Posted on 04/17/2002 5:48:10 PM PDT by B. A. Conservative
If my count is correct there were 66 unique respondents to the question, "Is the United States broken?" There were only 12 respondents who answered a clear "NO". There were 22 replies that I categorized as "equivocal". Most of these were cautiously guarded and expressed considerable concern or confusion either about the question or their answers. clearly they were trying to distinguish between the concepts of broken in the sense of "broken beyond repair" or "broken, but it is not too late to fix". Some of the best replies were in this group. Later in our discussion I will post some links to what I thought were either thought-provoking or illustrative replies.
By far the largest group of respondents were in the cateqory who do indeed think the United States is broken. Almost half, 32 of those who responded answered "YES" to this question.
While it clear the future thrusts of my posts are going to directed primarily at this group, I hope all those who have viewed these threads or responded will continue to follow these threads and contribute their thoughts along the way on every question. In fact, I am somewhat disappointed in the relatively small number of respondents. I believe the questions we are going to address are at the very heart and soul of the primary purpose of there even being a FreeRepublic web site. I recognize that there are countless issues that we all want to know or that could be of concern to our particular points of view. But freedom and self government are the foundation of the United States and I think freedom and limited government are severely endangered. I am gravely concerned that it could be too late or a lost cause to recover what we have lost.
In answering the questions already posed and perhaps in adding new questions, I hope that I personally, and FreeRepublic as a group can decide for ourselves where we can focus our energies toward what are hopefully common goals in securing the blessings of liberty through less and thereby, better government. With these stated goals, I post the next question:
If the United States is broken, can it be fixed?
Like a lobotomy. I think that's about the only way you'd be able to convince me that the system works. More specificly, I may agree that the system works theoretically, but in practice, it has failed under the corrosive properties of Human Nature.
Our system worked for a while...almost a century from its inception. But as America changed and grew, the system which our founding fathers created was unable to take the strain. IMO, the Civil War was the first clear sign of its failing. What we have now is so warped and skewed from the intent of the Founders as appear as an entirely different beast -- a more ravenous and dangerous beast to be sure.
I don't think the system can be fixed. I think, however, that people will tolerate the way things are (and are becoming). So long as the State can meet the needs of the many, the many will allow the State to do pretty much whatever it pleases.
We have become the New Rome.
Tuor
Even Free Republic is broken? :)
Secondly, I would hope that if on the other hand, that we can convince you that the loss of our freedoms is beyond the scope of acceptable, that while the rate slows under Republicans we continue to lose freedom under Republicans although the freedoms lost under Republicans are different. Under Democrats, we primarily lose personal wealth and control of our own financial futures. But under Republicans, the loss tends to be in the realm of decision making, personal privacy, and hope.
Between these two, there is an issue of timing; call this issue one and one-half (1.5). I frankly don't believe the United States is a viable financial entity. When the dollar dies from a loss of financial confidence in the United States Treasury's ability to cover its liabilities, the government will fall under its own weight. The unfunded liabilities of Medicare and Social Security can only be funded from current receipts. There are no assets in the so-called trust funds, that will actually be available to draw down, when current payments exceed current receipts. That will happen in 2008 for Medicare (where the unfunded liabilities cannot even be quantified, but rather merely projected as a guess), and 2012 based on projections prior to 2001 (if we are entering a prolonged recession or period of stagnation as some are predicting, the date will mover closer to the present, say 2011 or even 2010) for Social Security. Cutting retirement benefits for the boomers who will enlarge an already politically potent electoral base will be difficult at best. Conversely, adding to the already burdensome tax burden of FICA, by far the largest tax to many Americans, is a burden unlikely to be increasingly born the children and/or grandchildren of a group who might be perceived of failing to provide for themselves. And the children and grandchilren know the pyramid is ending. They will have to provide for their own retirement and will be unwilling to give up any resources. These programs were atrocities from the beginning, sold by unscrupulous politicians to buy their own re-elections. I hope that together those who believe its broke and those who believe it isn't can find a solution to privatize these two programs. That could buy some time to solve the other government errors that have taken away so many liberties.
Not recognizing the magnitude of the problems we face is to ignore reality. And the first step toward a solution is the awakening of sufficient numbers of people that the problem exists and giving them some measure of the severity of the problem and a likely time table of when the crisis will occur and how bad it might be. That is what we are trying to discover or to make others aware.
Consider this a formal invitation to those who disagree with my primary premise. We very much invite you to monitor and participate in this discussion. Convince us of the errors in our reasoning; no rational person could wish to end the United States. On the contrary, preserving what has been the finest country in the history of the world and a beacon for freedom for the better part of two centuries is the foundational goal of FreeRepublic. I think our country left us, and I want it back. If we can remodel it so much the better, but I suspect that we are going to have to tear it down before we can rebuild in its own image. Convince me that I am wrong. But I don't think we can wait, I think we have to get started now before the country collapses in flames. Once we are war with each other, the rebuilding will be made far more difficult, maybe impossible.
fellow engineer bump
In order to have a revolution (peaceful or violent) you must eliminate the political center and polarize the population. No fence-sitters allowed! As fporreto noted above, it is people, not parties that must be persuaded.
Does the incentive and constraint structure of either major party permit such polzrizing activity? In my opinion, wrenching the reins of the party from the careerist big-government types faces at least as many obstacles as wrenching the presidency itself from the major parties. It is the same argument, same problem, just one place removed.
Cart in front of the horse. The average voter does not get to hear you unless you are in a major party. That isn't fair or even optimal or just, but it is reality and we need to deal with it since we live in that world and we don't yet make the rules.Parties and their platforms are not static. It doesn't really matter whether we takeover, rename, branch off or start something new. We have to be a player, and the quickest way there is through one of the major parties. Hell, we could even try it with the democratic party, that would be fun. I just think it would be more efficient to do it with the Republican party, but who knows, maybe this is another one of life's little ironies. Maybe taking over the Demo party would be easier since it is packed with lazy morons.
Many of the paleo-cons seem to be focused on "fixing the system" through either economic, immigration, or some other central control, while libertarians tend to search for the 'available tools' for pursuing happiness and preserving a culture that paleo-cons and conservative libertarians deem worth perserving in a borderless world.
If the United States Is Broken, Can It Be Fixed?I have to leap ahead a few questions again to properly answer this one. It is a qualified, long-shot yes.
In order to fix the US, we have to gain control of one of the two major parties (or alternatively, become one of the two major parties), then gain simultaneously the Presidency, the majority of the House of Representatives and a supermajority of the Senate, while maintaining the only element of federal government that seems to be on our side (a slim majority of Constitutionalists on the Supreme Court). All of this must take place in the face of an apathetic and ignorant public that is becoming more apathetic and ignorant every day, which makes the job harder.
If all of this seems daunting, you haven't seen anything yet. We have at best 10 years to turn things around before the finances of the US collapses, resulting in anarchy, less if the DemonRATs regain the reins of power and accelerates the breakage. That rules out trying to get a third party to supplant the Republicans because there is no way for another party to supplant the Republicans without ceding complete control to the RATs for at least 4 years (and probably 8). As the Pubbies are at least marginally closer to our philosophy than the RATs, it is exponentially-easier to get control of the Pubbies.
Similarily, we can't wait for a successful revolution of teaching in the schools to create a new generation of Americans who aren't ignorant to make this an irresistable force. That is not to say that this isn't important to make the fix stick; rather, we're out of time.
I think I best explain my anarchy comment above. If nothing changes, around 2015, two legacies of the New (Raw) Deal and the Great (Sham) Society will conspire to start yanking on the short-and-curlies of the American finances. First, Medicare will (barring a serious tax increase) go bankrupt, as it will have exhausted the IOUs that have been written to it by the federal government in the past while its expenditures continue to outstrip taxes devoted to it. Second, SocSecurity will start dipping into their IOUs to a tune that will quickly become close to half the total tax revenue. Since the majority won't visibly be paying any tax (even though excise taxes are paid by all, the ignorant don't know it by design), the hue and cry will be to tax the few that are successful out of existence (it's always easier to raise taxes on the "other guy"). As the "successful few" become the "successful none" (some disappearing from being taxed out of existence, others from leaving), the US will collapse financially, followed very quickly by the political collapse. We won't be in a position to restore the Republic, either politically (as the first line of opposition to the ruling class, we'll be most-effectively shut up) or militarily (those few of us that will be left will be too old and too few), and those that are able to effect a change will not see the Founding Fathers as a model to follow (after all, that is what fell apart; the fact that it was smashed by forces opposed to it won't matter).
The only thing I question is trying to involve a larger bulk of the sheeple. The first generation that has been taught that personal "prosperity" only comes from holding their hands out and that there is no such thing as morality is already fully into the adult public, the second is starting to enter, and the third is starting to be indoctrinated.
We've already lost the morality battle (if you doubt me, look at the Clintons). All that is left is the economic, and even there I'm doubtful in capturing the unaffected. We're rapidly approaching the point where the majority of Americans will not be paying any visible tax that is construed as such (payroll taxes are construed as a contribution to a mythical fund), and once that point is reached, there is nothing that we can offer them that'll beat free money from the government.
Many of the paleo-cons seem to be focused on "fixing the system" through either economic, immigration, or some other central control, while libertarians tend to search for the 'available tools' for pursuing happiness and preserving a culture that paleo-cons and conservative libertarians deem worth perserving in a borderless world.
I think we need to do both. Simply concentrating on fixing the system could drive one off the deep end like Tim McVeigh. On the other hand, focusing only on how to survive brings up visions of Dr. Zhivago.I know there are many stripes of libertarians out there, but the loudest ones seem to have trouble telling the difference between liberty and anarchy.
You talk about a borderless world a lot. Although borders are obviously a human construct and only exist to the extent that people are willing to enforce or guard them, and we are living in a world that grows geometrically smaller every day through technology, don't you think that we should move very slowly in that direction seeing the relative lack of justice, freedom, prosperity, etc. that exist outside our borders for the most part? It seems to me that if we are not careful, we will end up averaging ourselves down with the rest of the world.
I think there is no real turning back. Oh we may be able through effort, slow the tide. But Benjamin Franklin said it best when he said something to the effect, that this great experiment would work and last until the people figured out they could vote themselves anything they wanted. The implication was, by virtue of our system (government of, by, and for the people) we can fix all our problems in life by voting into office one who promises to fix 'em for us. People avoiding personal responsibility for their own lives and ignoring the "good of the many" play right into the hands of the professional politicians who have for many, many, many decades been getting elected by the promise of "Vote for me and I will set you Free!"
Today we are at a point where less than half the electorate vote at all and a great majority of those who do, vote for their own welfare rather than the "good of the Republic".
The last time I responded to your thread about how I am not to the point that I would use violence to seek change I was informed that I should enjoy living as a slave. So I am a bit reticent to post this response.
It is my opinion those willing to use violence, one American against another, to affect change are not friends of our Republic. The "new Revolution" must take place at the ballot box and the overwhelming motivation by the voter must be "for the welfare of the Republic" and not necessarily for their immediate, personal concerns. I just don't see that happening.
But heck just like Dennis Miller, I could be wrong.
That line implies we share collective fates. If you subscribe to some form of selfish-gene theory, collective fates are political constructs that are used by those in power to manipulate public opinion. With information technologies, we need not 'all hang together' for the Lost Cause, but choose discretion as the better part of valor and launch our own private secessions.
’Tyranny of location’ is soon to be overcome not through government, but individual human ingenuity, however, in we live in a transitional generation, and many of us still feel the bonds of patriotism (a love for the land of our fathers.) Thus we have a desire to make a proverbial stand in a land we feel to be our birthright for fear that the sacrifices of the our ancestors will have been for nothing. This is not a logical conclusion; its an emotional conclusion (hence, the 'Enlightened" English refer to England as the Motherland, in contrast to the blood and soil Fatherland Germans-- clearly we share a connection to both world views.)
...but I digress and am now deep in the hole...
The way things are now, we do have collective fates. This is the heart of the Democratic party rhetoric; eveybody is equal in all ways. I think that is the very reason this thread came up. People on FR want their economic, political, etc. freedoms back. Most of us feel that day after day we are averaged down by increasing collectivism in the form of social security, HMOs, racial quotas, rent control, international aid, public schooling, the list goes on. In effect, whenever there is a problem, we are added into the mix just to even things out. I have no problem with any of these programs so long as my and everyone else's participation is completely optional. The world is getting smaller every day, and we can not keep moving away and recolonizing everytime the collectivists settle into our neighborhoods.
Most Americans, however, are convinced that 'Socialism' is a foreign doctrine. They find it difficult to admit that many institutions of contemporary society and government are antipathetic to the 'idea' of America, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers.
I don't know if intellectual honesty and moral courage would correct this problem, but they certainly couldn't hurt. ;^)
I still am unclear as to how this intellectual disease can best be combatted in society. Intellectual honesty is fine for us, but if folks decline to participate in debate or discussion, their mute dull tide of ignorance will still carry the day.
Ignorant masses are the sine qua non of Socialism.
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