... but I believe the very nature of the political process has corrupted our government beyond repair.

This is not a left/right thing.

A couple of years back, when states started requiring labels on products divulging if they were GMO; the federal government -- with ample donations from Monsanto -- passed a law that made it so states couldn't require such disclosure. While this was ostensibly "capitalist" it certainly restricts the free market by keeping people ignorant of facts.

Also a couple of years back, Comcast and Verizon went around to various state legislatures getting laws passed that would effectively prevent the formation of certain types of new competing cable companies. Same sort of thing.

This sort of stuff represents the inevitable corruption of a democratic system. You cannot put a legislator who earns $200k in charge of regulating a multi-billion dollar industry, and expect him not to acquiesce. SOME will stand strong; but the very nature of the self-selecting process in which people choose to run for office tends to weed out most of the people who would best serve. If we skipped elections entirely and just chose people at random we'd have more honest government.

A similar corruption comes from the other end. Politicians want votes, and the easiest way to get votes is to buy them. You give various constituencies "free stuff" -- taken away from smaller constituencies. This problem got bigger and bigger as the franchise was expanded.

Clearly, nobody should be excluded from voting on the basis of gender or ethnicity. But by failing to restrict the franchise adequately we have turned the government into a redistribution machine in which legislators shamelessly pander to people who can't even find the country on a map, much less cast a vote that says anything more than "give me other people's stuff."

Long ago, the right to vote should have been restricted, at least to "net taxpayers" -- i.e. people who have a stake in the cost of government. It should probably also have been restricted to people who can add 17+154 and find the country on a map. Maybe voters should even know how many justices sit on the Supreme Court or be able to name the current Vice President. Anyone who can't do these things should have NO say in governance.

This is a huge flaw -- but it is past the point of repair. We now have a government that constitutes its own special interest, and who corporate purpose is the fleecing of the best and brightest to serve everyone from well-connected corporate big shots to the ubiquitous teen mothers. It no longer serves its purpose and has become destructive of freedom rather than protective of freedom.

I really don't think it is possible anymore to change this mess through the democratic process. As of Obama's latest legislative agenda, the number of people who are net taxpayers is now less than half of the voters. If you look at eligible voters and exclude from it everyone whose primary source of income is government or an industry that serves government, everyone who gets all the taxes they paid in back when they do taxes every year and so forth -- you are now left with less than a majority.

Even if it WERE a bare majority, you could never get us all to agree on an agenda. Just look at this board -- full of very bright people, and I would hazard a guess that practically all are net taxpayers. Yet, as a whole, there isn't even consensus on the most basic of moral issues -- so we could never unite in a block. But the majority -- the 51% -- are ALL united on the basic principle of using government to take other people's stuff. Mostly ours.

I likewise took an oath to uphold and defend our Constitution. And that oath also included obedience to "lawful orders." IMO, it is up to me to exercise judgment in determining if an order is lawful (i.e. compliant with the Constitution); but as a practical matter I discovered that to be difficult.

I believe the best chance we -- those who DON'T want to use the governemt to take other people's stuff -- have today is represented by acting on two fronts.

The first front is a defensive action, waged via various organizations already described. Examples include Grassfire, NRA, GOA, NumbersUSA etc.

But you cannot win a defensive only war. Eventually you tire. You must also have an offense. And that offense has to strike at the heart of the resources, legitimacy and willingness to fight of the enemy's personnel. I believe that secession movements -- and there are many -- are the best offense.

Anyone passingly familiar with just a hint of U.S. military might should disabuse themselves right now of any notions of being able to win a war as some sort of disorganized resistance. You cannot protect yourself forever from that sort of power as a lone individual. You need the protection of an organized sovereign government for this -- and, in fact, that is the very PURPOSE of government -- to protect your freedom.

And where do you find such a government that will harbor you and protect you and even wield some defensive military capability of its own? YOUR STATE.

Not all states are suitable. There are two kinds of states: net takers from the feds, and net givers to the feds. In any state that draws more from the feds than the citizens pay in federal taxes, you will not successfully start a secessionist movement.

However, in states that are net tax donors -- you have far greater likelihood of success. And when such a state leaves the union, the federal government is deprived of taxes, manpower, materiel and legitimacy all at once.

So you have the defensive position using various organizations, but actively organize the offensive position as well.

This will, of course, ultimately destroy the existing federal government. Once one state goes, another will go too. Pretty soon, all that is left is the net tax recipient states. The numbers just won't work.

In the new sovereign states, steps should be taken to prevent the sort of corruption that destroyed the prior federal government.

... but I believe the very nature of the political process has corrupted our government beyond repair.

This is not a left/right thing.

A couple of years back, when states started requiring labels on products divulging if they were GMO; the federal government -- with ample donations from Monsanto -- passed a law that made it so states couldn't require such disclosure. While this was ostensibly "capitalist" it certainly restricts the free market by keeping people ignorant of facts.

Also a couple of years back, Comcast and Verizon went around to various state legislatures getting laws passed that would effectively prevent the formation of certain types of new competing cable companies. Same sort of thing.

This sort of stuff represents the inevitable corruption of a democratic system. You cannot put a legislator who earns $200k in charge of regulating a multi-billion dollar industry, and expect him not to acquiesce. SOME will stand strong; but the very nature of the self-selecting process in which people choose to run for office tends to weed out most of the people who would best serve. If we skipped elections entirely and just chose people at random we'd have more honest government.

A similar corruption comes from the other end. Politicians want votes, and the easiest way to get votes is to buy them. You give various constituencies "free stuff" -- taken away from smaller constituencies. This problem got bigger and bigger as the franchise was expanded.

Clearly, nobody should be excluded from voting on the basis of gender or ethnicity. But by failing to restrict the franchise adequately we have turned the government into a redistribution machine in which legislators shamelessly pander to people who can't even find the country on a map, much less cast a vote that says anything more than "give me other people's stuff."

Long ago, the right to vote should have been restricted, at least to "net taxpayers" -- i.e. people who have a stake in the cost of government. It should probably also have been restricted to people who can add 17+154 and find the country on a map. Maybe voters should even know how many justices sit on the Supreme Court or be able to name the current Vice President. Anyone who can't do these things should have NO say in governance.

This is a huge flaw -- but it is past the point of repair. We now have a government that constitutes its own special interest, and who corporate purpose is the fleecing of the best and brightest to serve everyone from well-connected corporate big shots to the ubiquitous teen mothers. It no longer serves its purpose and has become destructive of freedom rather than protective of freedom.

I really don't think it is possible anymore to change this mess through the democratic process. As of Obama's latest legislative agenda, the number of people who are net taxpayers is now less than half of the voters. If you look at eligible voters and exclude from it everyone whose primary source of income is government or an industry that serves government, everyone who gets all the taxes they paid in back when they do taxes every year and so forth -- you are now left with less than a majority.

Even if it WERE a bare majority, you could never get us all to agree on an agenda. Just look at this board -- full of very bright people, and I would hazard a guess that practically all are net taxpayers. Yet, as a whole, there isn't even consensus on the most basic of moral issues -- so we could never unite in a block. But the majority -- the 51% -- are ALL united on the basic principle of using government to take other people's stuff. Mostly ours.

I likewise took an oath to uphold and defend our Constitution. And that oath also included obedience to "lawful orders." IMO, it is up to me to exercise judgment in determining if an order is lawful (i.e. compliant with the Constitution); but as a practical matter I discovered that to be difficult.

I believe the best chance we -- those who DON'T want to use the governemt to take other people's stuff -- have today is represented by acting on two fronts.

The first front is a defensive action, waged via various organizations already described. Examples include Grassfire, NRA, GOA, NumbersUSA etc.

But you cannot win a defensive only war. Eventually you tire. You must also have an offense. And that offense has to strike at the heart of the resources, legitimacy and willingness to fight of the enemy's personnel. I believe that secession movements -- and there are many -- are the best offense.

Anyone passingly familiar with just a hint of U.S. military might should disabuse themselves right now of any notions of being able to win a war as some sort of disorganized resistance. You cannot protect yourself forever from that sort of power as a lone individual. You need the protection of an organized sovereign government for this -- and, in fact, that is the very PURPOSE of government -- to protect your freedom.

And where do you find such a government that will harbor you and protect you and even wield some defensive military capability of its own? YOUR STATE.

Not all states are suitable. There are two kinds of states: net takers from the feds, and net givers to the feds. In any state that draws more from the feds than the citizens pay in federal taxes, you will not successfully start a secessionist movement.

However, in states that are net tax donors -- you have far greater likelihood of success. And when such a state leaves the union, the federal government is deprived of taxes, manpower, materiel and legitimacy all at once.

So you have the defensive position using various organizations, but actively organize the offensive position as well.

This will, of course, ultimately destroy the existing federal government. Once one state goes, another will go too. Pretty soon, all that is left is the net tax recipient states. The numbers just won't work.

In the new sovereign states, steps should be taken to prevent the sort of corruption that destroyed the prior federal government.

I see a large divergence of opinion, but I am not afraid of a civil war in the literal sense, with bullets.  As long as the means of communication are open and unregulated, I do not fear Americans.  (THis is one reason why I think the government should keep its hands of talk radio.  There are thousands of venues and media for liberal ideas, and I do not begrudge them those outlets.  If the one outlet for conservative ideas is limited, that would be a disaster.)

In any event, I take great faith in the enduring difference between the American and French Revolutions.  They didn't know when to quit fighting.

Even after our Civil War we went back to healing the divide faster than the French or Russians or Chinese did.

(The historic greatness of Lincoln is also as the  architect of the post-war policy of reconciliation, a tone that he set in his second innaugaral address, "With malice toward none, with charity for all let us strive ....to bind up the nation's wounds...")

Uhhhhh, is the poster a provider?  That would explain the couple of asskissers above me legitimizing this horeshit.  

Here's an *honest* opinion...you're a complete fucking nutcase.  I didn't get all the way through it, but your rantings about America nearing a Civil War is consistent with your crackpot theories on everything taking place in government.  Maybe you would be a good lay - john seems to think so.  And maybe you look stunningly sexy in that Napoleon hat.  I don't know.  But I do know that if you really believe anything you've expressed in your last few threads, then you are a certified whackjob.