the power-mongers, are almost at the point of believing that the American public can be disarmed without too much trouble.
Your analysis is very much correct. This group and their sycophants in the media (another level of useful idiot) are living in a fantasy world, much of it created by 30 years of wishful thinking fueled by drug use. They actually believe that they can create some kind of socialist/egalitarian state in which everybody is perfectly happy to be mediocre. They are seriously misguided and in some respects ignorant of their own history, much less the history of the human race. They think they are to be the ancestors of a 'ruling elite'; a class of permanent kings, the torch to be handed down the family line forever.A graduate thesis could be written on this topic.
Most people would say that their ideas are completely insane, yet it is their agenda that is taking shape in America as we write. They have been getting away with it since the time of the Great Depression and FDR's New Deal; part of it is they have almost successfully fooled people into thinking they only want "freedom and social equality for all." Part of it is that as a nation, we are too fat and too happy with our standard of living to give them too much thought; as long as the cars are new, the mortgage is being paid, the TV is full of an abundance of sporting events and the beer is cold, we don't much care. We take our liberty for granted; we cannot conceive of a society in which we are all slaves of a central power. Yet, in some ways, we are already those slaves; our tax burden is 50% of our income; our property rights have been seriously eroded; the protections of the Bill of Rights exist only on an old piece of parchment - the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 10th amendments are subject to government approval and have been seriously compromised. Yet, we do nothing - or we go to the polls every few years and punch the ballots for those "lessers of two evils" and think we have at least done our civic duty - which we have - but to what end?
The two major parties have a monopoly on authority, and while there are differences, and while the Repubos at least have some members who are not too far off the Constitution, for the most part, the ends are the same: soft communism from the RATs or soft socialism from the Pubbies. No one can give serious consideration to a third party, because the Electoral College assures that they cannot gain a significant representation on a national scale. (I am fore-square for keeping the Electoral College, by the way)
So many people now have a vested interest in keeping up the Welfare State that to suddenly dissolve it would also mean Civil War; There seems to be no way around it: we are riding a juggernaut to some sort of small "d" democracy and the dissolution of the Republic.
I fear the only way to effect a change for the better (as defined by basic conservative political views) is to allow the whole thing to collapse in some catastrophic manner; a major economic meltdown followed by a serious factional uprising or a national disaster in which government ceases to be relevant. Just what form such a thing will take is beyond my comprehension. The Great Gun Turn In that occurred in Australia does not give me hope that there will be more than a handful of hotheads who refuse to cooperate; the prevailing thought is its better to live "with the devil you know" than to strike out in a major fashion for the "unknown". I think we are basically hosed as far as any real liberty is concerned and I hold no illusions about regaining it or really scaling back government authority without resorting to some large-scale unpleasantness. The only thing is, how much are we prepared to lose? Do we value liberty above all else? I think for most people, the answer is clear.
They took The Jerry Springer Show off the air here & boy am I pissed.
What were you saying?