A nation is not a business. A nation is a haven for human souls.

[sibelian]

A nation is the physical manifestation of a constellation of human ideals.

Nations exist for the sake of the people in them. They serve no purpose if they cannot improve the lot of the average citizen or there is no shared understanding of what the nation is all about. Nations provide a sanctuary within which human beings can realise their potential, in the company and safety of like-minded humans, where shared values can work in unison for the betterment of all. Human beings need nations to rise above their individualism and make common cause with those who share their values. Nations are places where beliefs are tested and the best way forward is decided on collectively, as far as possible by consensus, and as far as possible by consent.

Nations are not places where selected segments of the populace are sold down the river like bits of scrap metal so that rich people can get richer. Nations are not places where individual's dreams are forgotten or purposefully crushed because they aren't part of the business model. Nations are not places where human beings are less important than the bank balance.

Ideals are not things that should be treated like materials in a factory, products to be marketed, workstreams to be "streamlined", assets to be spent or hoarded or conceptual models to be updated, repurposed or made redundant. Ideals that are treated in this fashion are no longer ideals, but mere ideas, ideas thrown into a psychological garbage disposal unit and spat out at the end to see which one got the least screwed so that it can be sold.

Businesses have nothing to do with nations. They have nothing to do with ideals. Businesses are about counting. Counting things, counting money, counting time, counting, counting, counting.

Even the Romans understood that money existed for the betterment of humans, and not the other way round.

Mitt Romney does not believe in anything. He has no understanding of the necessity for human beings to have lives beyond the trivial time consumption of work, to have succeses beyond the trivial mathematics of a rich man's bank balance or the necessity for human beings to feel that their lives are meaningful, that their time on this world matters. This is perfectly clear from every single thing he has ever said.

If Mitt Romney wants to run a business, why isn't he running a business?

[cali]

1. Respectfully, I disagree.

I don't think it's anything near that highfalutin. It's an organization of people designed to regulate behavior in a manageable way.

There isn't really a history of nations existing for their citizens. That's a modern and fairly rare phenomenon. (and by modern I mean over the past 250 years or so). And yeah, Nations have always used citizens for their own purposes (institutional behavior and all that). Think war, for example. Think using people as cannon fodder.

I could go on and on, but you get the point. And no, Romans did not, by and large see that governments existed for the betterment of humans.

As for businesses, since the devise of the nation-state, they've been an integral part of virtually all nations.

In any case, to answer your question about Romney, he's been there, done that, and now he wants to be the most powerful man on earth. Plus there's the whole daddy didn't make it to the Presidency thing.

[jerseyjack]

2. I also disagree.

The history of nations is one of leaders trying to take stuff from other leaders. Citizens grouped around the leader for self interest or self protection.

Then came the biggest fraud of all..Nationalism.

Napoleon: We will attack the commies in Russia for the glory of France. (with some snark)

Hitler and your part in establishing the glory of the fatherland's Thousand Year Reich.

USA: Everyone except the children of rich people gets to defend the U.S.A. in Iraq today and Iran tomorrow.

[WinkyDink]

3. Today, nations are resources to be plundered, some from without, some from within.

[Iggy]

4. Understood, However...

I believe it was Grover Cleveland who said:

"The business of America is business".

Obv numerous among us have embraced this-- and gone beyond with their desire to
exploit workers, the environment, etc., and lie, cheat and steal their way to the "top" if
that is necessary.

our particular brand of dog-eat-dog capitalism is one of the main reasons our
economy is circling the drain, about to go down.

[bornskeptic]

6. Actually it was Calvin Coolidge who supposedly said that,

although it is actually a misquote.

[Iggy]

8. Thanks

for the correction.

[Missycim]

5. Its a little bit of both

Countries and businesses have to run on a budget and try to keep in that budget or run the risk of bankruptcy. I hope Obama gets control of the congress this year so he can try to balance it.

[Warren Stupidity]

26. Balanced budget bullshit.

There is no reason why we have to balance the budget. In fact, as Paul Krugman notes, with interest rates at historic lows, now is a good time to be issuing new debt and using that to invest in long term infrastructure projects that would benefit the nation as a whole, like for example a 21st sustainable energy infrastructure project to get us off fossil fuel dependency.

Nations, strong financially sound nations, routinely run deficits. They differ from financially unsound nations in that they also routinely make payments on the bonds they issue. We do that. Balancing the budget is throwback Coolidge era economic nonsense, and it is used as a justification for various schemes to scrap entitlement programs like social security and medicare.

[Missycim]

27. Maybe

I am not educated enough to know why spending more money with no hope of paying it back is a good thing? We owe so much that out great grand kids will be paying it back if we stopped running debts now.

[Warren Stupidity]

28. "no hope of paying it back"

that would explain why treasury bonds are the safest investment on the planet. I'm sorry about the facts, I know they get in the way. US government bonds are always paid back. That is why they are the safest investments.

[reACTIONary]

7. Respectfully, I Disagree with the Disagreement...

While I would not put it in the way that the OP did, I think (he or she) is essentially correct. Governments do indeed center around a constellation of human ideals, those ideals that deal with justice. Governments are organizations that define and implement justice for a people.

Business is not unimportant to justice. The ways in which a people's productive efforts are organized and the way the proceeds of those efforts are shared and distributed is one of the central issues of justice. But it is a "meta business issue". The government itself is not the productive organization, it just sets the most general and highest level "terms and conditions".

National security is not unimportant to justice. A people's safety in the world with respect to other nations and, irrespective of its safety, its standing in the world and the interests of its citizens are one of the central issues of justice. And since there is no common understanding of justice between nations and no higher authority over them, conflict is not only inevitable, but the use of force in settling the conflict is almost a necessity.

Leaders are not (or, at least, should not be) CEO's running a business, nor are they mafia dons out to exploit and plunder others. They are (or should be) responsible for the ideal and the reality of a people's sense of justice.

[Iggy]

9. Somebody Once Said:

"The only purpose of government is to protect thee from me".

In other words, we know there are criminals and murderers among us. it's the job of
any government to make considerable effort to protect the citizens from criminals.

that's not happening in the U.S., in spite of the tens of billions of dollars we spend on "security"
year after year after year.

both in regard to financial crime (our system has devolved to more or less financial anarchy)
the obv example being the SEC taking 25 years to catch the largest Ponzi scammer in
history-- Bernie Madoff, and in regard to the increasing frequency of rampage killings in
our nation.

[reACTIONary]

11. "Thee from Me"...

... worthy of having been said by Hobbes.

[Iggy]

13. Here's One From Hobbes

"No man's error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it".

hmmmm

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/thomas_hobbes.html#D4wibygD1OMyV9PL.99

[Shankapotomus]

14. I respectfully disagree

Nation is a group cooperative to mutual benefit. A joining of numbers for survival value. Groups go back to before the human species. A group species is stronger, safer and more successful than a solitary species. A nation is just a modern extension of that ancient fact of survival. The politics of a nation can either serve or obstruct that goal but, ultimately, we gather in groups for survival value.

[sibelian]

29. That is a simpler way of saying what I said, and I wish I'd said that instead!

[Shankapotomus]

31. No, you said it better! (nt)

[Shankapotomus]

10. Holy Shit! Yes!

This is what Biden needs to counter Ryan with in the debate! Awesome! Fucking perfect! I am saving this for use later, with proper credit, if you don't mind!

Brilliant!

[cali]

12. uh, no. no. no.

that would be disastrous.

[sibelian]

30. Why would it be disastrous? nt

[Demeter]

15. If There's a Theme in This Weekend's News

It's the abuse and misapplication of technology for Corporate gain. It's not even that a person will benefit from the pillaging of all that exists.

It's faceless, soulless Corporations, another misapplication of technology, in this case, financial technology, and legal technology, that is destroying the earth and the people on it, so that the Corporations can get bigger and more powerful. To what purpose? To destroy everything?

The non-profits may sit there and try to shame us individuals, guilt us, in the belief that we will change our individual choices, and everything will go right.

But it's the STRUCTURES: Government, Business and yes, Religion, that have turned rogue and destructive.

We the People must take down these rogue institutions, return our would-be Masters back into the Public Servants they are supposed to be. And we must either convert or incarcerate their human components, so that the People can thrive again.


Technology is what was supposed to give us the world of Star Trek. Do those quants on Wall Street and those geneticists at Monsanto know how they have betrayed the Present and the Future? Do those venal, grasping CongressCritters know how they have betrayed 300 years of patriots?

[sibelian]

23. Excellent post

Many thanks

[raouldukelives]

16. I'm more of a romantic than a realist myself.

I still believe in the idea that the founding of the US and the desire to be free wasn't just a catchy slogan. That it was the culmination of 100's of years of scratching, clawing and fighting for a place to stand in a world of Ryans & Romneys.
But instead of continuing that fight. Of stretching the boundaries of freedom & liberty we sat on our heels. We got dumb and fat. We allowed the same assholes to get back into positions of power and we have slowly been rotted from within to mimic what we escaped so many years ago. What our ancestors gave their lives to us for and what we have sold to the highest bidder.

[gkhouston]

17. Even if you view a nation as a business, the 1% approach to "business" is an utter fail.

No sane business would let its buildings deteriorate and crumble while diverting cash into the pockets of its CEOs, yet the 1% is willfully damaging our economy for their personal gain with no thought of the long-term consequences. And our country is literally crumbling, too. We badly need to renew our infrastructure, but I don't see how that can possibly be part of the Ryan budget, unless he's using imaginary numbers.

[Bluerthanblue]

18. I think you describe the ideal that America is supposed to be-

and I think it would be good for us to be reminded of this fact.

Of By and For the people-

A business' purpose is to grow itself. It is not concerned with the welfare of the lowest worker. Henry Ford's 'welfare capitalism' was a notable exception to this in my view.

It is odd, how the right wing likes to use the analogy of comparing running this country to running one's family- But the analogy fails when they refuse to acknowledge that even our children who aren't able to fend for themselves, or the members who cannot produce or perform up to what we'd hope, must be provided for, and helped to become the best they can be, without being judged to be less than equal members of the family as a whole.

Mitt Romney's leadership as a 'father' in his home, leaves much to be questioned and desired. He seems to be all about "production" and outward appearances, and little on real relationship, compassion and genuine connectedness. His family seems to be an extension of his business- Not people whose lives matter as much to him (if not more) than his very own.-

A good President is also a person who understands that they are actually a Servant, and that their power is only made possible by the consent of the people which they serve. Something that seems to have been forgotten by many of us on all sides. Or at least that was the concept that the founding fathers had in mind.

[valerief]

19. A nation of dogs

Here's an interesting clip on how wolves possibly evolved themselves into dogs, who look to humans as gods who can make anything possible (the wolf does not.)

This evolution started when humans began living in communities and had a communal dump for carcasses. Wolves who stayed in closest proximity to humans at the dump got first dibs on the carcasses (over wary wolves who ran away at the sight of humans and found other food sources). Hence, the divergence of wolf and dog. (Did you known only humans and dogs instinctively understand that human pointing is a means to direct attention to something? Our great apes don't. But I digress.)

Anyway, I see a nation as mostly dogs feeding off the trash of the gods (the 1%). We need more wolves.

[Maineman]

20. What a typical nation is versus what it could be, or should be?

We seek a more perfect union...

which means several things. But at its core, a nation could/should resemble a coop, or a collection of coops, the citizens coming together to elect skilled peers to organize and manage processes that make the organizations function effectively for the benefit of everyone - to the extent humanly possible. The management structure is called government. Those who see the world in terms of authoritarian structures, see government as domineering, and resent it. For example, they hate taxes because they think the government is taking from them. Those who see the world in terms of potential coops see the government as their friend and agent. They realize, for example, that taxes are their way of supporting the public good by supporting the structure that works to maintain the well-being of the citizens.

When government becomes little more than a tool for businesses to manipulate for their benefit, as many of ours have become, then the ideal of citizens cooperating for the public good is completely lost. The result is hollow, morally impoverished, self-serving manipulators with no sense of fairness or justice. We get greed, polarization, rampant lying, corporate profiteering, and government corruption. We get today's Republicans.

[Courtesy Flush]

21. K&R and bookmarked, and reddited, and facebooked!

Thanks

[sibelian]

22. Many thanks.

[ananda]

24. Absolutely.

Would that this nation were not business but rather
human soul oriented.

[sibelian]

25. Thank you. nt