NTHS - Animal Farm

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Originally Posted by ben lurie

Think of what your life might be like with everyone equal, all races and all religions. It would be good but then again you have uneducated nasty people equal with intelligent, honest and nice people.

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Ben- I do not think that an uneducated, nasty person could ever be considered equal to an intelligent, honest nice person. The nice person would have a beter job because of their intelligence, a better salary because of their superior job, and more friends because of their honesty and kindness. Forgive me if I am mistaken, but your last post seems to follow the idea that people are automatically equal if you tell them they are. Sadly, this is not the case. Humans tend to pick out all of a person's qualities, both good and bad, and then proceed to place them either above or below themselves on the social ladder. Don't ask me why- it's human nature.

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Originally Posted by ben lurie

But heres an interesting question...Do people even WANT equality?

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It depends on who the people are. If it is a dictator you're talking about, then odviously not- they want to be in charge of EVERYTHING. On the other hand, African Americans put up a major struggle to be freed from slavery and treated as equals in a "white" society. Everything changes depending on the time, the place, and the individual.

Lets make this a little more interesting- Do YOU (and by this I mean anyone personally) want, or even believe in, equality? Why or why not?

ooh good question jules!

i believe in equality, but only to an extent.
If your question asks if i believe in it considering our world and current government/living/people situatuion equal, no. [america has yet to have a non white male as president, discrimination still occurs, as well as genocide (most recently: darfur) etc.]

The idea of equality (not necessarily communism) is thought of and talked about, but has it really been put into action? Sure, groups of people are working towards it ["it" = no segregation/racism/sexism/inequality], but in comparism to the millions who do not or cannot do much about it ...it seems to be more of a distant dream.

and in regards to ben's question;

i believe that most people want equality, again, possibly only to an extent. how could we progress and get anywhere at all if we were to have no leaders to make decisions (still using citizen input as a major basis for decisions and backing up their choices however), no teachers, doctors, janitorial/public clean up even ?? if everyone were of equal status and education level (the latter is pretty unlikely) how would we ever move forward?
i think that yes, people are different and are treated with differing amounts of respect and whatnot, and that is okay to a limit. everyone deserves respect, and everyone deserves some education, safety, etc. like maslow's theory. i believe that EVERYONE should have the bottom 3 elements before we can even think about going any farther.
we proclaim to be a melting pot ... where everyone is given equal opportunities. but is that really what happens in america?

I honestly like capitalism, to a point. Not all the stories of "i am came to america 20 years ago with nothing and now im a millionaire" are fake. There are a lot of possibilities in this country, though things DO need to be changed. I don't think that communism is the answer, not yet at least. There is a lot of social reform needed before people should even think about trying to make a huge country like the U.S. a communist, or for that matter, changing our government at all. I think that we shoiuld work on improving our current system and limiting the gap between the rich and the poor, instead of dreaming about things that won't happen in our lifetime. it is important because every change we make that will limit the gap between the rich and the poor or inequality will help future generations modify our government even more, and eventually build a more socialist society. I think my vocab might be wrong sometimes, but i havent been checking out wikipedia.

I do not believe that the way our country works can be changed to a better system, because there are all sorts of opinions, and eventhough I may no agree with some others opinions, there will be no time when everyone in our country or in the world will be able to get along. Democracy is the best system for this country and I beleive that it would also work well for other countries too, but human greed and selfishness will always be an issue.

I cannot think of a better system then democracy. If anyone has any ideas in how to help our govrnment, please comment.

I also believe democracy is a great system of government for this contry, but i think there are small changes we can make to improve our government that will work with the seelfish and the greedy. For example I think we sould be able to decide where our tax money gose so we will pay for what we want instead of what th government wants.

I cannot think of a better system then democracy. If anyone has any ideas in how to help our govrnment, please comment.

I apologise for my last comment, that was a mistake. I think that Nicole's idea is great, with being able to put your tax money where you choose we are able to feel confident that our money is being put in the place where we favor the most. But if this is done how will we actually know for sure that the government is putting our money in the desired places. My point is that no matter what we do to change or, what we think is to help the system we have currently, there will always be disagreements based on the way we were raised or the communities that we live in.

Commenting on Nicoles post, if everyone chose where our tax money goes to then only popular things would get money and things people were against but were needed would fail to get enough money and would die out, so even if something is important it may not be popular.

Reguarding Julia's comment from yesterday, I do not believe in equality, or that it even excists in a community or school. i believe that the only way it may excist is in the mind. You tell or show people how to treat you and if you believe that you are of equal status to everyone around you no matter how much you differ from one another, they will treat you as you are equal

That is true Davidson but, we have to vote to pass laws that will need tax money so already the public desides that what is important is popular but I understand what you are saying

Democracy is a great way of government but i believe the government has changed it the same way the pigs changed communism in Animal Farm. By definition Democracy is controll of a group by the majority of it's members, the practice or principles of social equality. I agree with Lexey that there is not enough equality in the US. I think the main reason we are not socialy equal is we are not economicaly equal.

Davidson brings up a good point. When I think about taxes I think that they go to jail, schools, roads and social security. I do not think that a small portion of taxes may go to the arts- museums, conventions and national parks. Many people may be unaware that taxes go to support these, museums and national parks I believe are extremely important and if no one were to support these than that would be unfortunate.