Posted on 04/17/2002 5:56:30 PM PDT by ATOMIC_PUNK
1. There are a lot more of us than them. Only about 10% of the U.S. population has government jobs complete with retirements, job security, and the rest of the governemt gravy train.
2. Many if not the majority of living Americans are whores to a standard of living and this is where the government gets most of its current authority from. Take away that standard of living and the government will lose authority to enforce virtually anything.
3. The government can only enforce a tiny fraction of the laws we now have on the books. We are a nation of drug users, illegal aliens, tax cheaters, terrorists, and the government can only afford to make examples out a few of them at best.
4. The culture of America is genetically imprinted with disdain for tyrants and it doesn't take too much to make the crazier ones burn a city to the ground or take down a government building with explosives.
5. The U.S. is a nation of great resources and a government that squanders or loots them will fall and be replaced by vote or revolution in a matter of a few short years.
6. Authorian responses to civil unrest in the U.S. usually backfire and esclate the unrest until the yellow cowards of Washington DC back down and try to appease the mob with more goodies.
Remember FDR was a great man, NOT !
Millions of my generation, and now this generation, had our heads crushed and bodies vacuumed apart because we were determined to be unworthy of life / too expensive / an inconvenience. When baby boomers hit the age where they're too expensive and inconvenient to care for, they'll be offed. Deny tests and treatments. Slow codes become the norm. Government-subsidized "voluntary" euthanasia. Unless my generation has a general strike shortly, and assuming that we won't be forced into labor camps, the Greedy Generation is going to get one hell of a payback, lying in their warehouse beds, soaked in their own urine and feces, dying of decubitus ulcers and malnutrition. You reap what you sow.
Take EO 12919 for instance, the writer claims that it "gives the president authority to seize and allocate everything from construction materials to your shoes", which is an obvious exaggeration(go read it, read the others too).
Other than that it's a good read, and reinforces why we must be ever vigilant, of what the MOB(many orthodic beast) conspires to do.
As for SSI, I doubt that FDR ever imagined that his ponzi scheme would last this long.
I believe that the maximum any now-retired person could have paid over their working tenure only amounts to a few years. Four is close as I recall; may be exactly right. What is certain is that even the people who paid the max every year will be collecting welfare off your and my check.
This is the only part of this scenario I don't agree with. Let me correct it with my "paranoid" theory:
The mall shooters might be foreign terrorists. But whoever they are, the anti-gun establishment, which has been PLANNING exactly such acts of slaughter, will crank into renewed action.
They may have to commit occasional raids into the countryside to have enough food to feed the enclaves, or to keep their water sources secure. They could set up desalinazation plants, mabye (piss off the envirowackos though), but what will they do for food? Can they get enough food to feed their populations via world trade and have it be cost-effective?
Or are they just gonna have to resort to "Soylent Green"? :)
Even the relatively open "Great Plains" or the "Great Basin" provide plenty of fascinating terrain for guerillas to shoot up an unwary or tired convoy. You'd see El Salvador-style "toll booths" set up by the guerillas.
Like I said, government-imposed violence--absent a very deep commitment from all to the social compact, something that large-scale levels of authoritarian violence would destroy--becomes statistically ineffective in short order.
That's the way I see it. Remember, those "water sources" are also "electricity sources" in many instances. They can't afford to replace that much infrastructure. Los Angeles would probably be on power rationing. Also, the authoritarians may conduct a "scorched earth" campaign of destroying infrastructure.
They could set up desalinazation plants, mabye (piss off the envirowackos though), but what will they do for food?
There's the crux. One thing: Desalination plants aren't going to generate much surplus electricity relative to their size, so any power/desalination plants are going to be BIG--and they are going to be strategic targets.
Can they get enough food to feed their populations via world trade and have it be cost-effective?
Depends on what they have to trade.
For my novel I invent an evil BATF official who sees a way to exploit the underlying currents for his own benefit.
It's impossible for guerrillas to hide from FLIR etc if the rulers don't care about collateral damage (think Chechnya).
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