Posted on 12/27/2008 8:39:19 PM PST by sbark
As a young idealist, I didn't want people to suffer from the follies of left-liberalism. But now, after seeing that I am not in an intellectual battle with the Left, but a religious war, my view on this has changed. Now I do want liberals to suffer under the follies of liberalism. Because I see now that this the only way that they are going to recognize their foolishness. But just liberals. I want to keep the rest of us free of their insanity. NOZICK'S VISION of utopia is the answer here. We can implement his vision by delegating as much power as possible back to state governments. They each should have maximum feasible control over economic policy, taxation, environmental policy, education, welfare, health policy, crime, even entitlements. If only we could figure out a way to give them each control over their own policies on immigration, terrorism, and foreign policy as well. Let Vermont, which has the cheek to send an open Socialist to Washington as one of its senators, go ahead and have the state own and run the businesses, and maybe own the property too. They can't learn from the experience of other countries or history with such policies. So let them experience it first hand. That will then be a good close-up lesson for the rest of the country as well. Or maybe it will turn out that the loudmouths in Vermont don't really want to walk the walk. Maybe they just want to talk the talk. That would also be a lesson for the rest of the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Yet, they still keep voting for liberals, with no viable alternative in sight. We may see some formerly major American cities decline to virtual ghost towns, with nothing left but a liberal mayor and city council, and a local government employee labor union leader, requesting federal aid, and seeking taxing authority to chase taxpayers across city lines.
But that's utopia. That's what they voted for, and that's what they should have. I wouldn't want to deprive them of it.
We must SOON begin to rebuild our Federalist system and strengthen the states and weaken the Federal government before states begin to leave the union. Don't laugh. Not for a minute. If it can happen in Kossovo, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and the USSR, it can and will happen here. The only question to ask is: Gandhi or Fort Sumter?
Ya know...I’m amazed that so many citizens-so far-have not petitioned their state legislators to demand a piece of the trillions of their tax money DC has been handing out like candy....
In principle I agree strongly with you. The Founders intent was a Federation of independent states with the main government providing for the common defense. Yes, now all that is turned on it’s head and the States are mere lackeys who exist to shovel tax money to Washington. Money. That’s where the central government has us in a headlock. If you are familiar with wrestling, (the real kind), it takes a lot to break a well applied headlock. In other words,it looks pretty hopeless.
All great struggles look hopeless in the beginning. Look at India, Czechoslovakia and, especially, Yugoslavia and the USSR. The people tend to win out in the end and the people tend to be the conservatives.
As for the money thing... its becoming worthless and the states have the right to coin specie under our existing Constitution. States and banks were printing money in the 1800s. Right up until the Federal Reserve was created in the early 1900s. I suspect the collapse of the US dollar will trigger state sovereignty movements and some sort of separation.
I live in a Liberal utopian city in a Marxist state...Oakland, CA. Nearly 75% of children qualify for free breakfast and lunch and guess what, nearly 70% of children in schools come from single-mother households.
Business taxes are oppressive; environmental rules stringent; property taxes are high and they nickel and dime you for taxes on everything you buy or sell.
The Liberal utopia has gangs, murder, homelessness, AIDS, drugs and urban blight...
Democrats have ruled this city for decades and more and more of us just end up leaving (our house is on the market now, we should break even).
California is a third world cesspool, period. Mexico has come to plop her fat a$$ right on our couch and tell us to get her a Corona.
Keep it, we are heading up to Idaho.
In theory, the idea of having liberal states and conservative states is fantastic. I love the mental image of liberals forced to wallow in the hell hole they create for themselves.
The problem, in practice is twofold.
First, liberals are incapable of learning from experience. Seriously, have you ever heard a liberal anywhere, at any time, state that one of their programs was a failure? I sure haven’t; it’s always that the program was underfunded, or the problem was worse than they thought, or some other excuse.
The second problem is that the damn liberals then move into conservative areas, but continue to vote like liberals.
The only way to make the idea of separate conservative states work is with walls to keep the liberals from moving in.
You left New Orleans off your list of liberal-run cesspools...
Naw, that ain't Utopia - THIS is Utopia, about as far away from those places (in every way) as it's possible to get:
And will you, when you get to Idaho see that Idaho is perfect except for a few barbarian characteristics that need a little tweaking with a few more laws and regulations to make it civilized? That is the norm for folks who flee the liberal hellholes. They do not- cannot- understand why the hellholes are hellholes. That is what happened to New Hampshire and is happening to Colorado and Florida and yes, Idaho. Liberalism is a metastasizing cancer. People try to legislate Utopia in their towns and when it turns into Dystopia they run away to where they can create Utopia anew but they will “do it right” this time.
When we moved from CA to our new state of residence, we studied the political landscape; and no, it made no sense to us. Southern politics are *quite* different from CA. So, we selected and cultivated specific people here, and until we understood more of the political landscape, we voted as they voted. And, we were grateful for their guidance.
I think what Mr. Ferrara has laid out is pretty much what is going to happen. Even socialists have priorities. For example, California, 1/8th of the economy, will occupy a prominent priority on the list of socialist taxpayer dollar bailouts. Something, just like this, is what will automatically "delegate[ing] as much power as possible back to state governments." And similar to dominos in a string, the remainder of what Mr. Ferrara writes will happen quite naturally.
It works at the neighborhood level, too. A couple of years ago someone moved into my neighborhood who had no prior contacts here. He was rather more affluent than his new neighborhood and set out to change the neighborhood to one more in tune with his sensibilities. The first thing he did was start calling Animal Control daily until the neighborhood dogs were all rounded up and done away with. This neighborhood had always had two or three largeish canines who were loose at night. They knew who belonged where and over the years a number of breakins and one attempted arson were thwarted by our guardians just nosing up to someone who did not belong. No one has ever been bitten and parents taught their children about dogs. After the place was “cleaned up” houses and cars have been broken into. Our new resident’s was the first because his house is the finest. He blames it all on the criminal nature of the neighborhood and has ramped up efforts to get even yard dogs removed because they bark sometimes. The man is a pain in the butt and he thinks he is doing the rest of us a service.
Yes, at the neighborhood level. One property owner on our street decided to partake of the benefits of leasing his property to be used for Section 13 purposes -- welfare.
Long story short...the mother and her children brought gangs to our street, her children ran wild, and we the neighbors were feeding her children, watching over them and protecting ourselves (and each other) from the negative side effects of their "culture". The socialist theory had been that if a Section 13 household was placed on a good street, the effects would "rub off" on the family in need of cultural redirection. HA!
As a result, we all went after the property owner who had plagued us with such a problem, and we each vowed to each other to never sic such a nasty trick on each other should we move or sell. To date, the folks back home tell me, it still holds.
Had this problem in one neighborhood. Every time the police came or my sleep was disrupted, I called the landlord. Right after I called the police. So did the rest of the neighborhood. I always said. YOur tenent’s behavior has woken me up, so I decided you should join me.
I let the police set up survailence in one of the apartments.
Tenants were relocated with in a month....a number of them to jail.
I hope you are right; but there will be blood.
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