Here are the links to some of the comments by other Freepers:
Here are a few links to pages that have some bearing on our discussions:
Is Bush ending the Era of Big Government?Remember April 15 in November
I hope you will recruit your fellow Freepers to our discussions. Thanks.
This should tell you something about your "survey". You started by pretty much declaring the US is broken, you loaded your questions in that direction, and your future posts will be directed to the group that agreed with you.
If you aim at the "unappeasables" and "naysayers" here at FR, you will have no problem finding them. Just don't be suprised when the rest of us stay away from the party.
Not a criticism, just an observation.
--Boris
It may well be impossible to recover what we have lost and as long as Liberals have even a toehold on power; much less, real power. . .they will continue to chip away at the very fundamentals of what makes America great.
They start with the young; and through dumbed-down and degraded education they render them irrelevant; add Hollywood. . .the Lib media; and 'political correctness' and they slowly create a 'mindset'; a base. . .
Can think of no group who are more relentless; who honor no rules and have no creed, save their belief that 'their ends', justifies any means. Can think of no group who are more relentless as they endeavor to accomplish their goals. Cannot think of a major problem that America faces, that does not have 'liberalism' as an underlying root cause.
After the children are appropriately 'educated' and even more people are rendered mind-numbed if not brain-dead; they attack and undermine our Constitutional foundations; that which allows 'life' and liberty to all Americans and holds the promise for those who want to experience the same.
Our Constitution and our Judicial system are under constant attack. . .the 'checks and balances'of our Government constantly undermined. . .oh well, you get the picture.
I share your 'grave concerns' for our Country and wonder what kind of future our young are growing up and into. . . Always involved in politics in one way or another and yet never really daunted until Bill Clinton campaigned for our highest office and won.
I am thrilled that GW is President, but the reality is that the 'people of the lie' are not cowed or beaten; nor do they see the 'light'; and so they will 'keep on, keeping on' until they refashion a great country into their image; and they will destroy the best of it, if we continue to let them enjoy success.
. . .but hey, there is always hope; we are here today; preparing for tomorrow. . .
and we are a country of winners; but we cannot afford to 'rest' in our good; not for a moment.
A: The question is ill-posed. In order to make the judgement "broken" (or "working") we must first define the standard by which we make that judgement.
Several standards have been proposed. A few are:
1) Conformity to the written constitution.
Most who revere this standard claim (correctly IMO) that our government today bears little resemblance to the one described by our written constitution. By this standard, our government is broken.
2) Conformity to the constitution of the people Or, do the ruled find their government pleasing and fitting in general, if not in certain particulars. By this standard I think the government is not broken.
3) Attractiveness to the people of the world If the people of the world find the government attractive, it might be argued that the government appeals to some universal features of mankind. The standard makes no mention however of what those desires are, or their propriety. Are we appealing to universal ideals or the lowest common denominator? (If universal, why is this universality not confirmed by emulation, rather than migration?)
To these I would add:
4) Enforceable, and enforced rule.
A government that cannot enforce its rule is indeed broken, in the strict mechanical sense.
and my own
5) Friendliness to liberty
By this standard I judge it broken, and not likely fixable by peaceful means.
To say something is broken is to say it doesn't meet its design criteria -- in short, it doesn't work to specification. But such a judgment requires a specification of what the broken item is supposed to do, and within what tolerances, and sometimes how.
Most people on the Right, though they are familiar with the Constitution, seldom reflect on the fact that the Constitution is principally a "how" document. It's not about objectives, but about methods and constraints. The methods are the delegated powers and rules of operation of the three branches of government. The constraints are the prohibitions imbedded in the document and the rights it guarantees to respect.
If you were to ask the typical American -- considerably less engaged with politics than you or I -- whether the country "works" or is "broken," he'd base his decision on the specific things that please or trouble him most. Most of us are leading lives of satisfactory security and comfort, and are little disturbed by things we disapprove, so long as we can avoid colliding with them. By such highly provincial measures, the country "works," indeed very well. It would not greatly concern John Q. Public that the Constitutional plan for government has been abandoned, or that the rights of certain groups have been infringed. He would ask: What important matters have gone wrong because of this Constitutional abandonment you're telling me about? As long as things are chugging along more or less satisfactorily, why should I care?
In other words, to reach the "broken" judgment, you have to have a perspective that goes beyond personal measures of satisfaction and security. You have to be concerned that the "supreme law of the land" no longer seems to bind the government. You have to address macro-social phenomena that reveal disturbing trends. You have to be aware that whenever one man's rights are denied, lethal consequences are put in train for all of us. ("When you deny the rights of one man, you deny the rights of all men, and a public of rightless creatures is doomed to destruction." -- Ayn Rand)
You have to be politically engaged, which most Americans are not.
There are virtues to being disengaged, provided the State doesn't fix upon you and make you one of its victims. If you can stay under the State's radar, you can argue that disengagement from politics is and was the best thing you could have done for your personal well-being and peace of mind. Politics consumes time, passion, and money as do few other human activities.
We who involve ourselves in politics and political questions have to keep the perspective of the disengaged American in mind. To achieve any particular thing politically, we have to:
The above is but a high-level, partial list.
Most important of all the needs cited above is the one about resources. If all the resources come from us the already engaged, we'll burn ourselves out in about five seconds. We are not numerous enough, and our opponents are equally numerous or more so.
The key to achieving things politically is engaging the disengaged.
William Simon noted in A Time For Truth that the "policy wonk" doesn't bother to address the disengaged; he directs his streams of technical minutiae to the men in power. The typical disengaged American has no interest in hypertechnical policy proposals; his eyes glaze over after about thirty seconds' worth. He's interested first in his own well-being, and second in that of his family. His interest in politics is typically kindled by those first two questions. If we can't reach him that way, we have to do it by getting him interested in principles: overarching moral rules that separate right from wrong in an unambiguous fashion, and which resonate with his fundamental sympathies and revulsions.
Note that very few professional politicians or their policy-mongering hangers-on ever talk about principles. Principles are the enemy of power, since they delimit what power-wielders may and may not do. Yet principles are the specification for what a government -- the agency with the monopoly power to wield coercive force -- is supposed to do and not do. The upholding of those principles is the forgotten objective of American Constitutional government.
This indicates a clear direction. If you feel, as I do, that government in America has become the enemy of freedom and the common man, then I submit to you that the reintroduction of principle to the American political discourse is our highest priority. Short of a major economic or social collapse, only frank, honest discussion of principles can possibly awaken the political interest of the great majority of Americans. Without rousing that large, quiet body unpolitic, we will dissipate our slender resources and burn ourselves out without disturbing the power elite.
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com
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).
I believe God is Sovereign over all things on the Earth, including the rise and fall of Empires, because He has seen through to the end of time. Therefore, God knows whether or not America will be saved. My guess is that it WILL be saved, one last time.
The way I see it, Clinton has left behind a criminal house of cards, that if uncovered and exposed, would rock this country FAR more than 9/11. I believe he stays safe because he & Hillary have dirt on the Republicans, (especially Bush Sr.) and so there is a sort of political M.A.D. between Clinton and Bush.
However, if God wants to truly shake up America, and turn us back to Him, uncovering & exposing these serious treasonous, murderous crimes will be more effective than anything else I could think of.
So... this is my current working theory: (which you can all laugh at)... I believe God is waiting for the perfect, optimal time to expose the gut-sickening criminality of the Clinton Administration, (and others), that will cause a deep desire in millions of Americans to reclaim the morals and values they willingly threw away in order to justify their votes for Clinton/democrats. This, I believe, will in turn, lead to a spiritual revival in this country that will be unparalelled in our history...
This will lead to the crash of the American liberal Media, which will then lead to the creation of a Superstate in Europe (because the EU must counter an Ultra-conservative, God-fearing America, and can no longer hope to do so "bloodlessly", by controlling the majority of us through our left-wing Big Media, and schools)
Then, The Rapture will happen, decimating America, but leaving the United States of Europe virtually untouched. Followed by One World Govt. and the AntiChrist/Tribulation. Just a working hunch, but as I peer through the dim outlines of the future, that is what I (think) I see on the horizon. Maybe.