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You’re right. When it comes right down to it, PFC Sadsack is not going to risk a trip to Leavenworth because he’s not sure about the constitutionality of his orders. Instead, he’ll just hose you down with rifle slugs and get on with life.

I love all these armchair Nathan Hales who say they’re going to bravely resist the government. When faced with the reality of defying the feds — losing everything they own, including their families, and going to Big Boy Prison — they’ll cave like a wet paper bag in a hurricane.

It’s easy to be a Wolverine when you’re a guy sitting in his nice warm house with a bellyful of Christmas leftovers. But when a man in a uniform with a gun in his hands comes to that same house and tells the same guy to pay up or get in the truck, he’ll pay up every time.

Anyone with the guts to refuse did so long ago. The real Wolverines are all in federal prison now. Anyone who’s not in federal prison already is just another loudmouthed idiot trying to look tough on the Internet.

“Anyone who’s not in federal prison already is just another loudmouthed idiot trying to look tough on the Internet.”

True! True! True! True!

Anyone who’s not in federal prison already is just another loudmouthed idiot trying to look tough on the Internet.

You mean they are giving Internet access to Federal Prisons now ? Is anyone out there posting from a Federal Prison right now ? Just curious ?

Maybe it’s just the different circles we run in, but I guarantee you there really are quite a few people in this country for whom mere survival is not enough, who are driven by nobler principles than some animal instinct for self-preservation. In short, there are real Nathan Hales among us, despite your disbelief. (BTW, none of the so-called "Sadsacks" I personally know match your unfair description. They are good, God-fearing people and will not strike their own unjustly, orders notwithstanding. In other words, they get the meaning of Nuremberg.)
I was more of a pure self-preservationist when I was young. But now I am older and feeling my mortality. There is soon coming a point when no tyrant can harm me. That liberates me to act in the long term interests of those I love. I cannot leave them any great fortune, but I can leave them the memory of one for whom liberty meant more than life itself, if I am afforded that opportunity.
But any such action should not be all bravado and no brain. These draconian mandates, as presently worded, have no teeth, as near as I can tell. See section 5000A(g). Free pass, no IRS liens, etc. It's in the bill. The design is still nefarious, though, because it appears calculated to further weigh down the system with disproportionate cost-sharing, leading in the long term to a public outcry for a single payer system, to be juxtaposed against the contrary outcry to do away with those terrible mandates. Imagine the perceived “brilliance” of the person who demonstrates how single payer simultaneously solves both problems.
The useful idiot class of leftist doesn't get this “social engineering” aspect and is calling for withdrawal from the current bill “on principle,” because they see it as a bailout for those evil insurance companies, rather than securing any kind of genuine health care utopia. Nevertheless, I expect the “Progressive Caucus” in the House is to some degree in on the game and will not torpedo the bill in conference. I hope I am wrong.
Meanwhile, numerous smaller and more near-term provisions are sneaking past nearly everyone's radar, like the provision allowing Child Protective Services types to march into your home without cause, yes, without cause, and evaluate how you are raising your children, thus further debasing the general population in preparation for total state nannyhood.
So while we are huffing and puffing about various confrontational solutions, our reactions have been anticipated and are already accounted for in the grander plan. Which is why we must disappoint our would-be captors precisely on their most important assumptions.
First, we must not accept their premise, hear this now, their premise, that this is all somehow inevitable. It is not. Things happen that no one planned on. Reality is just like that. We must adopt those sentiments of Queen Victoria that were written on a placard in Churchill's London hideaway during the Nazi bombing runs: No pessimism allowed in here. Defeat is an idea we will not acknowledge.
Second, we must must must find a way to act with a high degree of coordination. A national strike or a tax protest or a refusal to buy mandated policies simply will not work if it is not done on a sufficiently large scale. I am proposing we need at least, at least, a 30% participation ratio in any such action. If Atlas is going to shrug, he had damwell better do it in a single strong motion. Twitching lightly here and there will not cut it. (And we should consider how to conduct such an action without the benefit of the Internet. Heresy, I know, but it must be considered.)
Third, we cannot neglect the power of local political will. The states are on the ropes due to overextending their scope of control, and much of that is due to unfunded federal mandates. Therefore, many states are actively considering a spectrum of nullification actions that will neuter Obamacare, rendering it nothing but an unimplemented pipe dream. This requires state Attorneys General with the stomach for such work. They are out there, and I think this may be one of our best hopes for a realistic solution.
However, if this process fails, if we slip into the Orwellian nightmare never to awaken once again as a free people, it will come about for the same reason we came to the crisis in the first place: The lack of a will to act. I have been watching this devolution, this death spiral ever downward, for decades and there are two constants: The persistence of the tyrannical delusions of the utopian left, and the willingness of some to let others do all the hard work for them, including the exceptionally hard work of resisting tyranny. I do not expect a cure for the left anytime soon, so if we go down, I will place all residual blame on those who gave up too soon, because it was easier.

I love all these armchair Nathan Hales who say they’re going to bravely resist the government. When faced with the reality of defying the feds — losing everything they own, including their families, and going to Big Boy Prison — they’ll cave like a wet paper bag in a hurricane.

B-Chan, I know you are a long time poster, as am I, and I have enjoyed your commitment to the truth over the years; but even if what you say is true, I respectfully think you should reconsider saying it.

It's demoralizing and hurtful to those awash in hurt and trying to find a way to deal with the dissolution of our country. These are our brothers. It may be true that those who talk loudly will not act, but it may not be. Some will. It doesn't do any good to tear down the rest.

It is none of my business, really, and if you are offended, I humbly apologize. I'm just coming across more and more of these types of thoughts on Fr, and I am distressed by the hurt we are inflicting on each other in our hour of desperation. I assumed most of them were trolls, sent specifically to demoralize us, till I saw yours. I felt I ought to say something.