The U.S. is a plutocracy with police as their private security force

Money has always equated to power in the USA and most of the world.

The USA is more of a democracy than it was when black people could not vote and women could not vote.

While it is important or at least admirable to save wealth and knowledge for your off spring, it is far from a guarantee.

Most wealth in the USA is gone within a few generations.

I personally am raising my son to be compassionate but also to critical thinking skills. He gets to go to an exceptional school and that helps him as well, and having a doctor and lawyer as parents I am sure helps...... but that is only part of the equation.

We do have too many throttlebottoms in positions of authority though.

 

Learned a new word today...

 

When the Supreme Court ruled that corporations should be able to buy politicians our Democracy slid into an oligarchy... often influenced more by foreign oligarchs than US based oligarchs.

So is the US a democracy???.... Only in the framework of us having the ability up until 2020 at least, to elect our leaders... BUT once they get in office they are very very likely to be controlled by the oligarchy framework that now rules the political class. The framework for elections... while flawed... is still a Democratic system. Governing though is NOT Democratic whatsoever. The US Senate and the Supreme Court are at the heart of the Oligarchy system at work to only work in the interest of the Oligarchs.

IF... and ITS A BIG IF... some very basic reforms could happen to overturn citizens united along with a few other "money in politics" cancers in the system, I do think Democracy could be retaken in all forms. Elections and governance. Not just a flawed election system which is designed to give power to land, not people.

To the OP: I think you need to wait for a few more election cycles to see if the Democratic framework will hold given that the GOP is working overtime to overturn that, and then you'll have an autocratic election system and an oligarchy governing system. Given the fact that we still are lingering on a Democratic electoral system, I'd say stick with the US for a bit longer, and while you might not agree with Democrats or Progressives, they are your best bet at the moment to get enough votes to pass laws that solidify the Democratic election system and possibly moving the needle a bit on lightening the influence on Oligarchy governing. At the very least pass laws to decrease the influence of foreign Oligarchs.... especially freaking Rupert Murdoch who isn't even from the US.

 

We should be teaching our kids to be MORE empathetic, not less.

Life is not a zero sum game.

Someone else doesn't have to lose for me to win. We could all win by lifting each other up as opposed to putting each other down.

 

I haven't seen much urgency in the past 2 years to address any issues of inequality or even equity.

Cares was nice except 3/5 of it didn't go to the people. Forbearance and loan forgiveness were stop gaps and PPP was a nice gesture to small biz that inevitably showed how the bigger guy cut in line.

There's no real reform and all talk.

Maybe we all need to be pissed at everything and decide what we really want to keep.

 

A lot of people mistake empathy for being naive and that doesn't have to be the case.

 

This is how America and colonial America has always been.

 

Votes still matters, but the Right is making it harder to vote fairly. In fact, they wouldn't be in power in many places if voting lines were fairly drawn and voting was fairly conducted.

However, the rich owning demagogues (and yes, Trump is owned, probably even more than scumbags like Cruz) goes back to Greece and Rome and corruption in the police force/military is even older. Nothing new to see here.

 

Our rural-urban political divide is the problem.