Posted on 10/27/2005 10:57:36 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
It is not so hard and can be a pleasure to tell people what you see. It's harder to speak of what you think you see, what you think is going on and can't prove or defend with data or numbers. That can get tricky. It involves hunches. But here goes.
I think there is an unspoken subtext in our national political culture right now. In fact I think it's a subtext to our society. I think that a lot of people are carrying around in their heads, unarticulated and even in some cases unnoticed, a sense that the wheels are coming off the trolley and the trolley off the tracks. That in some deep and fundamental way things have broken down and can't be fixed, or won't be fixed any time soon. That our pollsters are preoccupied with "right track" and "wrong track" but missing the number of people who think the answer to "How are things going in America?" is "Off the tracks and hurtling forward, toward an unknown destination." ___________________________________________________
I mean I believe there's a general and amorphous sense that things are broken and tough history is coming.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
I agree. We are at war Culturally and Militarily. I am spooked!
Good Lord, these people are scum. Has Peggy gone mad - these people couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, nor would you want them to.
Regards, Ivan
That's is true...but that's often the case...it only looks like a sudden collapse to those who didn't notice the sappers tunnelling.
The fact is, there has never been a better period in the history of man to be alive. It is apparently natural that misery loves company, because negativity seems to generate a lot of long threads on Free Republic, and a lot of angry callers on talk shows, but everyone needs to just slow down and look at what we have accomplished. Look at what we take for granted every day.
I choose to be an optimist, because the perponderance of the evidence leads me in that direction.
Come on, Peggy
I agree that a forcefully articulated true conservative position from someone would be a stimulant to the USA. Trouble is, I don't see anyone who can deliver it.>>>>>>>>>
If you mean to advocate a return to true constitutional government as it was intended then I fear that anyone who does so would be seen by even the "conservatives" as a raging maniac. Try telling people that ALL government aid to anyone, foreign or domestic, is beyond the scope of the constitution and you won't have much of an audience. For the vast majority of people the idea that the government is the solution to every problem seems somehow plausible. They may pay lip service to rugged individuality but they will gladly accept anything that Uncle offers them and it becomes ever more difficult to do otherwise. I have never believed that Social Security was a good idea but I don't intend to refuse the check if I can get it, I certainly was never given the option of NOT paying into it.
What we are seeing is the end of any semblance of Republican Democracy.>>>>>>>>>>>
I still maintain that Republican Democracy is an oxymoron, it is a form of government suited only to midgets over six feet tall.
It is. We started as a Republic, but are now more of a Democracy. That is whay I said republican democracy, since we are neither.
There's a lot to that. People have just taken what we have for granted. Particularly, if they aren't having to put in any 12 or 14 hour days to get their hands around it.
Agent Smith: Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.Today, people live longer than every. Royal comforts are but a credit-card-swipe away. War is separated from us by thousands of miles. The greatest gripe against the government after the latest natural disaster is there wasn't enough free ice. Our poor are fat.
The height of human comfort achieved, people seek an adversary. Democrats declare the Bush double-victory invalid without reason, and call for overthrowing the regime without cause. Republicans fear the second coming of Hillary.
World War I started mostly because Europe was itching for a fight - despite a time of peace and comfort. Study history; we may be about to repeat it.
You were given the option. Unfortunately, the pressure to opt-in was enormous, and you (or whoever signed you up) had no comprehention at the time that you might not want to join the quagmire.
A long banned Freeper.
The problem is simple: The government cannot solve every problem. It cannot even solve its own.
It was never intended to solve anyone's problems. It was meant to keep us safe from invasions (of any sort) and to keep the states from battling each other. Sadly, it has abandoned its primary function. Instead of it's powers, delinieated in the Constitution, being protections for the people the Court has turned it into swords looking for what rights we have "in" the Constitution, instead of looking for what powers the government really has.
10th Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.
The problem is that the government construes Section 8 of Article I "... provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States..." as a catch-all for anything the governemnt wishes to do.
In the Federalist papers, when describing this section they discuss general welfare as occruing from the common defense. Obviously, internal strife among the states and invasions from without would not be beneficial to bringing about the 'general welfare' of the country.
It was thought about by the government this way for the first 150 years. It was not until 1937 that the Court decided that general welfare means just about anything that could benefit the majority and it would employ a 4-point examination of what rights are actually 'in' in Constitution, as a substitution for delineated powers; while out government abandoned its original purpose of defense.
Since then our Constitution has been constantly trodden upon by the government, replacing our constitutional republic with a simple democracy where anything goes, especially if you can find some judge to rule your way.
That errie sense that something bad is going to happen probably comes from not knowing what day or what hour the final bits of rights we have left will be completely gone and you can be raped of anthing you have left, legally, while we are bombarded from without.
Hillary will be elected President in 2008. The Dems, seeing the last 8 years of indeciciveness in the republicans and sensing weakness, are going to set off a civil war by their actions after that.
You can also get a similar sensation when you're cruising along at 30,000 feet and one of your engines falls off.
The unease I'm feeling is fueled further by the behavior of the economy and the erratic movements in the Stock Market so far this October. GM mentioned as a bankruptcy candidate doesn't help either. I just don't feel good about what I'm sensing.
That will happen during the next Democrat administration.
btt
CW2 ping
Heck, that's part of the solution.
Thanks for the laugh in an otherwise depressing thread.
A strong 'leader' gains power and refuses to relinquish it. America effectively becomes a dictatorship and conflicts between the U.S. and the rest of the world boil over.
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