Government is force. In the end, we are either going to need to break off from that force, or co-opt it. Otherwise, all the tools of power are going to be weaponized against us.
As much as the left wants to stick us all in jail or genocide us, they are going to have a huge problem doing that to up to 80 million armed citizens.
The beauty of our country and its constitution is we are suppose to have equal standing in court against our government and able to hold them to the laws to ensure the force they bring to bear doesn't infringe on our rights, our life or our pursuit of happiness, and if it does we have legal recourse to stop them and remedy any damage done in the meantime. That has never worked perfectly because the courts aren't interested in messing with other branches, and the government has more finacial resources and access to information we need to request from them to get.
However we have gotten way off track. In theory we should be able to take the government to court over infringing on our 1st amendment, and failing to up hold their oath. The way our intel community and various members of the government use the media and social media (or get used by them) is clearly a case of infringing on our freedom of speech and freedom of the press. And the lack of action by politicians to stop this is a breach of their oath. But nothing about today's government makes me think I'd accomplish anything other than putting myself in debt and having the IRS audit me yearly and the FBO decide I need to be investigated
I hate to say this, but I think the only thing that is going to fix this is massive decentralization. Instead of having one large government of 50 states, have an alliance off thousands of county nation states competing for capital and talent. People will move away from the corrupt ones, and they won't be able to finance themselves by co-opting other places to pay for them either through taxes or monetary policy.
Thats exactly what the constitution spells out. Our government was not designed to be what we have today. Infact a normal reading of the constitution makes it clear the concept behind separation of powers is meant to stop an over centralization of power and avoid having a situation where the citizens and even states can't change illegal/corrupt aspects of the federal government, or more recently if a group of states think other states illegally manipulated federal election results in a way detrimental to those that didn't they are suppose to be able to be heard by the Supreme Court since that's the only place they could go.
I go back to FDR although you can certainly go back to Wilson if wish in terms of what presidency set us on this path without recourse. FDR is probably the more significant because of the New Deal and his corrupting of the Supreme Court. His tax increases and muscling in on what should be state authority. Also the fact the CIA, FBI, and the military industrial complex all can traced right back to his administration. Plus we should never forget he had a better and more honest relationship with Stalin than Churchill. Plus he is the only president to serve more than 2 terms and actually was the reason 2 terms were made a constitutional amendment. That last bit is why I'm actually thinking if Trump goes these next 4 years trying to break the centralized control and the corporate money influence he should be allowed to run for a 3rd term because FDR spent 3 full terms and was headed into a 4th giving him plenty of control and time to ruin the Republic by over centralizing the power and strangling the economy with taxes and regulations, and it'll probably take 3 terms at a minimum to correct all that nonsense.
Government is force. In the end, we are either going to need to break off from that force, or co-opt it. Otherwise, all the tools of power are going to be weaponized against us.
As much as the left wants to stick us all in jail or genocide us, they are going to have a huge problem doing that to up to 80 million armed citizens.
The beauty of our country and its constitution is we are suppose to have equal standing in court against our government and able to hold them to the laws to ensure the force they bring to bear doesn't infringe on our rights, our life or our pursuit of happiness, and if it does we have legal recourse to stop them and remedy any damage done in the meantime. That has never worked perfectly because the courts aren't interested in messing with other branches, and the government has more finacial resources and access to information we need to request from them to get.
However we have gotten way off track. In theory we should be able to take the government to court over infringing on our 1st amendment, and failing to up hold their oath. The way our intel community and various members of the government use the media and social media (or get used by them) is clearly a case of infringing on our freedom of speech and freedom of the press. And the lack of action by politicians to stop this is a breach of their oath. But nothing about today's government makes me think I'd accomplish anything other than putting myself in debt and having the IRS audit me yearly and the FBO decide I need to be investigated
I hate to say this, but I think the only thing that is going to fix this is massive decentralization. Instead of having one large government of 50 states, have an alliance off thousands of county nation states competing for capital and talent. People will move away from the corrupt ones, and they won't be able to finance themselves by co-opting other places to pay for them either through taxes or monetary policy.
Massive decentralization WAS the model for the US right up until the Lincoln progressives killed it with the civil war.
Thats exactly what the constitution spells out. Our government was not designed to be what we have today. Infact a normal reading of the constitution makes it clear the concept behind separation of powers is meant to stop an over centralization of power and avoid having a situation where the citizens and even states can't change illegal/corrupt aspects of the federal government, or more recently if a group of states think other states illegally manipulated federal election results in a way detrimental to those that didn't they are suppose to be able to be heard by the Supreme Court since that's the only place they could go.
I go back to FDR although you can certainly go back to Wilson if wish in terms of what presidency set us on this path without recourse. FDR is probably the more significant because of the New Deal and his corrupting of the Supreme Court. His tax increases and muscling in on what should be state authority. Also the fact the CIA, FBI, and the military industrial complex all can traced right back to his administration. Plus we should never forget he had a better and more honest relationship with Stalin than Churchill. Plus he is the only president to serve more than 2 terms and actually was the reason 2 terms were made a constitutional amendment. That last bit is why I'm actually thinking if Trump goes these next 4 years trying to break the centralized control and the corporate money influence he should be allowed to run for a 3rd term because FDR spent 3 full terms and was headed into a 4th giving him plenty of control and time to ruin the Republic by over centralizing the power and strangling the economy with taxes and regulations, and it'll probably take 3 terms at a minimum to correct all that nonsense.