question about embassy

[slim 1,514]

When people consider it correct and a good thing to take away our liberties I think the days on those liberties are numbered.

I am older than many of you and if I think back to how many of our liberties have been lost while I have been here I think the rest will go in another lifetime or so.

America is going to be a completely different country in 50 years. China and India will dominate the world economy and America's reach as a global super power will not be as strong. Our influence will cease to be so influential. Couple that with the changing ethnic make up (more Spanish-speakers than English) and in effect, the country will seem not like the America it is today, but a different nation entirely.

We have the ability to adapt to the changing global environment and hold our position at the top. However, things like the Patriot Act are not placing us on a course to overcome these challenges, moreover, they're aligning us with our own demise. And hastening the process!

For long US has been dominant in technology and technical innovation - man on the moon, semiconductors, microprocessors etc etc, you name it. With India and China catching up, this technology gap is closing in and US no longer is as dominant.

US needs to find a new gig, something, some area where it can lead again - possibly finance !

We've got a new gig... it's called "invade your country and mess it all up." Two countries in less than five years, nobody can top that! Nobody else even comes close!

When people consider it correct and a good thing to take away our liberties I think the days on those liberties are numbered.

I am older than many of you and if I think back to how many of our liberties have been lost while I have been here I think the rest will go in another lifetime or so.

I was just generalizing... Nobody is going to ask a lowlife of an immigrant like meself on the matters of Patriotic Act anyways, so it's for you, citizens, to decide if it's good or bad.

It's going to be the "lowlife immigrants" making all the decisions in the next 50 years. Maybe not them directly, but their beliefs, attitudes and lifestyles are going to be passed down to their children - who can vote - and they will be the voice of America's future.

Edited July 22, 2007 by slim

[Turboguy 6]

We've got a new gig... it's called "invade your country and mess it all up." Two countries in less than five years, nobody can top that! Nobody else even comes close!

Ahhhh, didu forget about Adolph!!!!

I do agree with your speculation about the next 50 years. It is going to be a different world and finance or any service will not keep us in our current status. When you produce nothing and live off the production of others you are a fungus. Funguses can only do so much.

[dmhweb 0]

When you produce nothing and live off the production of others you are a fungus.

No...

That makes you a Politician or maybe a Lawyer!

[apgk 0]

We've got a new gig... it's called "invade your country and mess it all up." Two countries in less than five years, nobody can top that! Nobody else even comes close!

Ahhhh, didu forget about Adolph!!!!

I do agree with your speculation about the next 50 years. It is going to be a different world and finance or any service will not keep us in our current status. When you produce nothing and live off the production of others you are a fungus. Funguses can only do so much.

Not necessarily. Having local production base is only 1 factor among myriad of other things - it alone cannot provide an edge.

If you have noticed, recently, in print, in media, in corporations, there is a huge emphasis on innovation, lot of discussion, dissection etc. Clearly "innovation" is something which US has been strong and needs to be strong and a leader. There is no other coutry on this earth which has infrastructure (monetary, regulatory etc) which fosters innovations quite like America and we need to continue leading in that sense.

[Nancy2015 2]

We've got a new gig... it's called "invade your country and mess it all up." Two countries in less than five years, nobody can top that! Nobody else even comes close!

Ahhhh, didu forget about Adolph!!!!

Oh well, didn't work out too well for Adolph, did it?

There's never been, and there'll never be a superpower whose dominance will last forever. Remember the Romans, the Byzantine Empire, and the very recent history - the British Empire. All lasted a while, and then either vanished or got weaker. Somebody else will replace the U.S. as the world's leading power, it's just the question of when. I'd say, give it 50 to 200 years.

Well, I will be all wrinkled and old in 50 years (that is, if at all alive), so I prefer to concern myself with the here and now.

[mendeleev 68]

We've got a new gig... it's called "invade your country and mess it all up." Two countries in less than five years, nobody can top that! Nobody else even comes close!

Ahhhh, didu forget about Adolph!!!!

You beat me to it. (I went up into the mountains for a couple days to try to forget about things like the (so-called) Patriot Act and our doctrine of Preventive War.

[slim 1,514]

Adolph, Romans, Byzantines........ that's all past. I'm talking present. The U.S. kind of has the market cornered on "invading your country (even against the U.N.'s wishes) and messing it all up." There's no other country on earth that can thumb it's nose at the U.N. and proceed to invade not one, but TWO, sovereign nations and plunge them into chaos.

As for the future... it's not going to be innovation, but DRIVE that makes it happen. America is fresh out of drive. We're in coast mode, and just like on the highway, when you coast, you get overtaken.