Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Second Amendment Republicans vs Democrats

The moral of the story is, the best liar wins. Just like politicians! As to people misconstruing the post, that is why the disclaimer: (the party affiliation don't matter). It really don't, they are all of the same cut IMHO, some just slower than others.

Barak, you said it all. We are living in a police state, and it's only gonna get worse. I feel I don't need to write anything further, because you pretty much said everything I think on the subject. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

You're too kind.

But it's not so much the police state I'm concerned with--although that is, or should be, a terrible, mortal embarrassment to a people with our heritage: it's what comes after the police state.

No police state lasts forever: it simply costs too much. If the people themselves don't have the chutzpah to rise up and throw it off, then the economy will collapse, or a foreign country will attack, or if nothing else the whole system will simply fall in from its own weight.

And even if the people do have the chutzpah, their attempts frequently fail repeatedly. Can you imagine the bloodbath?

And who'll be doing the actual dying? Patriots (ahem--"terrorists") and police. A few of the politicians may be assassinated, but by and large they'll crawl into their inaccessible hidey-holes and send others out to die for them, as they have for millennia.

There are a few ways I can see for this not to happen; but all of them still involve major upheaval. One way would be a sort of secession, pulled off by a state government. The governor would simply declare state sovereignty over all state territory, and give all federal personnel 48 hours (or 30 days, depending on the urgency of the issue) to resign, leave the state, or be arrested. The state would stop paying all taxes and stop accepting all federal money. It'd probably offer to formally stay in the Union as long as the Union agreed to leave it alone. If the feds actually did leave it alone, there'd be the possibility of minimal bloodletting--although I'm sure a number of other states would immediately do the same thing. But the states most likely to try something like that (I believe I heard that Arizona actually has a prewritten secession plan that is updated annually, just in case it should need to be implemented) are the ones whose land area is largely (70%-80%) claimed by the feds. One doubts that the feds would willingly lose all that land and the military installations on it.

Back when Gray Davis was mucking around with California's electricity supply and it looked for a little while as though Baby Bush was going to order utility companies in surrounding states to sell power to California at below-market rates, I thought something like this might happen; but not yet.

The problem is that we have precious few governors that are honorable enough to do something like this. The vast majority of them might threaten quietly, through channels, but only in order to be bought off with more federal funding for the state.

Who invented politicians anyway? Do you know? Where's his grave? --my bladder's full.

Barak, have you ever read "Ballad of Carl Drega," by Suprynowicz? If not, you definitely should. I think it's right up your alley.

Oh, I'm a big fan of Mr. Vin Suprynowicz. I have both Ballad and Send In the Waco Killers, and I wait anxiously for his column in the Shotgun News. I'm also a fan of L. Neil Smith, although I must admit that his relentless and uninformed scorn of all things religious tends to wear me down after awhile.

Suprynowicz is very good at saying the things I already think (but can't yet quite put into words), and also very good at doing research and writing. Smith, in my opinion, is not as good a writer (I have seven or eight of his novels, but mostly read his nonfiction online), but he has ideas, workable or not, whereas Suprynowicz and I have nothing but complaints.

I also think John Ross bears close reading (Unintended Consequences, but you undoubtedly already know that). For a number of reasons I think the particular scheme he presented in his book isn't workable in real life, but taken as a reference work, that book contains a staggering amount of useful information.

When I'm in the mood for a feminine point of view, it's hard to beat Claire Wolfe. Ayn Rand is okay as a thinker (I have a few significant differences with her), but she was obviously a personally screwed-up lady, and her books tend to be so tedious as to be almost impenetrable. Important, but impenetrable. I'd love to see what the Readers' Digest folks could do in the way of condensing Atlas Shrugged, for example.

I'm in the process of working through Ludwig von Mises and Lysander Spooner at the moment; when I'm finished with them, there's always Murray Rothbard.

I'm still a baby libertarian, only four years old. There are still a few bloody tatters of conservatism hanging off me, most of them having to do with minor children, and I haven't moved completely into the "ancap" realm yet; but I have immense respect for anarcho-capitalists and their philosophy even if I think the human animal just isn't designed for anarchy.

Mostly, it's just an inexpressible relief to finally have a principled political worldview. I'm a fellow who holds principle in high regard, and it always burned me to have to explain to people why I continued to support Republicans after they had violated almost every "principle" I held dear.

I enjoyed Unintended Consequences until the main character (and partner) started torture-executing all those government officials. I stopped reading it after that. Not that I don't take treason seriously. I just think a simple execution is sufficient. He was certainly well qualified enough with various long range weapons to pull off a quick and painless "wack." Needless to say, all the wacked characters had it more than coming to them. I just don't enjoy depictions of torture. It would have been a better book without it.

Yup, that's one of the problems with a violent revolution--even a low-intensity one like the one described in the book. Even if you're the one who starts it, you have no control over the methods employed in it. It's also very likely, even if your side wins, that you will have no control over what sort of regime will replace the government you overthrew.

If you go to a dairy farm while the owners are gone and throw open the corral gate, the cows will simply stare at you dumbly. If you go in and chase them out the open gate into the outside world, they'll more than likely just walk back in when you leave. Some of them might wander onto the road and be hit by trucks; some might get lost and die of starvation. Whatever happens, when evening milking time comes, most of them will be back at the gate, lowing to be let back in and milked.

An enslaved people is just like livestock. If they have no desire to be free, then you can't go around thrusting freedom upon them. It'll be uncomfortable for them: they'll either abuse it or they'll beg for their comforting chains to be reapplied so that they can once more be taken care of.

Before one can be made truly free, one must be worthy of freedom; and only people who desire freedom enough to rise up and take it are worthy of it. (Look at the Russians, whose government collapsed of its own weight and left them just as free and frightened as those dairy cows, looking desperately for someone, anyone, to comfortingly fence them back in and resume milking them.)

Sometimes when I contemplate the immense task of making Americans desire freedom, I get very pessimistic. Who's a more stirring speaker than Alan Keyes? He can't do it. Who's a better educator than Walter E. Williams? He can't do it. Who's more intelligent than Vin Suprynowicz? He can't do it. Who's a better motivational writer than L. Neil Smith or Claire Wolfe? They can't do it. What's to be done?

Then I remember that we have probably the greatest, most powerful ally on the face of the earth on our side: the United States Federal Government and its congenital inability to keep from growing and demanding ever more, more, more. More power, more money, more liberty, more blood. Eventually, I want to think, it will become so oppressive that the people will of their own accord begin casting around for alternatives. It will be the government itself that convinces the people to take their freedom back.

In my more optimistic moments, I look at how the feminazis, the environmentalist wackos, the "lesbigays," and other such groups have terrorized the politicians and corrupted them into ignoring their oaths of office--not that that's such a difficult thing to do, you understand. (Optimistic? Yes--I'm getting to that.) Now, I would be the last person to accuse a politician of having an ounce of integrity or honor; but it seems to me that if a tiny minority of motivated people can corrupt politicians into abrogating their oaths, then a larger minority of similarly motivated people (i.e., newly-minted liberty advocates outraged at government excess, with a faint rumble of public opinion behind them) ought to be able to corrupt them back into keeping those oaths. Not because they swore them, you understand, but simply because they're afraid of losing their jobs if they don't.

It might get pretty ugly.

"Senator, I understand the obstacles you face; but I feel it's my duty to warn you that if you can't find a way to vote for that repeal, I can't guarantee that I'll be able to keep this picture of you and the little boy away from the press."

"B-b-but--but that's a fake! I've never had sex with a little boy! That's my head on somebody else's body!"

"But it certainly looks real, doesn't it, Senator? Even the light and shadow is right. We'll do our best for you, of course; hopefully it won't make the newspapers. But if it does, we'll leak that you can't really be held responsible because you were on crack cocaine at the time."

"Now you go too far: I've never taken an illegal substance in my life, and everybody knows it!"

"Really? That's not the information we got from Nina, your mistress. I suppose we can do another interview with her and your wife just to be absolutely sure we have our story straight, but it'd be a whole lot easier on everybody concerned if you'd just vote for that repeal. You can explain how the law is unconstitutional and the oath of office you took when you were elected compels you to repeal it, blah blah. All that Constitution garbage is getting to be pretty big stuff these days anyway: it'd probably do you more good than harm. If you can do that, I'm pretty sure I can promise that all of this other stuff will just go away." (Until the next repeal comes along, that is.)

But at least maybe nobody'd have to die, right?

I was ok with the book when the main character was knocking off agents who were in the process of violationg his rights. That's the stuff of heroes. It is hard to maintain the hero status, however, when the main character is pumping rounds into the bad guys' heads while they are tied up and blindfolded. That's where he lost me. I continued reading in the hopes that this was an exception, but no, it got worse. That's when I put it down.

Too bad we can't elect people who will actually want to do the right thing by the Constitution, and didn't need to be blackmailed into it.

Everything a Corporation is, they owe to a government. No thank you. I'll take a Constituional Republic over a Corporation any day.




Not municipal corporations, they MAKE nothing. They TAKE. At the point of a gun.

Are you saying you enjoy being enslaved to the Fed? The Federal Reserve is the biggest oxymoron since jumbo shrimp. Its not Federal, and it has no reserves.

Its a private profit making corporation (bank) holding the note (and charging usurious rates of interest by the way) of the bankrupt municipal corporation known as the [U]nited [S]tates. This corporation operates as a democracy (as it can by code) for the Federal states, and is supposed to operate as a Republic for the nation, the united States of America. however with word art, chicanery and outright fraud, the Bankers and Lawyers (with the help of public education) have stolen our Republic right out from under us.

So the republic is gone, the democracy is bankrupt, and were stuck living in a bank. Yippee!

Pass me a beer will ya? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

You're right, of course, that corporations can't exist without a government. And municipal corporations have no significant competition.

And I understand your yearning for a Constitutional Republic. For myself, though, it's not yet clear that it would be better to live in a town with a republican form of government than it would be to live in one that was owned by a private company (not a government-assisted corporation) or individual--or by many such.

Barak;

Maybe you an shed some light on something that I've always wondered. "Unincorporated Towns/Cities".
There are a few in my State, and noticed several when traveling through the South ("Townships")

How would say, traffic laws, be enforced in a court of law there? Are you in a Common Law venue??? Would it be "Town XYZ v. Barak" where they would have to prove an injured party by a preponderance of evidence?

Rather than the "State XYZ v. Barak" as it is in the incorporated towns and their administative tribunals, operating under the commercial venue of the U.C.C.? Where the town's soverignty has been contractually "sold" to the State for PART of the financial "carrot" provided by the many statutory schemes and the fines that come with them?

Or, because you are on a State or Federal roadway traveling through these usually quite small township's, does your physical positioning there (with of course the contracts known as a "drivers licence" and/or a "vehical registration") provide the nexus to force you into a commercial venue?

I'm sorry, I can't answer your question. I'm a computer geek, not a lawyer.

If I could design the situation, though, there wouldn't be any traffic laws, just private insurance companies.

If you were driving your car and caused injury to someone or damage to his property, he'd sue you for whatever he thought he could get. If he won the suit, you'd want your insurance company to pay, instead of having to pay yourself.

However, before an insurance company agreed to cover you and quoted you a premium, you'd have to sign a document agreeing to abide by whatever restrictions the insurance company thought were appropriate--no more than 25mph in a residential area, full stop at a stop sign, etc. You'd probably have to take a test, too. And if when you made a claim, the insurance company thought that the accident had been caused by you violating the terms of that agreement, it'd send out investigators to verify that. If the violation was confirmed, the insurance company would refuse to pay, and you'd suddenly be working for the guy you hit for the rest of your life.

This way we'd still have restrictions on what you could do in a car, but they'd be common-sense, empirical restrictions. Insurance companies that imposed ridiculously strict criteria would lose business to more reasonable competitors; those that had dangerously lax criteria would be bankrupted by claims. The free market would assure on its own that the rules applying to a particular situation were precisely the ones that were most appropriate.

The government, on the other hand, has absolutely no stake in ensuring that traffic laws provide safety. If a government makes stifling, ridiculous traffic laws, nobody in government will lose his job or go hungry. If the government makes lax, dangerous traffic laws, no one in government will lose his job or go hungry. The only motivating factor for the government is that the laws should be designed so as to bring in the maximum possible amount of fine money.

Simply stated, here in Florida it would revert to the County Sheriff or the Highway Patrol (State Police). Unincorporated towns have no police or police powers.