Posted on 11/06/2012 10:23:38 PM PST by sauron
I'm in a state of shock, as we all must be tonight.
We're living in what seems to be a permanently divided red/blue nation.
This, despite four years of a poor record on economics, domestic and foreign policy. And our neighbors and coworkers--who must outnumber us--voted as if none of it mattered.
No president has ever needed more than four years to turn an economy around, but they feel that he can. No president has been re-elected with such high unemployment. The electorate clearly isn't thinking with the rational part of the brain.
Maybe I'm examining it from the wrong angle entirely. Perhaps it is because of the unemployment that he was re-elected? Are those dependent upon benefits voting their own economic self interest?
Are the "makers" now being permanently outvoted by the "takers"? Is it taxpayers versus tax consumers?
There are foreign policy implications, too. We'll never be on our feet in an economic sense. Not now. Europe had been looking to Uncle Sugar for some economic support to shore up their tottering spending-driven economies. It now looks like there won't be any funds forthcoming from Uncle for any of that. They're on their own.
I fear for Taiwan and Israel. He'll cut our nuclear arsenal down to the "high hundreds" (his own words). Iran will feel emboldened. China will feel emboldened.
On a personal level, Obama will not feel any need to moderate his views. He'll perceive this win as he did the last win (or any win, because he's a narcissist) as a mandate. Vindication of his views and policies. He's appealed to the most base instincts--class, race, gender--and divided us all against each other. He'll weaken the fabric of America, turn Americans against Americans. In other words, he'll do what he knows, what he was trained to do as a "community organizer". No other American president has spoken of "revenge" against other Americans, but he has.
He'll eviscerate NASA to a degree we cannot imagine. Any space missions (e.g., Mars Curiosity Rover, etc.) that yield results, knowledge, and pride will be curtailed. Any successful missions we've enjoyed during the last four years were launched in the prior administration, not conceived and launched during his own. There are thousands of unemployed NASA and contract firm engineers up and down the Florida "Space Coast" right now--they'll never work again, and that hard-won knowledge will be lost.
Obama was never a friend of the military. Look what he did, not one year ago: during the last budget battle, he was perfectly willing for soldiers'/sailors'/airmens' pay to be suspended until a budget could be worked out. He cancelled the F-22 program (just like Carter cancelled the B1 bomber, after years of R&D). Our military will atrophy and our adversaries--who are REAL, despite what liberals believe--will mark this historical opportunity.
We have a president who shows no flexibility in his thinking. He's doctrinaire and unadaptable. He seems wholly unable to compromise and uniquely unwilling to forge working relationships with congre$$ional leaders. This doesn't bode well. You'd think, after four years, that he'd have bothered to learn how to do so.
SO... WHAT DO WE DO?
1. Acknowledge that we're now the MINORITY in this nation. This will require a mental image change. This isn't the "America" we've been raised to know. This is an America that is suspicious of businessmen. The question is: Could Mitt Romney (our "electable" candidate) have won?
I don't want any recrimination against Romney. (No, he wasn't my choice, but I supported him.) He ran a much better campaign than McCain, who had no earthly chance to win at all. We should not turn bitter against each other; Obama has won--TWICE, now--and we have to accept the reality of a changed America that we're living in.
2. Remember that our neighbors, friends, family, and coworkers--in other words, our fellow Americans--voted for Obama. They won. Now, we've all got to live with the consequences. We can't change that fact. But, like a boxer, we don't have to stand and get hit and risk being knocked out--we have a few options. We can duck, dodge, and block. We're in the ring for four more years, but we have to remain standing and not get ourselves knocked out.
So we go into "turtle mode." We have to save money, pull out of the economy. If it tanks, well, let it. Increase family savings, don't eat out, don't spend unnecessarily. As a practical matter, there's really no other choice, now. Do at the family level what small businesses are doing in their own business interest. Retrench, pull back, turtle up. Withdraw into the shell.
Preserve your capital, cash, and mobility. People who perish don't have any mobility, so preserve yours. Develop knowledge, skills, and abilities that will serve you in hard times to come. A facility with language is the first key to mobility.
I personally believe that the worst thing that can happen will be a hard assault on our currency--this will be worse than any single policy that could be enacted--because everyone is dependent upon the dollar. It's the focal point, the common element, the "store of value" (as they teach in economics). If the dollar declines (and it will, it can't be the world's reserve currency forever) then prices will rise. Hyperinflation CAN happen. How do we defend against the decline of the currency itself?! We can't all sell gold to buy corn flakes as needed. Barter cannot work in a large country with a modern infrastructure.
3. Expect more gridlock. We probably won't see a federal budget passed (again!). I think we haven't had one in four years (?) and this will remain unchanged. I'm worried about the "fiscal cliff" and the sequestration's effect on our military.
Other nations in this level of trouble have nationalized assets of private companies and individuals. If you have an IRA, expect it to be seized, then incorporated into Social Security. Businesses will have whatever assets they are readily available and readily quantifiable taxed (a mild form of seizure) and so expect businesses to transfer vulnerable assets offshore, or convert them or shelter them. We'll have a government looking over your shoulder, folks, trying to ascertain what it can most easily take from you.
4. Expect hard times ahead. Virtually nothing you believe in, nor hold dear, will be respected. Some of the things you hold dear will even be outlawed. Just ask the Christians and Jews (I won't say Catholics, because they don't have a monopoly on this) who are being required to pay for "reproductive services" (a euphemism) wholly in conflict with their core religious beliefs.
Expect condemnation from your friends, neighbors, family, and coworkers because of your noncompliance or noncomformity. Be prepared to accept the new reality of the New America you'll be living in--even mild criticism of policy will be regarded as racism, and any dissent will be regarded with suspicion.
Expect your government--which, like a cancer, appears to have metastacized--to begin acting like it has no bounds, no restrictions. Agencies will begin to exercise authority unthinkable in the past. TSA and searches. EPA and regulatory impacts affecting the 2nd Amendment (bullets do have lead in them, and that harms the environment) and impact on businesses and farms. The IRS is now going to monitor, on an individual level, your health care, for Heaven's sake. Who could have imagined that five years ago?
So...what do we do? I never answered that. I'm too stunned. The best answer I can give is this: We need to be salt and light.
They haven't grasped the fact that they'll be responsible for paying our $16T debt. They always think someone else will pick up the tab -- which is the kind of thinking that got Obummer got re-elected.
#4 is right on. Idiocracy is here.
“I’m looking at the expat route.”
Is there another nation with more civil, personal, economic and religious liberty than the U.S.?
We don’t have enough of the above. But do we not have the most? In short, where is it better?
I didn’t say a word about “turtle mode”. The author of this thread did. Try again.
The Constitution is meaningless now.
I remember the Bible speaking of a “man of lawlessness” who would appear in the end times.
I need to go back and see what that is about.
“I left with the undeniable horror that I had not known my country at all.”
I felt that way when Clinton was re-elected. I couldn’t believe the majority of Americans would elect him KNOWING what a bad guy he was. I thought the first time they were just hoodwinked.
Nope, and not this time either. This is what about half of America WANTS. Might as well realize this, and work from there.
Nope. A majority of this nation has foresaken God.
That always ends poorly...
I've been in that zone since I realized we'd lost tonight. As much as I love my country, I love my wife and kids more. I feel that I must, by necessity, pull back my focus to a more basic kind of politics.
It's time to man the barricades and fight for the last bit of ground we really hold.
Try looking hard at Australia, not perfect but also not too many morons of the inner city type either. Jobs are there especially in mining, IT, and films, heck the whole country is almost as big as America but has less people than Los Angelos.
Politics are a bit funky, its metric, its 220 volts, cell service sucks, and you are on the other side of the road which is arguably better in most cases.
Cessation. We are too divided. They hate us,
we hate them. Cessation.
Exactly. Are we better off to continue another 4 years under a hostile regime? Or should we take the bull by the horns and deal with this now? It’s not going to get any better.
YOU MUST FIGHT!! Fight until death. Teach your children and grandchildren about freedom and liberty. Teach them to FIGHT! A righteous death is better than supporting evil, and sitting around and getting jailed for your beliefs is supporting evil.
Do you actually think God made us a Heaven on Earth? No! This is a test and most of us are failing, including myself. We must be willing to die for our beliefs, for God. There is no Heaven on Earth and we must earn the graces to get to Heaven.
"If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams
Yeah, they are already talking about Jeb Bush and Rubio.
We no longer have a two party system.
A man's "name" is his reputation, his character. Explains why this wicked lawless One chose the SS name of Renegade.
To have someone's "number" is to be aware of that person's character, typically in the sense that it is odious in nature.
Looks like plenty of folks are quite fond of Obama's name and number. That's because they are marked by their love of falsehood, deception, and corruption. They speak the same language: lies.
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