How do we take our country back?

[aps45819]

That worked out really well for all the people who got massacred

They weren't armed

 

[vraiblonde]

They weren't armed

For some reason, that made me think of Burr and Hamilton. It'd be pretty cool to make politicians settle their differences with a duel.

 

[twinoaks207]

How do you intend to make everyone else do that, considering 7 out of 10 will vote for whoever the media tells them to vote for?

Politics is perception and persuasion. Any successful candidate must create the perception that they are the answer to the problem and then persuade everyone to vote for them, frequently using emotional appeals. Obama won because he's a master at creating perceptions and persuasion (lawyers are particularly good at this, you know). His campaign played upon the feelings of disenfranchised people. He successfully tapped into the youth culture who felt that a government primarily composed of older, mostly white males did not represent their needs and did it masterfully by utilizing web 2.0, a mode of communication that our younger generations are most comfortable with these days. He made promises to others who also felt that they weren't being listened to by our government. In short, the perfect storm of polical campaigns.

Unless and until the Republican party can sit down and analyze where and how we need to change to be able to reach those disenfranchised voters that voted for Obama because they had no other choice, we will be doomed to repeat the pitiful performance of the last election.

Most voters don't sit down and carefully analyze the issues. They will vote for whoever tells them what they want to hear.

That said, I remember very clearly the "mood" of our country immediately following 9-11. I had thought that patriotism was dead and that we were a country just out for a selfish "I want mine and the hell with anyone else" mentality. I was wrong. I found out that in a time of trouble, the best will come out in our fellow countrymen. We seem to do better in times of crisis when we are shaken out of our complacency. We shall see....

 

[vraiblonde]

Politics is perception and persuasion. Any successful candidate must create the perception that they are the answer to the problem and then persuade everyone to vote for them, frequently using emotional appeals. Obama won because he's a master at creating perceptions and persuasion (lawyers are particularly good at this, you know). His campaign played upon the feelings of disenfranchised people. He successfully tapped into the youth culture who felt that a government primarily composed of older, mostly white males did not represent their needs and did it masterfully by utilizing web 2.0, a mode of communication that our younger generations are most comfortable with these days. He made promises to others who also felt that they weren't being listened to by our government. In short, the perfect storm of polical campaigns.

Unless and until the Republican party can sit down and analyze where and how we need to change to be able to reach those disenfranchised voters that voted for Obama because they had no other choice, we will be doomed to repeat the pitiful performance of the last election.

Most voters don't sit down and carefully analyze the issues. They will vote for whoever tells them what they want to hear.

That said, I remember very clearly the "mood" of our country immediately following 9-11. I had thought that patriotism was dead and that we were a country just out for a selfish "I want mine and the hell with anyone else" mentality. I was wrong. I found out that in a time of trouble, the best will come out in our fellow countrymen. We seem to do better in times of crisis when we are shaken out of our complacency. We shall see....

Good post

But it wasn't real long after 9-11 that it was right back to partisan sniping as usual. Now, only a few years later, it's like 9-11 never happened. We have people saying we deserved it, people saying our president was in on it, and our own new president wanting to release some of the planners of it from prison.

 

[Larry Gude]

Good post

But it wasn't real long after 9-11 that it was right back to partisan sniping as usual. Now, only a few years later, it's like 9-11 never happened. We have people saying we deserved it, people saying our president was in on it, and our own new president wanting to release some of the planners of it from prison.

You say that as though the objections people were raising to what W was doing had no legitimate gripes. They had very legitimate gripes about the costs, the threats to our liberty, the conduct of the wars and so forth.

Had Bush gotten Osama and then left when we had him instead of turning it into a political farce, had Bush not disbanded the Iraqi army instead of putting them to work guarding THEIR country, as US ground commanders thought they obviously would, had Bush not de-Baathified Iraq and instead put THEM to work running the country like we did with Nazi's and Japanese war leaders post WWII, had Bush not allowed al Sadr and other turds to set up their own power centers, had Bush let the US military kill everyone who wanted some, had Bush not turned the wars into a contractors wet dream instead of expanding the US military as we obviously needed, then the wars would have been wrapped up, turned out fine and all would be well now.

Had Bush done all of those SIMPLE things, turning the US upside down with Patriot acts and 'homeland' security behemoths and all the rest of that non sense, Bush would have done very, very well.

But noooooooooooooooooo.

 

[RadioPatrol]

Exactly. What can we, realistically, do about this? This video guy can shout and try to shame us all he wants, but there's really nothing we individually can do to stop it. There are too many people in this country who have become enslaved by government, and too many who just don't give a damn and will vote for whoever some rap performer tells them to.

The best you can do is prepare to survive the Anarchy of the Collapse ......

when the federal government can print no more money because it is worth less than the paper it is printed on .... during the 1920s in the Weimar Republic in Germany inflation was so bad it cost a 3 million Marks to buy a loaf of bread

The inflation in the Weimar Republic was a period of hyperinflation in Germany (the Weimar Republic) during 1921-1923.

The hyperinflation episode in the Weimar Republic in the 1920s was not the first hyperinflation, nor was it the only one in early 1920s Europe. However, as the most prominent case following the emergence of economics as a science, it drew interest in a way that previous instances had not. Many of the dramatic and unusual economic behaviors now associated with hyperinflation were first documented systematically in Germany: order-of-magnitude increases in prices and interest rates, redenomination of the currency, consumer flight from cash to hard assets, and the rapid expansion of industries that produced those assets. John Maynard Keynes described the situation in The Economic Consequences of the Peace: "The inflationism of the currency systems of Europe has proceeded to extraordinary lengths. The various belligerent Governments, unable, or too timid or too short-sighted to secure from loans or taxes the resources they required, have printed notes for the balance."

It is sometimes argued that Germany had to inflate its currency to pay the war reparations required under the Treaty of Versailles, but this is misleading. The German currency was relatively stable at about 60 Marks per US Dollar during the first half of 1921.[1] But the "London ultimatum" in May 1921 demanded reparations in gold or foreign currency to be paid in annual installments of 2,000,000,000 (2 billion) gold marks plus 26 percent of the value of Germany's exports. The first payment was paid when due in August 1921.[2] That was the beginning of an increasingly rapid devaluation of the Mark which fell to less than one third of a cent by November 1921 (approx. 330 Marks per US Dollar). The total reparations demanded was 132,000,000,000 (132 billion) gold marks which was far more than the total German gold or foreign exchange. An attempt was made by Germany to buy foreign exchange, but that was paid in treasury bills and commercial debts for Marks which only increased the speed of devaluation.

A medal commemorating Germany's 1923 hyperinflation. The engraving reads: "On 1st November 1923 1 pound of bread cost 3 milliard, 1 pound of meat: 36 milliard, 1 glass of beer: 4 milliard."

During the first half of 1922 the mark stabilized at about 320 Marks per Dollar accompanied by international reparations conferences including one in June 1922 organized by U.S. investment banker J. P. Morgan, Jr.[3] When these meetings produced no workable solution, the inflation changed to hyperinflation and the Mark fell to 8000 Marks per Dollar by December 1922. The cost of living index was 41 in June 1922 and 685 in December, an increase of more than 16 times. In January 1923 French and Belgian troops occupied the industrial region of Germany in the Ruhr valley to ensure that the reparations were paid in goods, such as coal from the Ruhr and other industrial zones of Germany, because the Mark was practically worthless. Although reparations accounted for about one third of the German deficit from 1920 to 1923,[4] the government found reparations a convenient scapegoat. Other scapegoats included bankers and speculators (particularly foreign), both of which groups had, in fact, exacerbated the hyperinflation through the normal course of their profit-seeking. The inflation reached its peak by November 1923, but ended when a new currency (the Rentenmark) was introduced. The government stated that this new currency had a fixed value, secured by real estate, and this was accepted.

Although the inflation ended with the introduction of the Rentenmark and the Weimar Republic continued for a decade afterwards, hyperinflation is widely believed to have contributed to the Nazi takeover of Germany. Adolf Hitler himself in his book, Mein Kampf, makes many references to the German debt and the negative consequences that brought about the "necessity" of National Socialism. The inflation also raised doubts about the competence of liberal institutions, especially amongst a middle class who had held cash savings and bonds. It also produced resentment of Germany's bankers and speculators, many of them Jewish, whom the government and press blamed for the inflation.[5]

 

[RadioPatrol]

My Plan:



1) First we kill all the lawyers.
2) Let dying companies die.
3) Let lazy people starve.
4) Take the labels off of everything and let the ignorant people stupid themselves to death.
5) Those of us who survive the transitional period can revel about in the resulting Utopia.

 

[Pushrod]

I disagree with you.

People want to talk about the revolutionaries in the 1700s, but that was a completely different era. It's ridiculous to think that, in this modern age, a small percentage of the population can fend off the whole US government with a few rifles and handguns. The second you even try to gather your forces, the fed will find out about it and make you go bye bye, and you can be a footnote in history just like Waco and Ruby Ridge.

Tell that to the Afganistans that held off and defeated the entire Soviet empire with a bunch of pre-WWII rifles. Tell that to the insurgents in Iraq that fought our troops to a stand still, until we had a surge to overwhelm them, but not defeat them.

Add to that, many military and police who will side with the people and fight the federal government, things may go the way they did in the late 1700's. I for one wont sit on my @ss and watch this beautiful country and ingenious Constitutional Republic crushed under the weight of tyrrany and socialism. Apathy is as much our enemy as the Socialists.

 

[Larry Gude]

Tell that to the Afganistans that held off and defeated the entire Soviet empire with a bunch of pre-WWII rifles. Tell that to the insurgents in Iraq that fought our troops to a stand still, until we had a surge to overwhelm them, but not defeat them.

Add to that, many military and police who will side with the people and fight the federal government, things may go the way they did in the late 1700's. I for one wont sit on my @ss and watch this beautiful country and ingenious Constitutional Republic crushed under the weight of tyrrany and socialism. Apathy is as much our enemy as the Socialists.

He shoots! He scores!!!!

 

[aps45819]

Tell that to the Afganistans that held off and defeated the entire Soviet empire with a bunch of pre-WWII rifles.

Stingers helped a lot

 

[Geek]

Stingers helped a lot

 

[Pushrod]

Stingers helped a lot

That sealed it. When the Soviets brought in the hinds helecopter gunships to begin slaughtering Afgans, we supplied them stingers to match the threat and eventually win. but up to that point they held the Soviets in check with rifles.

 

[thatguy]

Tell that to the Afganistans that held off and defeated the entire Soviet empire with a bunch of pre-WWII rifles. Tell that to the insurgents in Iraq that fought our troops to a stand still, until we had a surge to overwhelm them, but not defeat them.

Add to that, many military and police who will side with the people and fight the federal government, things may go the way they did in the late 1700's. I for one wont sit on my @ss and watch this beautiful country and ingenious Constitutional Republic crushed under the weight of tyrrany and socialism. Apathy is as much our enemy as the Socialists.

right, you will choose to destroy it through anarchy.

take away the glue that holds it together and this country would disentagrate into something that certainly wouldn't be any better than what we have got.

 

[aps45819]

right, you will choose to destroy it through anarchy.

take away the glue that holds it together and this country would disintegrate into something that certainly wouldn't be any better than what we have got.

I want what we had, not what we've got.

 

[thatguy]

I want what we had, not what we've got.

you cant go back in time, and trying to over throw the government certainly isn't going to take this country back to some 1950's idealized utopia that you have in your mind as "what we had", its just going to eff up "what we got"

 

[Pushrod]

Going back in time? What we have now? What do you want? To just tow the line no matter how much of our freedoms are ripped from us? As long as we have some freedom, we need to be satisfied, is that your mantra?
We need to restore this country to the Constitutional Republic is was intended to be. Through the ballot box, and failing that through the cartridge box!
As I said before, you Sir, are a Tory!

 

[Zguy28]

Going back in time? What we have now? What do you want? To just tow the line no matter how much of our freedoms are ripped from us? As long as we have some freedom, we need to be satisfied, is that your mantra?
We need to restore this country to the Constitutional Republic is was intended to be. Through the ballot box, and failing that through the cartridge box!
As I said before, you Sir, are a Tory!

Just to play devil's advocate here, you gonna limit voting rights to property-owning men also?

 

[Tilted]

you cant go back in time, and trying to over throw the government certainly isn't going to take this country back to some 1950's idealized utopia that you have in your mind as "what we had", its just going to eff up "what we got"

The propriety of such efforts aside, the notion isn't to just destroy the current mechanism and leave anarchy in its wake. The notion is to dismantle the current mechanism, and, in its place, install a new, fresh mechanism which can better deliver the desired goals. I say a fresh mechanism, because it could be very similar to what was installed here a couple hundred years ago - but it would have the benefit of being 'fresher' - that is, not as corrupted, polluted, and diluted as the current one has become over the last couple of centuries.

That's the dynamic that Jefferson was referring to when he swrote:

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is their natural manure.

Such efforts are what were referred to and contemplated by the Declaration of Independence thusly:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

 

[vraiblonde]

Just to play devil's advocate here, you gonna limit voting rights to property-owning men also?

I would. Maybe not just "property" owning, but people who received government assistance sure wouldn't be able to vote.

I'd make everyone take a test - basic citizenship, history and literacy. You can't vote until you pass the test.

 

[Zguy28]

I would. Maybe not just "property" owning, but people who received government assistance sure wouldn't be able to vote.

I'd make everyone take a test - basic citizenship, history and literacy. You can't vote until you pass the test.

Have fun not voting.