If you could go back in time and stop one historical event, what would it be?

[Bfgrn]

It would be easy to say stop WWII, but if there had been no WWII would there still be a Nazi Germany, a Facist Italy, an Imperial Japan, a Soviet Empire, all the with the bomb and no reason not to use it?

It would be easy to say stop the bomb, but where. With whom? Once the idea, the information is out there, the technology has been developed, it can't be undone. Much better that honorable men have it as well as evil ones.

We can't stop all progress. We can't stop ideas.

But we could have stopped Teddy Roosevelt from destroying the intent of the Constitution and stopped him from opening the door to the entitlement mentality, the ever larger and more bloated and more all encompassing government overrreach, the gradual return to servitude of political powers, the neocon power trip, and the slow but sure destruction of the America culture to the point we no longer even challenge a corrupt and ever more grasping and coercive government.

You know FF, you need to stop having your head filled with shit from morons like Glenn Beck. Our founding fathers created an entity to address gross malfeasance of power by factions like the robber barons...

I will give you a hint...it is 10 letters and begins with a G.

The first thing to understand is the difference between the natural person and the fictitious person called a corporation. They differ in the purpose for which they are created, in the strength which they possess, and in the restraints under which they act. Man is the handiwork of God and was placed upon earth to carry out a Divine purpose; the corporation is the handiwork of man and created to carry out a money-making policy. There is comparatively little difference in the strength of men; a corporation may be one hundred, one thousand, or even one million times stronger than the average man. Man acts under the restraints of conscience, and is influenced also by a belief in a future life. A corporation has no soul and cares nothing about the hereafter.
—William Jennings Bryan, 1912 Ohio Constitutional Convention

 

[Two Thumbs]

I'd smother Rosie Perez so that someone that could talk, would get that bit part in White men can't jump

Dude...the movie sucked, but Rosie Perez was (and is) HOT!

PS: See an audiologist. Her accent (half Puerto Rico, half Brooklyn) was easy to understand.

I would never say she wasn't hot, but hollywood is full of hot chicks that don't sound like nails down a chalk board when speaking.

 

[Darkwind]

It would be easy to say stop WWII, but if there had been no WWII would there still be a Nazi Germany, a Facist Italy, an Imperial Japan, a Soviet Empire, all the with the bomb and no reason not to use it?

It would be easy to say stop the bomb, but where. With whom? Once the idea, the information is out there, the technology has been developed, it can't be undone. Much better that honorable men have it as well as evil ones.

We can't stop all progress. We can't stop ideas.

But we could have stopped Teddy Roosevelt from destroying the intent of the Constitution and stopped him from opening the door to the entitlement mentality, the ever larger and more bloated and more all encompassing government overrreach, the gradual return to servitude of political powers, the neocon power trip, and the slow but sure destruction of the America culture to the point we no longer even challenge a corrupt and ever more grasping and coercive government.

Which is why I answered the way I did. As you may have noted, many people think that altering the past will alter us, and affect how we all are, some of us may not even be alive.

In addition, one cannot stop death, but My mother died of emphysema from smoking and if she had never smoked, she may have had an additional 10 to 15 years. Which means she would be alive today and her not smoking would not affect anyone but Me, and definitely not affect My existence.

The rest is really just a 'what if'. Kind of like, what would you do if you won a 300 million dollar power-ball lottery....A fun exercise, but really, nothing more than a pipe dream.

 

[FA_Q2]

Of course, everyone here realizes that the vast majority of these ideas would make us all cease to exist, right???

Thank you Mr. Spock.


Are you that asshole that talks during time travel movies about how this and that can't happen?

If so, please find a mirror, yell at yourself to shut the fuck up, then smack yourself across the mouth.

b/c you know you had that coming.

Self-pretentious assholes do NOT look in mirrors much less smack themselves across the mouth

 

[FA_Q2]

It would be easy to say stop WWII, but if there had been no WWII would there still be a Nazi Germany, a Facist Italy, an Imperial Japan, a Soviet Empire, all the with the bomb and no reason not to use it?

It would be easy to say stop the bomb, but where. With whom? Once the idea, the information is out there, the technology has been developed, it can't be undone. Much better that honorable men have it as well as evil ones.

We can't stop all progress. We can't stop ideas.

But we could have stopped Teddy Roosevelt from destroying the intent of the Constitution and stopped him from opening the door to the entitlement mentality, the ever larger and more bloated and more all encompassing government overrreach, the gradual return to servitude of political powers, the neocon power trip, and the slow but sure destruction of the America culture to the point we no longer even challenge a corrupt and ever more grasping and coercive government.

You know FF, you need to stop having your head filled with shit from morons like Glenn Beck. Our founding fathers created an entity to address gross malfeasance of power by factions like the robber barons...

I will give you a hint...it is 10 letters and begins with a G.

The first thing to understand is the difference between the natural person and the fictitious person called a corporation. They differ in the purpose for which they are created, in the strength which they possess, and in the restraints under which they act. Man is the handiwork of God and was placed upon earth to carry out a Divine purpose; the corporation is the handiwork of man and created to carry out a money-making policy. There is comparatively little difference in the strength of men; a corporation may be one hundred, one thousand, or even one million times stronger than the average man. Man acts under the restraints of conscience, and is influenced also by a belief in a future life. A corporation has no soul and cares nothing about the hereafter.
—William Jennings Bryan, 1912 Ohio Constitutional Convention

You know Bfgrn, you need to stop assuming that everyone you speak to that does not agree with your assertions that their heads are filled with ditto heads and devoid of original or rational thought. I don’t know if FF listens to Beck but tbh, I highly doubt it and I do know that FF’s thoughts are not made by others. She is a rational thinking person.

 

[Two Thumbs]

Of course, everyone here realizes that the vast majority of these ideas would make us all cease to exist, right???

Thank you Mr. Spock.


Are you that asshole that talks during time travel movies about how this and that can't happen?

If so, please find a mirror, yell at yourself to shut the fuck up, then smack yourself across the mouth.

b/c you know you had that coming.

Self-pretentious assholes do NOT look in mirrors much less smack themselves across the mouth

Bump, b/c that post should get more pos reps.

 

[jtpr312]

Jamestown Va. Circa 1619. I would have turned back the first boatload of 20 or so Africans that where brought here to be sold into slavery and made the Southerners pick their own damn cotton. Whole lot better, more prosperous and safer nation if we could go back and find a way to keep the negroes out.

Now if we could just find a way to go back and keep the racists out..........

I'd go back and poke holes in Christoper Columbus's boats before they ever started out, keep all you war mongering, genocidal Europeans out of the western hemisphere.

Lol, why so the indigenous people could continue to live in caves, huts and hide tents and continue to make war on each other, sacrifice virgins and basically live like cavemen?

 

[Bfgrn]

It would be easy to say stop WWII, but if there had been no WWII would there still be a Nazi Germany, a Facist Italy, an Imperial Japan, a Soviet Empire, all the with the bomb and no reason not to use it?

It would be easy to say stop the bomb, but where. With whom? Once the idea, the information is out there, the technology has been developed, it can't be undone. Much better that honorable men have it as well as evil ones.

We can't stop all progress. We can't stop ideas.

But we could have stopped Teddy Roosevelt from destroying the intent of the Constitution and stopped him from opening the door to the entitlement mentality, the ever larger and more bloated and more all encompassing government overrreach, the gradual return to servitude of political powers, the neocon power trip, and the slow but sure destruction of the America culture to the point we no longer even challenge a corrupt and ever more grasping and coercive government.

You know FF, you need to stop having your head filled with shit from morons like Glenn Beck. Our founding fathers created an entity to address gross malfeasance of power by factions like the robber barons...

I will give you a hint...it is 10 letters and begins with a G.

The first thing to understand is the difference between the natural person and the fictitious person called a corporation. They differ in the purpose for which they are created, in the strength which they possess, and in the restraints under which they act. Man is the handiwork of God and was placed upon earth to carry out a Divine purpose; the corporation is the handiwork of man and created to carry out a money-making policy. There is comparatively little difference in the strength of men; a corporation may be one hundred, one thousand, or even one million times stronger than the average man. Man acts under the restraints of conscience, and is influenced also by a belief in a future life. A corporation has no soul and cares nothing about the hereafter.
—William Jennings Bryan, 1912 Ohio Constitutional Convention

You know Bfgrn, you need to stop assuming that everyone you speak to that does not agree with your assertions that their heads are filled with ditto heads and devoid of original or rational thought. I don’t know if FF listens to Beck but tbh, I highly doubt it and I do know that FF’s thoughts are not made by others. She is a rational thinking person.

And just who the fuck are you again asshole, the referee? FF is semi rational at times, but you don't know where she gets her ideas. And she is certainly parroting the blather and bluster of moral-less MORONS like Glenn Beck, who is a menace to society.

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
Theodore Roosevelt

 

[Ringel05]

Jamestown Va. Circa 1619. I would have turned back the first boatload of 20 or so Africans that where brought here to be sold into slavery and made the Southerners pick their own damn cotton. Whole lot better, more prosperous and safer nation if we could go back and find a way to keep the negroes out.

Now if we could just find a way to go back and keep the racists out..........

I'd go back and poke holes in Christoper Columbus's boats before they ever started out, keep all you war mongering, genocidal Europeans out of the western hemisphere.

Lol, why so the indigenous people could continue to live in caves, huts and hide tents and continue to make war on each other, sacrifice virgins and basically live like cavemen?

Sounds like a plan. When do we start?

 

[Surfer]

Just get most of the minorities out. You won't need much security, police, neighborhood watch, locks etc. Your neighborhoods won't go bad. Crime will drop way off. Your schools and hospitals will be better. The billions we pay in welfare and trying to educate them can be spent on making the country better and defending us from Muslimes.

 

[Derideo_Te]

Actually, on a serious note, I would take back the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Hundreds of thousands more would die as a result. There is no doubt the bombs were terrible but there is also no doubt that they saved hundreds of thousands of Japanese and Allied lives. There are tons of records that show how the Japanese were going to fight on the beaches and for every foot of ground. They had tens of thousands of pole bayonets that they were going to give to the civilians.

Madness.

History also shows that Japan was on the point of a total collapse at that point in the war. The government was divided and there was a revolt formenting amongst the junior ranks of the army. The smart move would have been to blockade all of the ports and wait for the Japanese to come to the table. But hindsight is 20-20. If the bombs weren't used then they would have been used in Korea instead.

 

[Ringel05]

Just get most of the minorities out. You won't need much security, police, neighborhood watch, locks etc. Your neighborhoods won't go bad. Crime will drop way off. Your schools and hospitals will be better. The billions we pay in welfare and trying to educate them can be spent on making the country better and defending us from Muslimes.

Hahaha...... You were joking.... right?

 

[FA_Q2]

And just who the fuck are you again asshole, the referee? FF is semi rational at times, but you don't know where she gets her ideas. And she is certainly parroting the blather and bluster of moral-less MORONS like Glenn Beck, who is a menace to society.

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
Theodore Roosevelt

And here you prove that you are the parrot. I have yet to see an original thought from you. All that you are doing is reflecting. Just because you need marching orders does not mean the rest of us are like that. The instant degradation to name-calling is enough to highlight that for the whole board.

It is also of worthy not that I never claimed to know where her ideas came from. YOU are the psychic that made that claim. Not the referee here, just pointing out your obvious hypocrisy and idiocy (not that it needs pointing out). Continue to rage though; it bolsters your statements so well….

 

[Foxfyre]

And just who the fuck are you again asshole, the referee? FF is semi rational at times, but you don't know where she gets her ideas. And she is certainly parroting the blather and bluster of moral-less MORONS like Glenn Beck, who is a menace to society.

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
Theodore Roosevelt

And here you prove that you are the parrot. I have yet to see an original thought from you. All that you are doing is reflecting. Just because you need marching orders does not mean the rest of us are like that. The instant degradation to name-calling is enough to highlight that for the whole board.

It is also of worthy not that I never claimed to know where her ideas came from. YOU are the psychic that made that claim. Not the referee here, just pointing out your obvious hypocrisy and idiocy (not that it needs pointing out). Continue to rage though; it bolsters your statements so well….

Thanks FA but I long ago stopped taking Bfgn seriously about anything. When all he has is to accuse others for what he presumes they think, his opinion of why they think that way, what he wants to have informed them, but has yet to actually articulate a concept that was not ad hominem or personally insulting, it just isn't worth the time to argue with him. I sometimes give in and give it a shot, but each time it turns out to be just as tedious and boring as all the other times. Which is why I am ignoring him this time.

The topic itself is an interesting one to me. And I am encouraged that it is also interesting to one or two others. Sometimes I think there might be hope for us after all.

 

[Foxfyre]

It would be easy to say stop WWII, but if there had been no WWII would there still be a Nazi Germany, a Facist Italy, an Imperial Japan, a Soviet Empire, all the with the bomb and no reason not to use it?

It would be easy to say stop the bomb, but where. With whom? Once the idea, the information is out there, the technology has been developed, it can't be undone. Much better that honorable men have it as well as evil ones.

We can't stop all progress. We can't stop ideas.

But we could have stopped Teddy Roosevelt from destroying the intent of the Constitution and stopped him from opening the door to the entitlement mentality, the ever larger and more bloated and more all encompassing government overrreach, the gradual return to servitude of political powers, the neocon power trip, and the slow but sure destruction of the America culture to the point we no longer even challenge a corrupt and ever more grasping and coercive government.

Which is why I answered the way I did. As you may have noted, many people think that altering the past will alter us, and affect how we all are, some of us may not even be alive.

In addition, one cannot stop death, but My mother died of emphysema from smoking and if she had never smoked, she may have had an additional 10 to 15 years. Which means she would be alive today and her not smoking would not affect anyone but Me, and definitely not affect My existence.

The rest is really just a 'what if'. Kind of like, what would you do if you won a 300 million dollar power-ball lottery....A fun exercise, but really, nothing more than a pipe dream.

The exercise itself is of course rhetorical, but it really is a useful exercise to teach or analyze cause and effect. And we won't know what difference might have been made or what lives might have been changed had your mom (or mine who also succumbed too early most likely as a result of smoking) lived that extra 10 or 15 years? We can't even really speculate on that.

The movie "It's a Wonderful Life", is about George Bailey's ordinary life and the difference it would have made had he not ever lived. He had no idea. I doubt any of us either know what difference we may have made in our lifetime.

But an event in history. What diference did it make whether we bombed Japan or just crippled them and then let them collapse in on themselves as the Soviet Empire did? How long would it have taken? Would they now be one of our strongest allies and trading partners? Or still a bitter enemy? Forcing them into unconditional surrender and requiring them to form a peaceful government was a very good thng for Japan over the long haul. I doubt even the Japanese, at least the honest and thoughtful ones, would argue with that.

WWII in itself made the world a better place for awhile by beating back the most ambitious and ruthless merchants of war and imperialism. It made friends of a lot of enemies. But oh my, the cost was so high.

But bringing it all closer to home, to single out one event I would change, I would still have Teddy Roosevelt honor and strengthen the Constitution that the Founders gave us. I don't really care WHY he did what he did. He probably had the best of intentions. He was one of the most popular presidents ever, but the people had no way to look ahead 100 years to see the legacy that he was creating. A legacy that almost certainly would have horrified him and them. That legacy has reaped whirlwinds of negative consequences in recent decades, and the current Administration uses many of the same tactics and is even doubling down on them.

 

[Pop23]

There is really only real answer to the question. Every other answer is nonsense

The day Buddy Holly's plane crashed

End of story

 

[Bfgrn]

And just who the fuck are you again asshole, the referee? FF is semi rational at times, but you don't know where she gets her ideas. And she is certainly parroting the blather and bluster of moral-less MORONS like Glenn Beck, who is a menace to society.

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
Theodore Roosevelt

And here you prove that you are the parrot. I have yet to see an original thought from you. All that you are doing is reflecting. Just because you need marching orders does not mean the rest of us are like that. The instant degradation to name-calling is enough to highlight that for the whole board.

It is also of worthy not that I never claimed to know where her ideas came from. YOU are the psychic that made that claim. Not the referee here, just pointing out your obvious hypocrisy and idiocy (not that it needs pointing out). Continue to rage though; it bolsters your statements so well….

It ironic you use words like 'hypocrisy', 'idiocy' and 'original thought'. I went back and read all your posts on this thread...'original thought'...ZERO. Plenty of 'degradation' of others, plenty of pontificating and plenty of 'refereeing'

 

[Surfer]

Just get most of the minorities out. You won't need much security, police, neighborhood watch, locks etc. Your neighborhoods won't go bad. Crime will drop way off. Your schools and hospitals will be better. The billions we pay in welfare and trying to educate them can be spent on making the country better and defending us from Muslimes.

Hahaha...... You were joking.... right?

No. All true.

 

[Pop23]

Just get most of the minorities out. You won't need much security, police, neighborhood watch, locks etc. Your neighborhoods won't go bad. Crime will drop way off. Your schools and hospitals will be better. The billions we pay in welfare and trying to educate them can be spent on making the country better and defending us from Muslimes.

Hahaha...... You were joking.... right?

No. All true.

Minorities would still have come, but not as slaves. That solves a multitude of problems.

But Buddy Holly's death is still the one day that should never have happened.

 

[Foxfyre]

Just get most of the minorities out. You won't need much security, police, neighborhood watch, locks etc. Your neighborhoods won't go bad. Crime will drop way off. Your schools and hospitals will be better. The billions we pay in welfare and trying to educate them can be spent on making the country better and defending us from Muslimes.

Hahaha...... You were joking.... right?

No. All true.

We are a nation of immigrants. Chances are 99.9% of us are descended from immigrants or were immigrants ourselves. But most of us are descended from immigrants who arrived here with little or nothing and expected or hoped for nothing other than the opportunity to forge out a piece of the American dream for themselves. And the unique concept that is America provided them the ability to do that.

The difference now is that immigrants, both legal and illegal, are now too often additional strain on an overburdened welfare system and entitlement mentality that keeps far more people poor than those it helps achieve a piece of the American dream. It leaches the lifeblood from the economy and potential.

And THAT is a legacy invented and put into motion by the Teddy Roosevelt administration, a legacy he never saw coming. And that is why THAT is what I would choose to change if I could.