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Personal question about the Great Divide facing us

Posted on 04/16/2009 8:36:02 PM PDT by Kartographer

Serious question for Freepers, which undoubtedly will end up getting me place on the DHS watch list, but here goes any way; Are we head toward a civil war between those who wish to continue living under a Free Market/Republic and those who wish to move to a Socialist/Democracy?

This I think is the key to the great divide which is forming between what is essentially becoming the real 'two Americas'. Has that riff between the two grown so far apart that as the Declaration of Independence states:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

As a nation have we pulled that far apart? Is there a hope of reconciliation? Can the great divide beclosed and healed?


TOPICS: Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: cw2; cwii; cwiiping; donttreadonme
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1 posted on 04/16/2009 8:36:02 PM PDT by Kartographer
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To: Kartographer

Hard to say. My gut feel is no, there won’t be civil “war” but... I think it likely there will be civil unrest, protests, and a clash of ideals that probably will out-do even the late 60s...


2 posted on 04/16/2009 8:39:58 PM PDT by CodeMasterPhilzar (I'll keep my money, my guns, and my freedom. You can keep the "change.")
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To: Kartographer
those who wish to move to a Socialist/Democracy

Ask them. They're the ones revolting against America, perpetrating a coup d'etat against our constitutional republic. We're just defending our country against those who want to overthrow it.

which undoubtedly will end up getting me place on the DHS watch list

Welcome aboard, fellow extremist!
3 posted on 04/16/2009 8:42:05 PM PDT by LearsFool ("Thou shouldst not have been old, till thou hadst been wise.")
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To: Kartographer

In a word - yes.

As Ayn Rand has said, “We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.”

There’s a whole freight train load of consequences headed our way. The question is how you’re going to deal with them.


4 posted on 04/16/2009 8:43:12 PM PDT by Noumenon (Time for Atlas to shrug - and to pick up a gun)
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To: CodeMasterPhilzar

As one of the caretakers of the CWII ping list I have cataloged, read and responded to hundreds of articles on this general topic in the last few years. There are two other caretakers who have been just as active, and about 80 freepers, some of whom have been on the list for five or more years. (Archy started it!)

My feeling is that we can’t say, but it is an outside possibility. Maybe 20% chance.

I much prefer peaceful seperation into several smaller countries. I don’t have a desire to MAKE people in Mass. stop taxing themselves to high heavens, own guns, end affirmative action or restrict 3rd world immigration. If they want to live in that way, they can.

I would just like some places where I am not forced to follow the dicatates of the hive-mind from NY, LA and Boston.

Peaceful seperation seems to me to be a far better option than the alternatives. I know many disagree and think we can and must “fix” America.

I think those people should all go spend a week in LA. I just did. My take is “it’s not America anymore” and I’d like an international border between here (Washington State) and there.

I realize that it’s going to be hard. Most of my state is pretty conservative - but then we have Seattle. Maybe we need some ‘enclaves’ or city-states again. I’m not sure.

I’m pretty sure the left is never going to stop insisting I agree to every point of their program, and I’m pretty sure they will eventually push too hard and draw a backlash.


5 posted on 04/16/2009 8:48:26 PM PDT by Jack Black
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To: Kartographer

Just buy bullets, ammo, and guns.


6 posted on 04/16/2009 8:49:00 PM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: Kartographer

Socialist movements and actions certainly aren’t anything new in American life. From FDR’s whole domestic package to LBJ’s “Great Society” to the wage and price controls attempted under Nixon, Presidents have reached for the socialist Kool-Aid for decades.

I think there will be some ‘60s-style turmoil ahead, but I have some amount of faith the pendulum will swing back to the free market in due course. It always seems to.


7 posted on 04/16/2009 8:49:38 PM PDT by JennysCool (Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything. -- Wyatt Earp)
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To: Eaker; AK2KX; Ancesthntr; ApesForEvolution; archy; backhoe; Badray; t_skoz; Becki; Jack Black; ...
CWII Ping.

Gadsden Flag ... Don't Tread on Me !

8 posted on 04/16/2009 8:51:42 PM PDT by Jack Black
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To: Jack Black

>I’m pretty sure the left is never going to stop insisting I agree to every point of their program, and I’m pretty sure they will eventually push too hard and draw a backlash.

Hopefully it’ll be a gun-grab!
I’d rather kill traitors here than terrorists in Iraq (OIF 07-08) because they are FAR more dangerous thanthose external threats.


9 posted on 04/16/2009 8:53:06 PM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: Kartographer

In my community things are getting pretty segregated. I no longer have any interest in crossing the lines either socially or professionally, and I certainly no longer view leftists as my countrymen. But that’s just one bitter clinger’s opinion.


10 posted on 04/16/2009 8:56:16 PM PDT by Trod Upon (Obama: Making the Carter malaise look good. Misery Index in 3...2...1)
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To: Kartographer

My dear departed mother told me when I was but a child, the time would come when “we the people” would have to make a choice, again, between freedom and tyranny as was done during the founding years of this nation and when we Texans made the choice to declare independence from Mexico. There is a great divide in this country and there are those in power who are advancing the divide.


11 posted on 04/16/2009 8:56:29 PM PDT by Jukeman (.)
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To: Kartographer

I don’t think that an actual state of civil war will exist, but the gulf will definitely widen, and there will be incidents of violence. I hate to say it, but there will also be a racial/ethnic component to it too. Sadly, the people who prospered from keeping us at each others throats and caused such pressure to build will probably not be in harms way.


12 posted on 04/16/2009 8:58:31 PM PDT by VR-21 (Think it's time we stop, Hey what's that sound.....)
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To: Kartographer

I think we have passed the tipping point, where the parasites and leeches outnumber and outvote the productive hosts. Generally, this signals the end of a democracy, and what follows is generally some form of tyranny.

But since a large minority of us will resist being forced into socialism’s yoke, there very well could be a conflict.

Personally, I believe in moving to a “freer state” as far as possible from the “parasite states.” Refuse to be a willing host orgnanism. Don’t be near a large urban center full of parasites. When the crunch comes, the suburbs will be forced to pay and pay.

Move away from the parasites, as far as possible. Your local law enforcement will generally be on your side. This will not be true if you live near a large urban center.


13 posted on 04/16/2009 8:58:42 PM PDT by Travis McGee ("Foreign Enemies And Traitors" is at the printer)
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To: JennysCool
I have some amount of faith the pendulum will swing back to the free market in due course. It always seems to.

As Reagan argued, freedom can never be permanently eradicated.

It always struggles to return. Eventually. That's the story of the birth of our nation "conceived in liberty" - and a sizable chunk of history as well.

It's up to every generation to decide whether to take up the fight or shrug it off onto their children.
14 posted on 04/16/2009 9:00:02 PM PDT by LearsFool ("Thou shouldst not have been old, till thou hadst been wise.")
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To: Jack Black

This tax is for you
Another View By Tom McClintock, Congressman, 4th District
Tom McClintock (California)

When President Obama introduced his new budget, it was quite a relief to hear that its $1.9 trillion in new taxes would only fall on businesses and the “very wealthy.” If they were to fall on the rest of us, they would take nearly $2,500 per year out of the paycheck of an average family of four.

Unfortunately, the old adage, “when it sounds too good to be true, it is,” applies in this case. As the days go by, it is becoming clear that the president has aimed his new taxes squarely at America’s middle class — working families who are struggling to make ends meet in the worst economy in a generation.

There are two components of the taxes, and both of them are bad news to middle-class families.

First, the president plans to raise $950 billion over the next decade by dramatically increasing upper-income tax brackets. He assures us that unless we’re among that very small group of very wealthy folks, there’s nothing for us to worry about.

Unfortunately, it turns out that more than half of those very wealthy folks aren’t folks and aren’t wealthy — they’re small businesses, many of which are struggling to keep their doors open. If you work for, or own, a small business, chances are that this tax is for you.

The second component of the historic tax hike is in the form of business taxes, including at least a $650 billion tax increase — and probably quite a bit more — under the guise of “cap and trade.” Using this “bold new plan,” any business that produces carbon dioxide (that is, energy production, agriculture, distilling, baking, cement production, construction, cargo and passenger transportation, automobile manufacturing — get the picture?) must pay the government for a limited number of licenses to remain in business.

Is that anything for middle class families to worry about? Of course not, as long as they live in Ted Kaczynski’s old neighborhood.

The problem for the rest of us is that businesses don’t pay business taxes. Business taxes can only be paid by three groups, and they’re all us. We pay them as consumers through higher prices, as employees through lower wages and as investors through lower earnings — mainly from what’s left of our 401(k)s.

The president also proposes curtailing charitable contributions for upper income taxpayers upon whom charities depend for the vast bulk of their donations. That means a lot less charitable contributions and a lot more demand for government services.

At just the moment when the economy desperately needs new investment to create jobs, the president proposes hiking the capital gains tax. That means a lot less investment and a lot less job creation.

This is not a complicated principle. If you tax something, you get less of it. If you tax productivity, you get less productivity. If you tax charitable contributions, you get less charity. If you tax investment, you get fewer jobs. If you tax energy production, you get less energy.

This is exactly the mistake that Herbert Hoover made in responding to the recession of 1929: he dramatically raised income taxes, business taxes and spending. By doing so, he turned the recession of 1929 into the Depression of the 1930s.

Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, pointed out that a government that raises taxes in response to a recession makes the same mistake as a shopkeeper who raises prices in response to a sales slump.

Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope. California has just imposed the biggest state tax increase in the history of the nation, which became effective April 1.

That’s a $13 billion tax hike for California — proportionally somewhat smaller than the president’s taxes but in the same ballpark. By the time the Obama budget with all of its taxes comes up for a vote, California will have become a poster child for what not to do.

Maybe by then the president and his majority in Congress will figure out that raising taxes in a recession is the mother of all bad economic ideas.

Congressman Tom McClintock represents California’s 4th Congressional District. His Web site address is www.mcclintock.house.gov.


15 posted on 04/16/2009 9:00:33 PM PDT by ExTexasRedhead
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To: Kartographer

Does anyone other than myself believe our country is now under demonic influence, or, if not that, a mafiosa. Look, Obama is forcing Chrysler to merge with Fiat, a company which is worse off than Chrysler. Fiat produces nothing but crap.


16 posted on 04/16/2009 9:02:34 PM PDT by Jukeman (.)
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To: CodeMasterPhilzar

Methinks that our government is sure all is well....

“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot in things racial, we have always been, and we, I believe, continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards,” Holder said at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C.

Sic semper tyrannis!!!!!


17 posted on 04/16/2009 9:03:08 PM PDT by Voter62vb
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To: Travis McGee
I think we have passed the tipping point, where the parasites and leeches outnumber and outvote the productive hosts.

You said it! With all due respect to Glenn Beck, we do not "surround them". Rather, the looters have elected a looter government to do their looting with the authority of a badge and a gun.
18 posted on 04/16/2009 9:06:08 PM PDT by LearsFool ("Thou shouldst not have been old, till thou hadst been wise.")
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To: Trod Upon
"...I certainly no longer view leftists as my countrymen. But that’s just one bitter clinger’s opinion."

I share that opinion.

19 posted on 04/16/2009 9:08:11 PM PDT by VR-21 (Think it's time we stop, Hey what's that sound.....)
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To: VR-21

I dread to see what would happen to all the left wing nuts who of course are against civilians having guns vs all those in favor of the 2d ammendment, if there was to be a civil war it would be a very short one.


20 posted on 04/16/2009 9:12:56 PM PDT by Jammz ("The only thing needed for evil to prevail, is for good men to do nothing.")
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