Posted on 10/16/2013 10:07:32 AM PDT by Nachum
Judge Napolitano & the Constitution
Only people like you keep bringing up secession. If you only consider it bluster from frustrated people, what concern is that to you? Do you even have a point?
Two points... this may get long....
(1)I am pulling for John William's scenario to happen sooner (it's the 1970's with some depression era misery mixed in). His scenario is unavoidable. It happens sooner or later. We have painted ourselves into an impossible corner. That is unless 75% of Americans suddenly decide to give up their social security, refuse medicaid/medicare, stop collecting entitlements, etc. Not going to happen. I say 75% because this is really the influence it would need as a minimum to get our government to make the now draconian changes that are needed.
If it happens now, we still have a good stock of innovators, entrepreneurs, business moguls and risk takers. America can still re-build and maybe even stronger. WE will be a lost generation. Quite frankly, I'm at a spot financially, where I don't have much (relatively speaking) to lose. I'm 40 and have given up on retirement plans for now. I'm working for the kids. If it takes 50 years, as I expect, the best and brightest will have moved on and/or died off. The generation that grows up accustomed to dependence and stifling regulation, redistribution, wealth confiscation and loss of individualism will have a MUCH SMALLER pool of Patriotic Visionaries willing to take the risks and put in an effort to build something in the private sector.
2) The data, facts and figures that Williams is talking about (hyperinflation deficit, GDP, etc.) has been being manipulated for decades already. Look at how unemployment is now calculated compared to how it was calculated in the 80s and even 90s. Look at how inflation is now calculated compared to how it was calculated before Gengrich's "Contract with America" days. The government now counts its own spending as part of the GDP. Import/Export is a mess because international companies now manufacture products oversees for exclusive sale in the American market. Some American companies actually call this an export because the design, headquarters, capital and operation starts in America, is manufactured in China, and is sold in America. This is how books are cooked. Those in the know all see it. But as long as the numbers on paper can get to results that warrant a favorable head nod, all is good. This happens in big corporations all the time too (Enron, Tyco, Dotcoms of the 90s, etc.) Do you really believe inflation is relatively unchanged in the last 10 years even thought the price of food, gas, commodities, energy, etc. has all skyrocketed?
Sooner or later, they run out of places to hide the skeletons. This is when the scenario that Williams cites starts to unfold. But the Soviet Union played "hide the decline" for decades with far less nooks, crannies and capital. We are taking on debt to pay off debt. The federal government is now laundering money and calling it GDP even though they produce nothing. Look at how the CBO estimates revenue and costs. They read cooked books knowing full well the premise they are given is false. But they have to follow GAP rules. No president and class of politicians is going to let Williams scenario play out while they are in office. So any ends will justify the means to push off the inevitable.
There are no leaders left and the voting public is to stupid to see what is going on and what our future holds. As a patriotic American, I'd soon take on this burden now in hopes that my kids and their kids might have an opportunity to realize a renewed American Dream. For now and the foreseeable future, the "American Dream" is dead. There is no incentive to take risk because the reward is limited. The best money is on mediocrity as it is safe.
This all saddens me. It breaks my heart. I hope I am wrong. I REALLY REALLY do. But we are changing the way we raise our kids so that they may be successful in this new America.
Secession is a nice dream, but also a fantasy. If you thought the Feds were not amused in 1861, can you imagine their reaction now? Texas is one of the bright spots in the whole US economy — the Feds won’t let that go. You see, once Communists take over a country, they don’t let go until you pry loose their stiff dead fingers with a crowbar.
Excellent post, or terrible, depending upon whether it is being judged in terms of accuracy, or implication.
2008 was really our last chance at voluntarily accepting short-term recession in order to avoid involuntary collapse. However, I believe that the scenario of 70s + some depression era misery, is unrealistically optimistic. This country has changed drastically, and the effects of involuntary collapse will be less economic than it will be societal. In other words, there will be much more in the way of societal disintegration than was present in the 70s and 30s.
I think you are right that it would be better if it happened sooner, but am doubtful that it will. There are a lot of factors that keeps the dollar in high demand internationally, and I don’t see that changing any time soon. I think that it is this, not the manipulation of numbers, that actually delays involuntary collapse. The Soviet analogy is somewhat weak. Their economy functioned for so long, because it was an incredibly simple kind of economy, and was enforced via brute force.
My belief is that we are going to have years of decline, consisting of ever-inflating asset prices, and the strangulation of the middle class. The economic elite will prosper, the poor will continue in their dependence, and the productive sector of this country will continue to be robbed blind (in an ever-increasing number of ways), until there is no more that can be taken.
It is only then that we will have a systemic collapse. Maybe it will happen sooner, if there is a severe disruption in the currency or credit markets, or if a country like China implodes. But I think the more likely scenario is years of stagnation, followed by a global economic collapse that is violent, both literally and figuratively.
Then the universities are emptied and the brightest sent to the fields in an effort to boost food production. It all leads to a mass starvation with millions dying. Even in the "best" of times, under centralized government controls, the populace wait in long lines for meager food rations.
If this occurred in Russia, China, and to some extent here during the great depression when a large percentage of the populations had agrarian lifestyles, how much worse will it be now when 99% of people get their food from a handful of grocery stores in their communities?
Rebuilding isn't going to be so easy. A collapse this time will be worldwide as everything is connected, dependent, and highly specialized. The vast majority are too dumbed down to see much less understand what's about to soon happen. I'm afraid we've passed all of the exits and are now just ignoring the "Road Closed Ahead" signs. We're too far down this road and too low on gas to easily turn around now.
Americans no longer have the stomach to murder millions of their own countrymen over a matter of political realignment.
If one or more states decided to walk away from the union, there'd be a whole lot of racket and maybe even some implied threats from Washington, but it would stop short of actually sending troops in to quell an alleged 'rebellion'.
This is a far different age with a very different people than what existed in the mid nineteenth century. Recent administrations have a hard time getting support from the American people to conduct military operations against known enemies, let alone against their own people over a purely political matter.
Thank you, albeit a little late. Maybe we need to pressure the conservative public leaders, as they don’t seem to be talking about protecting our 1st amendment rights which we have lost with Ocare.
Yeh, they even wrote books about it.
You are flat out wrong on that. The people in control of this country would never allow it. If it does come down to secession, it will be a bloodbath. Personally, I think secession won’t happen and instead the country will one day descend into civil war. It’s not so much red state vs. blue state but city/ suburb vs. small town/ rural these days.
Another hair-on-fire, paranoid fear monger. Excuse me if I don't join you in your screaming terror over something that will never happen.
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