Posted on 01/28/2009 10:52:28 AM PST by foutsc
When in the Course of Human Events... Locke Smith (gotta be a nom de plume) is mad and wants to punish our government and the companies it bails out. His idea is some kind of boycott. Washington's recent Bridge Loan to Nowhere is what pushed him over the edge:
The bailout of General Motors and Chrysler – appalling in its own right – is a sure sign that whatever feeble constitutional and political constraints that had kept the government in check are gradually disappearing. We know our rights as citizens are being trampled when the government can take resources from the productive sector of our economy and provide them to unproductive, money losing companies, organizations and individuals.This got me thinking...
There's gotta be some way short of armed rebellion or tax resistance to stop this out of control monster our experiment in democracy has turned into. Both parties have hijacked government and turned it into a trillion dollar Pez dispenser.
Then I read an article in Reason Magazine written by Brian Doherty containing depressing boilerplate about the decline and fall of the GOP. Near the end he noted the recent death of conservative intellectual Father Richard John Neuhaus:
My favorite Neuhaus moment involved a now mostly forgotten intra-right wing controversy that is worth remembering: In 1996 he ran a symposium in his magazine First Things which seriously raised the question (in the context, mostly, of judicial decisions about abortion) of whether the U.S. government had so exceeded both its legitimate mandate and any meaningful democratic controls that conscientious citizens should no longer owe it their allegiance.Those are strong words, but appropriate I think. So my question is, what can we do about it? Taking up arms is unwarranted and ineffective. Tax revolt will just land people in jail. So what's left short of these options?Not so much in memory of Neuhaus, but in respect for its own soul, the GOP needs to ask itself whether a government that so exceeds its constitutional mandates is one the American people have any reason to respect—and to realize the extent to which it is complicit in the out-of-control, improvident, destructive beast the U.S. government is.
Progressives and liberals instinctively understand: Destroy the system from within. You don't bring it all down with bombs, cannons and conflagration; you do it by millions of persistent little nibbles and snarks from furtive, scurrying pseudo-intellectual rats and amoral cockroaches. It's a shameful, inglorious revolution, with all that darting, crouching, and sneaking, but it is effective. Just look at Europe or American academia. No. Slithering subversion won't do for Conservatives. We want a grand but legal revolution. Ronald Reagan represented the first wave, it is unclear who will lead the next, but I have a few inchoate ideas about how light the fuse. I hope this inspires others to come up with their own: Idea #1. Ransack the Republican National Committee headquarters and publicly hang the country club leadership or behead them and mount their brainless heads on pike poles at the building entrance. If that's too harsh, we could simply chase them out with torches and pitchforks. But seriously, a major ideological insurrection needs to happen, a revolution of ideas, resulting in a takeover by youngsters under 30, constitutionalists without bow ties and libertarians who don't talk like robots from outer space. Idea #2. Recruit a phalanx of small-government constitutional lawyers to launch a blunderbuss of lawsuits and injunctions against the federal government, tying it in knots trying to defend the unconstitutionality of its wildly out of control actions. This would ultimately fail, but the modern day Boston Massacre could spark a debate in this country and actually get people reading the constitution and writings of the founding fathers. Reporters may actually wake up and start asking real questions and talking about substantive issues... The GOP (indeed, all Americans) needs to ask itself whether a government that so exceeds its constitutional mandates is one the American people have any reason to respect—and to realize the extent to which it is complicit in the out-of-control, improvident, destructive beast the U.S. government is.
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/01/power_to_the_people_economic_n.html
http://reason.com/news/show/130999.html
Untrue. An armed tax revolt a long time ago is the reason I'm not a British subject.
Human nature is such that freedom and power will always, in the bitter end, be purchased in blood. I'm not advocating it because it the process is pure horror, but the notion is true.
We can have a revolution, with next year’s elections. In 2010, conservative candidates, for the U.S. Senate and House, should campaign together, similarly to the Contract with America. They should promise that, if Republicans regain control of both houses of Congress, they’ll pass a set of about five bills, including cutting tax rates to the 1988 rates, obeying the 10th Amendment (which includes repealing all federal laws that mention abortion and spending that isn’t mentioned in the Constitution), and building a brick wall along the Mexican border. Next month, many people will celebrate the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth. That would be the perfect time to recruit more conservative candidatess, into the republican party.
The key phrase in your statement is "a long time ago." The situation was different then as were the people involved.
Now is not the time for an armed revolution. Try to start one and see how far you get. I am a patriot and I would not join you. We still have legal options left.
A broken and corrupt Federal Government and huge swaths of dependant and dysfunctional citizens (I use the term loosely) do not constitute fertile ground for the expansion of liberty by civilized means.
I'm just saying that Americans are not exempt from human nature. Human nature tends to entropy of government and societies. Entropy leads to destruction. Destruction leads to rebirth. God only knows what would result.
We as Americans tore ourselves apart in a big way in the 1770-80's, in the 1860's, and (in a way) the 1960's. It would be naive to assume it won't happen again. We're not immune from history's cycles.
I’m glad that you agree with me, about all of the issues that I mentioned. Do you have a suggestion about how Republicans could gain seats, in Congress, in 2010? If so, what is it?
What's scary is what our politicians and the sheeple consider "The bottom."
As far as I'm concerned, we've already crashed through the bottom.
***Do you have a suggestion about how Republicans could gain seats, in Congress, in 2010? If so, what is it?***
Yes, start up a letter writing campaign here on FR for people to write to the heads and big stockholders of large companies reminding them that the government under obama will federalize their businesses. He will do it by giving them more and more money until they fail, and then say the government must take over to save them.
Tell them to start a PAC for Republican leaders who are running for office.
You’re the one who has to find out the names we should write to. What do you say?
That’s a great idea. Here are some suggestions: Wal-Mart, Exxon-Mobil, GM, GE, and Citigroup.
Maybe they can speak with pride of American Exceptionalism.
Maybe they can skip the collegiality with the left and point them out as the ememies of liberty they actually are.
Maybe they will realize that paying half your salary in total to Fed/State/Local government in counterproductive and immoral.
Maybe they will realize what the Constitution actually means.
Maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt too. Pols of both parties are cannot resist the perks of power and they're loathe to surrender any of them.
I agree that Republicans should act as conservatives. My congressman is Mark Kirk (of IL), a Republican who is pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-gun control, pro-illegal alien, pro-spending increases, and anti-Iraq surge. I emailed him, four times, and I asked why he’s a Republican. I didn’t receive a response, so I emailed four of his aides and asked them why he’s a Republican. I haven’t received a response.
Just another nauseating display of power over principle.
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