just find the idea of religiously inspired laws in a democracy that serves religions of all kinds appalling.

Does where a person draws their moral code from matter as long as you agree with it?
Is the separation of Church and State reasonable?

Patriotism as an Excuse

I find that it is easy, especially in present-day America, to misuse the word "patriot", or any of it's connotations. Our politicians and media today say things such as, "If you don't support the war, you're unpatriotic", "If you say that the German human rights policies are better, you're unpatriotic", "If you prefer Canada's health system, you're unpatriotic", "Socialists, communists, fascists and terrorists are all the same". There seems to be no way to be truly patriotic without also being blind. Our country bombs civilians, more often and in larger amounts than the terrorists. Our country still has homeless people, a laughable matter considering their are countries that have solved the homeless crisis, such as Germany. Our country has people sick and dying because they can't afford any kind of health care or insurance, when countries such as Canada, most European countries, and even Cuba have systems that treat their citizens more often, in higher numbers, and tend to have longer life spans in cases of "death by natural causes". To be a patriot, in the mindset of a Conservative, I must ignore all of this. I must agree with killing civilians. I must watch people live on the street, and ignore their cries for help. I must let my fellow Americans die because they couldn't afford medicine. I must support Capitalism, the reason for our overly obese, sugar-run based food system, the reason for our competitive market system where if you're not making a killing then you're the one getting killed, the reason for our total lack of regard for how our overly competitive, every-man-for-himself nature is bankrupting the world of natural resources and basic human compassion. I must disagree with socialism. I am wrong to think that sharing could help. I am wrong to think that total and absolute equality, laws based on rational ethics rather than fascist christian theocracy could better our living conditions. I am wrong to believe that there could be something better than what we already have, because we are America, the biggest, strongest, we-can-do-no-wrong-because-we-can-end-the-world-with-the-push-of-a-button country the world has today.
This is how I view the modern form of American patriotism.

Do you believe our use of the word "patriot" has been corrupted, or do you think that there is a way to say you are patriotic and still ignore the mass misrepresentation of the word? (or some other answer that disagrees with my stance as a whole?)