Posted on 08/17/2010 2:43:45 AM PDT by Zakeet
REAGAN was the FOUNDER of REAGANOMICS... REAGAN WAS BRILLIANT... His writings prove this... this poser here... **** him. He may be right on a few points but he is a leftist and incompatibale with America. War... maybe... I’m ready either way.
LLS
‘restoration of the Republic under the U.S. Constitution of 1789 is as inevitable as the restoration of the Monarchy in England after the death of Cromwell’
That is what my namesake thought in Rome, and for a little while, by means of an ocean of blood, he succeeded. Fifty years later, after nearly continuous Civil Wars, the exhausted Romans turned to Caesar Augustus.
Like I’ve said before the gauntlet of revolution and civil war has been thrown at the feet of American Patriots - Our options are either bow down to our degenerate and reactionary Leftist ruling class as their slaves, or make them disappear.
I prefer the final option.
Ah, but now he's been miraculously promoted to the "Father of Reaganomics" by the Michael Moore crowd on the loony left & to some extent the gullible far right who were either too young during Reagan's Presidency & haven't read their histories of Reagan's political career very well or they were/are too stoned to figure out they're being thoroughly bamboozled here by people who are NO FANS OF REAGAN.
This article should have been attributed to Paul Craig Roberts at the headline — not the bottom of the article. You would have saved a bunch of us time wasted reading this. Dr. Roberts has turned into a kook over the years.
He and Stockman have given up on “supply-side economics” not because it didn’t work but because it didn’t stop the rise of spending. So the rational person would say: OK, let’s focus on getting spending under control. But no, these nuts want to throw out the whole logic of Reaganomics.
Moreover, it should be obvious that the War Of Independence cannot be repeated - we are not the political subjects of a foreign monarch and we have representation. The two key drivers of the Independence movement do not exist in 2010. This government is our fault: we created it, we voted for it. A "revolution" today would not mean a well-organized limited war of position against foreign armies stationed on our soil taking part in set piece battles like the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse. It would not even mean a sectional Civil War. It would mean bloody fighting almost block by block with a ferocity that would not spare women and children.
You first, Paul Craig Roberts.
Sulla:
Many Americans would INDEED fight fifty years of civil wars in the defense of liberty rather than fall under the iron boot of radical socialism for one single mircosecond!
Always remember if we allow this current version of communism to conquer America, it will literally change the USA into a NEW USSR that will never again relate to the vision of our Founding Fathers.
Take a look at Russia.
When Communism finally collapsed after decades in 1989 it proved to be impossible to restore even a fraction of the freedom that existed even under the oppressive Czars, much less that of the liberal regime of Alexander Kerensky that lasted only a few short months in 1917.
The same would be true in America.
War - even civil war - is not the worse fate to befall a country.
Never forget the American Republic is not the ancient Roman Republic ruled by oligarchy of slave owning aristocrats like the long gone Sulla: We are a Free Republic that has learned much from the mistakes of other nations including Rome. All true Americans - perhaps one HUNDRED MILLION STRONG - believe the REPUBLIC is “our thing” belonging to each Patriot equally who have always rallied when “their thing” was endangered by tyranny.
Today the sleeping giant of American republicanism still sleeps...But one eye has opened.
Correct, Lucius. Finally a sane post on this thread.
Putting aside the concepts of “treason” and “please try to work within the system” for a moment, consider:
armed revolution = many innocent deaths
Maybe:
many innocent deaths + success
But much more likely today:
many innocent deaths + bloody chaos for decades to come
People suggesting the possibility of revolution today need to remember that this isn’t 1776!
Back then, most folks just kept on farming while the combatants fought a few pitched battles over a few years. Then everybody shook hands and went home.
Today, an American revolution would more likely spin out of control and be more like the horror of the Russian or French revolutions and their equally horrific aftermaths.
Not pretty or romantic at all.
I would respectfully suggest that the “revolutionaries” out there put their efforts instead into serious lobbying for a Constitutional Convention. This would be, IMHO, a much better way to try to fix this country’s many problems.
If you feel that there’s not enough popular will for a Convention, then there’s not enough popular will to cleanly win your “revolution”.
Only if the government wants it that way.
Only if the government believes Might Is Right.
Only if the Will of the People means nothing.
If the people want less government within their local area, and wish to be left alone, then government should respect that. If the government insists that the people need to bend their knee and submit, then that provides justification for a war of ferocity.
No one should attack the government. The right revolution involves creating a situation where the government is ignored and inconsequential. If the government attacks us as a result of that, then that's another thing.
You are correct that Civil Wars are wars of extinction, of neighbor against neighbor and brother against brother, far more than the American Civil War (really the War of Southern Secession) was. The survivors of the defeated, if not expelled from the country will carry bitterness and be a constant source of treachery and sedition, for hundreds of years. Some would form gangs, like the Sicilian Mafia, caused by social groups crushed by historical victors. Some might be like the Syrian Assassins (Hashish Eaters), always fighting to infiltrate the dominant groups and murder as many as possible. These problems are the reason that genocide and exile are the usual paths of the losers.
I’m surprised to see the nutcase Roberts featured at zerohedge.
Hear! HEAR! THE MAN!
We keep our powder dry until the Redcoats march on U.S.
If elections and civil disobedience work cause a peaceful revolution - I’m all for it.
But if peaceful redress fails and the federal government strikes with the mailed fist of law enforcement or military formations...
“SURRENDER, YOU DAMN REBELS!” said the British officer.
“Stand your ground, men. Don’t fire unless fired upon. But if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”
-Captain Parker, U.S. Army, April 19, 1775, Lexington, Massachusetts
First, there will be disputes in "local areas" about whether or not federal laws should be ignored. There will be plenty of tweeners who will want freedom but also benefits. And the main issue will be the payment of taxes. The government cannot be expected to ignore nonpayment. And those who depend on the government for their living will not take kindly to neighbors whom they perceive as trying to destroy them.
You speak of the "Will of the People" when the whole point is that this collective will is not unitary or unanimous. The government will go after nonpayers on the grounds that they are defying the law of the land and the popular will.
The government has full, legitimate authority to enforce tax collection and it will make examples of those who break the law. Moreover, it's more than happy to leave people alone who pay all their taxes but reject all benefits - that means more funds to allocate for fewer people.
I learned all about civil war from Shakespeare:
“O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!(275)
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy
Which like dumb mouths do ope their ruby lips(280)
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue,
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use,(285)
And dreadful objects so familiar,
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter’d with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds,
And Caesar’s spirit ranging for revenge,(290)
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of war,
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.(295)”
But with all its destruction and horror, I still say if the choice is ONLY between dying on your knees, or dying on feet, I would chose the latter.
“Give me liberty or give me death.”
The British government certainly believed they had that right in 1775 - we saw how that ended.
The government has full, legitimate authority to enforce tax collection and it will make examples of those who break the law.
If 51% of the population receives money from the government, but does not pay money to the government, then 51% of the population may decide that your tax rate is 80%.
Would you work so that 80% of the money you earn can be given to those who do not work? Many would not. So, more people stay at home, receive government benefits and depend on the suckers who work. Slowly, we spiral into a third world country. Lack of food. Lack of clean water. Lack of access to medical supplies. Sewer system breakdown. Hey, there's no money for any of that stuff -- nobody works any more!
Now, according to your principles, at no point in that descent is it right for anyone to say "I refuse". And if any indivdual were to say "I refuse", it sounds like you would recognize the government right to come in and squash that person like a bug. It's taxes. Pay up. I'm from the government. Who are you to defy me?
Like I say, you and I see things differently.
Good post at #27.
The war against totalitarians/socialists should be waged on all levels including philosophical, political, social and financial before you have to get to physical. Defund totalitarians and their collectives. It's their economy right NOW. $top $pending to $tarve it. Then, ballot box in November 2010 and 2012. We are just now awakening from our philosophical slumber and getting organized (grassroots/diffuse).
Cash box, soap box, ballot box. Identify targets...the liars, the deceivers, the socialists. Vote them out. Defund, dismantle their collectives. Always be prepared with the ultimate backup plan...the cartidge box. One way or another, the smackdowns are coming.
He understands the magnitude but is delusional about the solutions.
“The only way that the US will again have an economy is by bringing back the offshored jobs. .... These jobs can be brought home where they belong by taxing corporations according to where value is added to their product.”
What is it with increased taxes being the salvation of all national woes?
Those jobs left for a reason. They left because the pressures of undue regulation and minimum wage laws. They will not be regained by increasing pressures elsewhere, they will find yet another undesirable solution which lacks such undue pressures - or they will be driven of business. Elsewhere he notes “...tax the rich. The rich have enough money. They will simply stop earning.” Likewise businesses: tax them enough and their “fat cat CEOs” will just cash out and let the business die, or will just move or split the company entirely out of federal jurisdiction.
He observes that this administration has tripled the deficit in two years.
He observes that the populace is up against an economic wall.
He then offers the solution of...increased taxes? WTF?
The last Civil War before Shakespeare was the War of the Roses, which he was obviously aware of, since he wrote his plays: Richard II; Henry IV, Part 1; Henry IV, Part 2; Henry V; Henry VI, Part 1; Henry VI, Part 2; Henry VI, Part 3; and Richard III about the war, from incidence to bloody conclusion. But it had ended a century before his birth, and no public friends of the House of York survived to his day to talk about the downside. Also, as Civil Wars go, it had been rather mild, with most injuries to professional soldiers and hardly any damage done to non-military structures. If he had survived another 30 years or so he would have seen the real thing, in the English Civil War of Cromwell vs. Charles I.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.