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Will Americans Reclaim Our Nation in 2010 From the Thugs and Con Artists?

George Washington's picture




 

The giant banks are treating the American Citizen like we work for them, are holding the economy hostage, and are taking our deposits and using them to speculate in casino style gambling.

They've bought and paid for Congress and the White House. See this, this and this.

Will Americans exercise our power, or become serfs to a permanent banking royalty?

An economist says the healthcare bill "is just another bailout of the financial system", and lawyers say that it is unconstitutional.

Will we defeat this giveaway to the insurance giants, or become permanent slaves to mandatory insurance requirements?

Top scientists, economists and environmentalists all say
that cap and trade is a scam which won't significantly reduce C02
emissions, and will only help in making the financial players who
crashed the economy even more wealthy.

Will we defeat this
worthless scam, or allow the failed banks like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan
and Citigroup - who have already taken many billions of taxpayer
dollars - to make a fortune off of this con game at our expense?

Will
Americans reclaim our nation in 2010 from the thugs and con artists, or
put our heads down and stay subservient while the little we have left
in the way of money, resources and dignity is stolen by the giant
banks, insurance companies and carbon trading players?

 

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Thu, 12/31/2009 - 20:37 | 179532 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Nothing to see; America has been sold and bought.
People is too sleepy to notice after decades of wild parties.

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 20:35 | 179529 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

The important question is: Will those who know the Law and how to use it get to work to challenge, restrain, sue the thieves and America-wreckers? Where are the Attorneys General, the U.S. Attorneys, the legal think-tanks, and others who can petition the Courts? Better to use the structure of the Law than wait for a potentially bloody confrontation.

Fri, 01/01/2010 - 02:26 | 179713 RockyRacoon
RockyRacoon's picture

I unabashedly quote another person in a post to a different topic, but it was so good it stuck in my mind.  I hereby plagiarize:

The people you mention are reluctant to connect the dots because they are part of the picture.

Sun, 01/03/2010 - 00:49 | 180985 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Sometimes the toilet just needs to be flushed.

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 20:15 | 179505 sethstorm
sethstorm's picture

When I read "Con Artists", I wonder if that includes folks who offshore work and/or promote that practice.

Right now, it is an outright lie if you're unable to find the people qualified to do the work - there's plenty of them to go around in the US and you're just looking for a legally plausible way out of hiring them.

 

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 20:01 | 179498 vanderrook
vanderrook's picture

Mr. Washington,

I like your comments and always enjoy reading them. I do notice, though, that whenever you list the agents of our destruction (as far as I can recall from my memory, such as it is), there always seems to be one very conspicuous group left out; this isn't a criticism as much as it is a general question: why do you never explicitly mention the politicians as being, at the very least, equal in this criminal activity?

They always seem to play a secondary, almost victimized collection of owned or duped players in all this (I do note you say they've been bought, but this suggests they are "collateral damage" in all this to me).

The tone of your article implies that the politicians, through the electorate at the midterms, can fix, or at least minimize, this fantastic conflagration. These people are no "babes in the woods."

I agree with you; the bankers, insurance companies, et al, are taking the country to the cleaners. I just think that the politicos are the chicken- not the egg. Without their naked complicity, I find it hard to believe that most of this would be going on. Yes, the financiers bought and paid for them- but it was the politician who was bought; and how can we be sure that they aren't the ones who initiated the transaction of their souls to begin with?

Have I misread your point? Do you equate banking royalty with our rulers? Are they interchangeable to your mind?

For the record, I vote that we won't do anything to significantly change anything- especially at the polls. Still a bit early to tell. I hate to be so pessimistic, but I will choose to be at this juncture.

Time to prepare for this evening's debauchery-Happy New Year!

Fri, 01/01/2010 - 00:04 | 179651 Rusty_Shackleford
Rusty_Shackleford's picture

 

Bingo.

Our enemy, the state.

 

Fri, 01/01/2010 - 16:21 | 180015 Andrei Vyshinsky
Andrei Vyshinsky's picture

And here, as though the state somehow possessed moral agency, is the fundamental absurdity of the libertariian pseudo-religion. Structures such as the state, since they are not persons, are morally neutral and therefore cannot be our enemies. I'm always dumbfounded to hear libertarians who would otherwise recognize the moral neutrality of, say, guns, for example, holding out the state as intrinsically evil, as personal. Now, show me a lobbyist or a politician in the present context and I'll show you an enemy.

Fri, 01/01/2010 - 23:48 | 180300 mouser98
mouser98's picture

what is it exactly that you find "absurd" about the libertarian position?  is it the notion that people should be free to live their lives as they like without government intervention?  or is it the notion that if people were free to live their lives as they like and run their businesses as they like, that society would be so much better off due to the ultimate efficiency of resource allocation by the free market?  IMO its pretty cowardly to rip into someone's ideology without revealing your own.  but then communism is a pretty cowardly ideology isn't it?

Sat, 01/02/2010 - 06:42 | 180426 Andrei Vyshinsky
Andrei Vyshinsky's picture

A series of questions for which you've already supplied yourself with answers, it would seem. How, then, to be helpful to someone enjoying such an exhaustive array of "liberties". :-)

Bend over and crack a smile, son.

Sat, 01/02/2010 - 15:13 | 180704 SWRichmond
SWRichmond's picture

Yep, troll.

Sat, 01/02/2010 - 11:39 | 180537 mouser98
mouser98's picture

thats what i thought, just a troll

Fri, 01/01/2010 - 18:00 | 180084 WaterWings
WaterWings's picture

You somehow made a simple statement into a complicated one. I mean, you pretty much said the same thing as Rusty but you salt it with a strawman attack and a lack of respect for the intentions of the Founding Fathers. And hey, leave firearms out of it - an inanimate object can't defend itself! Jerk.

Fri, 01/01/2010 - 19:40 | 180177 Andrei Vyshinsky
Andrei Vyshinsky's picture

Watermouth,

Aw.. Now have I've gone and tread on those exquisitely delicate libertarian sensibiities of yours, little man? They're that fragile, are they? If so, maybe they're not worth having, eh? And if you think I "pretty much said the same thing as Rusty", its not only your sensibilities that are fragile. But in the that hope you'll somehow get past this little bruising and move further on into adolescence, here's a personal recommendation for you: Find a new emetic. The old one's clearly stopped working.

Fri, 01/01/2010 - 19:48 | 180179 WaterWings
WaterWings's picture

Hahahackhackha! At least provide some substance.

Fri, 01/01/2010 - 12:29 | 179837 Glaucus
Glaucus's picture

Bingo, indeed, so let's supply the coordinates . . .

http://www.barefootsworld.net/nockoets0.html 

. . . and include its predecessor's . . .

http://www.franz-oppenheimer.de/state0.htm

Now, since these are free, there's no good reason not to start the new decade off by reading them, especially since it stands to be the most momentous decade of your life.  And having thus identified the problem -- to quote Thoreau, "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root" -- let us strike in the manner that Thoreau prescribed and that both Gandhi and MLK emulated.  Which is to say, we don't need no stinking guns* any more than the people of the former Soviet Union did (not a shot fired, remember?).  All we need to do is withdraw our support of the political process, and our oppressors -- all of whom can be gathered under the umbrella of statism -- will have no choice but to capitulate.

No, not this day, this week, this month, or this year.  But soon.

So do as I and others are doing and start withdrawing now.

* Except to protect yourself from your fellow subjects in the interim.

Sat, 01/02/2010 - 14:23 | 180665 torabora
torabora's picture

You forget the tanks lobbing rounds at their parliament building. I was unemployed then and got to watch the wonder live on TeeVee while munching popcorn!

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 20:33 | 179525 George Washington
George Washington's picture

You say:

I agree with you; the bankers, insurance companies, et al, are taking the country to the cleaners. I just think that the politicos are the chicken- not the egg.

Well, politicans are technically best described as pimps, as shown in this article I linked to above.

Sat, 01/02/2010 - 14:20 | 180661 torabora
torabora's picture

Rep. Barney Frank had a underaged male prostitution ring ran out of his own house.

pimps?

Fri, 01/01/2010 - 14:50 | 179949 Andrei Vyshinsky
Andrei Vyshinsky's picture

Here is the essence of the argument characterizing politicians as "pimps" rather than "whores" proffered by the article to which you linked us:

"Real whores, after all, personally supply the services their customers seek. Prostitutes do not steal; their customers pay them voluntarily. And their customers pay only with money belonging to these customers.

"In contrast, members of Congress routinely truck and barter with other people's property...

"Members of Congress are less like whores than they are like pimps for persons unwillingly conscripted to perform unpleasant services."

This assertion is entirely off the mark as members of Congress do, in fact, "personally supply the the services their customers seek". They are in a fiduciary relationship with their constituents in the the most exacting sense, given the right to operate personally in respect of the peoples' wealth in a way not at all unlike that of a trustee. And since the nation as a whole can be considered both donor and beneficiary of this trust, both the fiduciary and moral responsibilities implicit therein are of enormous magnitude.

With all respect to you personally, George, the questioner is right to bring politicians out from behind such rationales - or rationalizations, as the case may be - and into public view where the full extent of their treachery can be measured. These filth are the very worst of whores, and in a brothel that defiles in a way comparable only to some Black Mass. One day the people will come asserting their rights against these vermin and their score will be settled once and for all.

Fri, 01/01/2010 - 20:51 | 180211 George Washington
George Washington's picture

Mr. Vyshinsky, I am not disagreeing with you. I ave wrtten alot about Fascism. When we have merger of state and corporations, can anyone say corporations acting criminally are worse than government acting criminally? Or am I missing your point?

Sat, 01/02/2010 - 01:07 | 180350 Andrei Vyshinsky
Andrei Vyshinsky's picture

It was simply my point to offer some support to the initial commentator who felt that the role of the politician in this chicanery was being downplayed. But the question you raise here is an interesting one. No, in my view, one cannot say that corporations acting criminally are worse than governments acting criminally and for the very reason to which I pointed above. In the case of government criminality there is a relationship of trust that is abused whereas with corporate criminality nothing comparable exists. It is like measuring the fiduciary relation against the principle of caveat emptor.

Fri, 01/01/2010 - 12:44 | 179850 Whats that smell
Whats that smell's picture

ZH should post this as a poll.

I vote "bend over"

Fri, 01/01/2010 - 16:23 | 180019 ZerOhead
ZerOhead's picture

I'm buying more KY tomorrow to beat the rush!

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 20:08 | 179497 WaterWings
WaterWings's picture

I'd rather have the pain now then wait to see the dystopia around the corner.

I wonder what impact this underwear bomber will have on the average American psyche - it is hard not to see how bungled (if not intentional!) the whole thing was. The response from DHS and White House was appalling. Very strange events.

I would say O doesn't even care anymore. He gave himself a B+. The only thing that could surprise me more after seeing O follow in the footsteps of W is to see O get the Nobel prize. I didn't have to see it to believe it - I just knew it was true. My coworkers and I were stunned. I was glad when he was elected. Then he nominated Geithner.

What will America do? How can O make it any worse? I wonder if nothing short of food shortages and rolling blackouts will wake people up - and even then they won't really be awake. If food shows up they will quiet down again. We are learning how to be slaves. Whatever happens, I'm with you George.

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 19:55 | 179496 sgt_doom
sgt_doom's picture

There is no economy.  This is difficult for many to still grasp, but for anyone who has seriously walked around with a valid economic model in their heads for any time lately, this is obvious.

Alan Tonelson has an excellent article in this month's Harper -- excellent review for anyone who still doesn't fully grasp it.

For the rest, Happy New Year!!!!!!

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 19:50 | 179494 Landrew
Landrew's picture

As with most disfunctional people,groups they must arrive at the bottom in order to change. We have not hit bottom until the lender of last resort capitulates. What will signal the failure of the last resort lender? One of my economic predictions for 2010 a failed long bond auction is the best guess. A bid to cover of  1 and change for a 7-30 yr. auction would be the end of the pretending.

Sun, 01/03/2010 - 00:30 | 180973 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Many people hit bottom and simply stay there. Nations can linger on the bottom for generations. "Change" can go in many directions. An epiphany by criminals on a pillage is unlikely. By the destitute not guaranteed.

We have a lot of flushing to do - a generation or two perhaps.

How many really need a failed LB auction to realize what is already obvious? Creditors are acting now. Yet the pretending goes on.

The public wants to believe - to hope.
They will continue to be fooled.
The pretending will NEVER END.

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 21:56 | 179572 Rainman
Rainman's picture

A tip of the old champagne glass on the failed long bond auction. That's also my number 1 most probable event for ripping the clothes off the emperor in 2010.

Cheers.......at least for a little while longer. 

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 19:42 | 179491 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

ok, HOW? String up all the bankers? Short of armed revolution, we cant vote out the current system. They own it ALL.

Fri, 01/01/2010 - 11:44 | 179807 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Consider converting digital assets to gold and silver, then it least likely that your own assets can or will be used against you.

Thu, 12/31/2009 - 20:14 | 179512 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Armed revolution cannot succeed, since government will always have more and better arms and the trained thugs to man them, any attempt at it would simply trigger the will to deploy these more sophisticated arms. Not that this would be required - simply shutting off the electricity or closing the interstate highway system for a couple of weeks would literally starve the nation into submission to any government demand. Stop the truck traffic for two weeks and society won't even have chlorinated drinking water, not to mention food, fuel or anything else taken for granted by civilized society (per the ATA). A national (or coordinated regional) electrical blackout would freeze the impacted area immediately. Isolate and conquer - always effective if the peasants become too revolting. Martial law and troops in the streets would be welcomed as heros if they were delivering water and food stocks to the cold, thirsty former NASCAR-viewing masses, after a few days without the TV, lights and depending upon season, heat/air conditioning.

The new year's eve question I ponder is probably similar to one pondered by the European Jews in the 1930's ... Stay, or Leave?

Fri, 01/01/2010 - 22:42 | 180271 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

First, I do not think armed revolution will be necessary to get us back on the right path. I actually think it will happen naturally. What we are experiencing is mass disintermediation. This disintermeidation ultimately will take out the bankers: it is just a matter of how long.

Second, if armed revolution were required, I have no doubts that it would be succesful. The reason: everyone knows the primary targets of the corrupt class. No amount of sophisticated weaponry will defend them.

Third, if it came to armed revolution, there are enough legitimate business interests that do not depend on corruption that even the most captured government officials would sacrifice the corrupt.

Sat, 01/02/2010 - 01:56 | 180373 George Washington
George Washington's picture

I am working on a new essay.  I quote you, anon ... Here's the essay ...

 

My parents were totally against guns,

They believed that guns only lead to crime and to accidental shootings.

Sure, I'd read some quotes by the Founding Fathers on guns.  But they didn't really strike me as being relevant.

What the Founding Fathers Said About Guns

Here's what the Founding Fathers said about arms:

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms, disarm only those who are neither inclined, nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants. They serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1764

 

What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms.
-- Thomas Jefferson

 

Those who beat their swords into plowshares usually end up plowing for those who didn't.
-- Ben Franklin

 

Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property... Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them.
--Thomas Paine

 

A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.
-- George Washington

 

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined…The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.
--Patrick Henry.

 

Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms under our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?
-- Patrick Henry, 3 Elliot, Debates at 386.

 

The Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.
--Samuel Adams, debates & Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 86-87.

 

The right of the people to keep and bear…arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country…
--James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789).

 

(The Constitution preserves) the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation…(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
--James Madison.

 

If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government...
-- Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist (#28) .

 

The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.
--Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-B.

 

To disarm the people is the best and most effective way to enslave them.
-- George Mason

 

The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. --Noah Webster, “An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (1787) in Pamplets on the Constitution of the United States (P.Ford, 1888)

 

[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or the state governments, but where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the People.

-- Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

But those quotes are so old that I didn't give them much thought. Again, I was taught that the government would protect us, and that private gun ownership was the danger.

What Gandhi and the Dalai Lama Say

I have now found that two of the best-known promoters of nonviolence in history were pro-gun. Specifically, Mahatma Gandhi wrote in his book, An Autobiography (page 446):

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest ... if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity.

And as quoted in the Seattle Times, May 15, 2001, the Dalai Lama said:

If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun. Not at the head, where a fatal wound might result. But at some other body part, such as a leg.

How Useful is a Gun Against Tyranny When the Government Has Bigger Weapons?

Of course, the usefulness of a gun as a defense against tyranny depends partly on the types of arms possessed by the government.  Indeed, as I think though it, I now realize that this is why the statements of the Founding Fathers about guns did not resonate with me when I was younger.

As George Orwell - author of 1984 - pointed out in the Tribune (October 19, 1945), the effectiveness of arms in preventing tyranny partly depends on whether the average citizen can afford the current weapon of choice possessed by the government:

The connection between the discovery of gunpowder and the overthrow of feudalism by the bourgeoisie has been pointed out over and over again. And though I have no doubt exceptions can be brought forward, I think the following rule would be found generally true: that ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will tend to be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance. Thus, for example, thanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon--so long as there is no answer to it--gives claws to the weak.

The great age of democracy and of national self-determination was the age of the musket and the rifle. After the invention of the flintlock, and before the invention of the percussion cap, the musket was a fairly efficient weapon, and at the same time so simple that it could be produced almost anywhere. Its combination of qualities made possible the success of the American and French revolutions, and made a popular insurrection a more serious business than it could be in our own day. After the musket came the breech-loading rifle. This was a comparatively complex thing, but it could still be produced in scores of countries, and it was cheap, easily smuggled and economical of ammunition. Even the most backward nation could always get hold of rifles from one source or another, so that Boers, Bulgars, Abyssinians, Moroccans--even Tibetans--could put up a fight for their independence, sometimes with success. But thereafter every development in military technique has favoured the State as against the individual, and the industrialised country as against the backward one ...The one thing that might reverse it is the discovery of a weapon--or, to put it more broadly, of a method of fighting--not dependent on huge concentrations of industrial plant.

On the other hand, one anonymous writer argues:

[Violence is not required.  But] if armed revolution were required, I have no doubts that it would be succesful. The reason: everyone knows the primary targets of the corrupt class. No amount of sophisticated weaponry will defend them.

Is the Offensive Use of Violence Ever Acceptable?

The defensive use of weapons to protect oneself when attacked is one thing.  But what about the offensive use of weapons against a tyrannical government?

Some - including this essay in the progressive/liberal magazine Utne Reader - argue that non-violence by itself and without the threat of violence has never worked, and claimed that those who think that the non-violent resistance of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. or Nelson Mandela was the decisive factor in their victories are ignorant.  Others argue that this is a complete misreading of history. 

Some have argued that violence is wholly unnecessary because fascists in a technological society are highly vulnerable to non-violent acts.

Many smart people argue:

Violence will achieve nothing, but will provide them with an excuse to crack down. The violent overthrow of government by the masses simply isn't possible in this day and age, nor is it desirable. Our strength lies in our solidarity and our ability to bring the machine to a screeching halt. When we resort to violence, we have compromised our strength and made ourselves weak.

What do I believe?

Personally, my views on the defensive use of force are straightforward.  I believe in the right to bear arms and to protect oneself and one's family against someone threatening substantial violence.

The offensive use of violence is much more problematic.  President John F. Kennendy said:

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

I strongly believe that it is morally wrong to offensively use violence so long as there are any means whatsoever of preventing fascism through nonviolent means.  

Sun, 01/03/2010 - 12:18 | 181136 PierreLegrand
PierreLegrand's picture

Excellent response...my goodness it almost sounds as if you have been to an Appleseed Shoot.

The founders themselves understood that if they were seen to be starting the war they would lose the moral highground and with it much of their support. They provoked the British and then when the Brits responded the war was fought.

The primary lesson is never shoot first but never allow them to think you will roll over if they start shooting.

Sat, 01/02/2010 - 15:08 | 180694 SWRichmond
SWRichmond's picture

The defensive use of weapons to protect oneself when attacked is one thing.  But what about the offensive use of weapons against a tyrannical government?

GW:

The answer to your question is quite simple.  When government becomes tyrannical, it is no longer exercising its public mandate to protect the public.  The average person no longer has any appeal to any legitimate legal authority.  In other words, under tyranny, civil government has ceased to exist.  If one takes Locke's view literally, under those conditions we have reverted to the Lockean "State of Nature".

Sect. 4. To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.

A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty.

But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence: though man in that state have an uncontroulable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it. The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions: and being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us, that may authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another's uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for our's. Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station wilfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.

And that all men may be restrained from invading others rights, and from doing hurt to one another, and the law of nature be observed, which willeth the peace and preservation of all mankind, the execution of the law of nature is, in that state, put into every man's hands, whereby every one has a right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree, as may hinder its violation: for the law of nature would, as all other laws that concern men in this world 'be in vain, if there were no body that in the state of nature had a power to execute that law, and thereby preserve the innocent and restrain offenders. And if any one in the state of nature may punish another for any evil he has done, every one may do so: for in that state of perfect equality, where naturally there is no superiority or jurisdiction of one over another, what any may do in prosecution of that law, every one must needs have a right to do.

 

Sat, 01/02/2010 - 15:15 | 180705 WaterWings
WaterWings's picture

What an appropriate addition.

Sat, 01/02/2010 - 18:56 | 180829 SWRichmond
SWRichmond's picture

Thanks. It's a baby step from there to here:

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to 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.

Sun, 01/03/2010 - 00:58 | 180990 WaterWings
WaterWings's picture

Can you outdo yourself with appropriateness? Astounding, good sir!

Sun, 01/03/2010 - 00:39 | 180977 illyia
illyia's picture

Nice.

What a great thread.

i.

Sat, 01/02/2010 - 14:01 | 180641 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

"I strongly believe that it is morally wrong to offensively use violence so long as there are any means whatsoever of preventing fascism through nonviolent means."  

To be the Devil's advocate, by the time all nonviolent means of preventing fascism have been exhausted, there will be no violent means available. I present as evidence those long lines heading into the Nazi gas chambers.

Realistically, people will not exhaust the nonviolent means because they won't even try. As long as the powers that be effectively isolate and marginalize each and everyone of us, there will be no real (or at least effect) resistance.

The key to pacification of the population is to keep the lights and TVs on and the corn chips flowing. Bread and circuses start at home now. No need to visit the forum when I have a 50" LCD beaming it live into my living room 24/7/365.

 

Sun, 01/03/2010 - 00:37 | 180975 illyia
illyia's picture

Ugh.

Bread and circuses start at home now. No need to visit the forum when I have a 50" LCD beaming it live into my living room 24/7/365.

And, therein lies the rub...

Sat, 01/02/2010 - 13:05 | 180609 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Mr. Washington,

Fascism as I understand the term is the merging of business, generally the biggest businesses, with government.

Given that has been the policy in the US since Reagan, with the privatization and contracting of many formerly government operations, which therefore assures large contributions to elected official's "campaign" committees in order to maintain these rich government feeding troughs, I'd say the deal has been done.

When a trillion dollars per year flows into "defense," and at least 30% of that is now private sector / contractor profit, the merger's fairly well complete. The Senate "health care" (aka mandatory payments to a private sector insurance cartel) bill, which will funnel another trillion-plus per year into the trough expands the concept quite nicely.

Guns - several of which I own myself, but I live in bear country and my first few rounds are rubber buckshot and beanbags - are not the answer to a merged corporate/government elite with more wealth within its top 1% than the lower 90% of the nation combined and the willingness to take even more. Organization is the threat, not hardware.

This depression probably is a far greater threat, especially as it grows, reducing tax revenues, foreign bond purchases and corporate income. The effect is an accidental organization of the public similar to a growing general strike, lowering spending and cash flow in general, which is forcing this government to print itself into irrelevance in order to pay its bills and debts, don't you think? Declining oil production and exports to us will also limit the term of this fascist power play, since big government is, like everything else, possible only by its use of - and dependence on - oil energy. (Why it has that strategic reserve - so it will have gas when we don't.)

Societal complexity based upon cheap energy will collapse quickly in the coming few years and those at the top of the food chain know this. Why else would the top 1% loot the economy as it has? The knowledge that the S will HTF is in my opinion why our public funds happily and proudly pay for militarism everywhere there is oil, rather than universal health care for citizens, deemed evil socialism as "defense" contracting budgets endlessly expand (good socialism).

We can get along without universal health care, and will continue to. A 20% cut in imported oil due to a problem in the Strait of Hormuz would tip the system over tomorrow.

Millions of more people taking advantage of the recent IRS mandate (in the Mortgage Act) to no longer tax the difference between an abandoned home loan's value and the amount recovered in a foreclosure sale - which makes the "jingle key" exit from an underwater property pretty-much retribution-free - would probably tip things over within a year, as government printing presses run ever faster to pay off the guarantees.

Want a real revolution? Stop paying off debt. Stop buying more than you need. As we said in the 60's, "Turn on, Tune in, Drop OUT." Ironically, the "great recession" has already started the revolution, hasn't it? As government prints more to replace our enforced lack of economic participation, it only speeds its own demise.

The top end's willingness to devalue the currency to zero as it loots the last dime in its value will be all the revolution needed to bring down this house ... sadly though, this batch of clowns show no signs of leaving anything behind on their way out the door. But historically, the clown class never has, have they?

Cheers,

Fri, 01/01/2010 - 20:05 | 180188 mynhair
mynhair's picture

More of us than them.  Being in a hurricane area, also have plenty of food and a boatload (literally) of water.  Lots of solar panels and batteries on the boat.  F 'em, just let me know when it starts!

Fri, 01/01/2010 - 18:12 | 180109 Damn Yankee
Damn Yankee's picture

@ Anonymous:

 

You're right that armed revolution, in the sense of the American Revolution, cannot succeed. But I think you overstate the power of the government. Yes, right now, at this moment, the police and the military will follow orders and impose Martial Law when so ordered. But when hundreds of thousands of retired military and police (local and federal) see that their pensions have been slashed (see anything written by Leo Kolivakis) and that their medical benefits have been cut, they will no longer support this government. They'll openly question just what it is they're fighting for. This will strike a body blow to the morale of the active police and military.

 

If the government does shut off the electricity or willfully shuts down the food distribution system in this country as a means of controlling the population, the U.S. will lose ALL legitimacy on the world stage. The dollar index will reach zero before the food in our kitchen cabinets runs out. This will cause a catastrophic run on U.S. debt causing interest rates to rise, like, way fast. So fast that police and military, whether on the job or retired, will be shooting fellow Americans for Zero Compensation. What store will sell food to a cop or soldier, retired or active duty? Yeah, the cops will resort to force, but such actions will affect their souls. They will become pariahs in their communities Forever! It will take generations for Americans ever to trust the police again. All Americans will grow to despise all forms of police.  And what about their families? Parents, grandparents, siblings, children?

 

It's also good to remember that soldiers and cops are much more likely to have actually read the constitution. Despite the obvious conflicts they have to endure when following orders, they actually believe in the system of government created by the Founding Fathers. Politicians, on the other hand, have ZERO respect for the rule of law and the cops well know it. More legitimacy problems for Team Obama.

 

It won't be easy and it won't be pretty. We will suffer. But so will they! When the government no longer has legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens _and_ it's police what do you think will happen? People will choose sides. The "thin blue line" that cops always talk about will decay overnight. Where there once was a hundred cops there will be 50, then 25 and then none. Remember, their paychecks will purchase nothing. Their pensions will be worthless. You can't pay people to oppress their own neighbors for nothing more than government cheese.

 

"Acts of Terror" by citizens against police or anyone in the FIRE industry will occur with alarming rapidity. The government will not be able to prevent it because such terror will be self-radicalizing. No meetings in dank basements, no secret handshakes, people will just DO it. My own humble preparations for the future Barter Economy includes stocking up on certain "necessary things" like small bottles of Bourbon, Scotch, and Vodka. And I'll have no problem bartering even with the cops. They want a drink they can pay me ... with Guns 'n Ammo.

 

As for leaving, where will you go? Personally, I'm staying. Call me crazy but these are "interesting times" and I want to be right here, where the action is.

Sat, 01/02/2010 - 14:17 | 180657 torabora
torabora's picture

The breakdown in society is EXACTLY what Obama and crew want. Bush helped get us to this point too.

Fri, 01/01/2010 - 21:08 | 180218 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Mr. Yankee,

The power of this government - if one's been even peripherally exposed to, for example, FEMA, over the past decade - can't be overstated.

15 years ago, 95% of FEMA's budget was classified top secret and unreported. The public number was 5% of their funding. FEMA is devoted to "continuation of government" planning and the budget ratio, including all of those trailer houses, remains similar today. "COG" is evidently still so classified even congressmen can't access the plans - or at least, Mr. Kucinich has had no luck at viewing them. FEMA has had little to do with "hurricane response" - it is about maintaining the government's status quo, from Commander in Chief to Dogcatcher against any threat. Now FEMA's a small part of DHS, our "Ministry of the Interior." Anyone advocating armed or other revolt, in any electronic format anyway, is already known to these agencies databases. Organization of any actual "revolution" is therefore impossible in this day and age.

The expression, made to Alexis DeToqueville 230 years or so ago, "As long as men can speak with liberty, you can bet they won't act," has never been more apt. Now that virtually all communications are digital, can be easily monitored and the content evaluated without human intervention, those who would act can simply be removed from the conversation while the rest simply vent - but don't act.

If the government ever shuts off basic infrastructure to quell some poorly organized, probably spontaneous local or regional uprising, you can be assured the government will not have anything to do with the shutdown - the transmission line towers falling over will be due to "terrorists" or the work of some "mentally unstable individual acting alone" and the government, troops, cops, what have you, will be "here to help." Most responders will believe the story.

As for cops and reading the constitution, I once asked a neighbor in Northwest Florida, after hearing an appalling clandestine audio recording of a KKK meeting, how one would join the Klan. (I was in the media then and was considering airing the tape.) His dead-serious reply? "Ask any deputy sheriff, they're all in it." The tape never aired.

There will be no revolution. Collapse? Certainly. Not this year, probably not for a decade, but within our lifetimes. The oil wars are well underway and national "energy policy" is still more troops anywhere there's oil. As Joe Baegant said recently, isn't it odd that terrorists only congregate where there's oil? MK Hubbert and J Carter predicted this era 30+ years ago, if alternatives to an oil lifestyle weren't developed. By 2050 the world will have an 1850's lifestyle and probably, population. Until collapse though, the status quo of government and the wealthy will do whatever is possible to preserve themselves and "revolution" will be impossible, not that it would accomplish anything in the long term.

Sat, 01/02/2010 - 21:37 | 180900 PierreLegrand
PierreLegrand's picture

Hmm....well if we are worrying about FEMA then maybe we need to judge them by their acts instead of their reputation? Wife spent some quality time with FEMA as a contractor trying to unfuck their system of organization regarding supplies to New Orleans during Katrina. They were using 3x5 cards to keep track of shit. Incompetence doesn't even begin to describe the clusterfuck that is our government.

I suspect that our government has become much like the old Soviet Union where incompetence was the primary quality displayed by every functionary because showing any talent at all got you targeted as a troublemaker. Ayn Rand used to laugh about the threat that was the Soviet Union. She accurately described what would happen if they managed to actually have to fight...Afghanistan proved her correct.

Now do I want to fight...absolutely not, because once we break this system we won't ever be able to put it back together again. Can we fix the system we have right now? Probably not...the take over of our education system by the left insures that we are surrounded by hobbled youngsters who know neither history or logic.

Sat, 01/02/2010 - 09:23 | 180466 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Anonymous #180218 quotes somebody who I, personally, am not familiar with by the name of Joe Baegant. Nonetheless, evidently this Mr. Joe Baegant said recently, "isn't it odd that terrorists only congregate where there's oil"?

Actually, approximately 18 countries at the moment have substantial terrorist networks in their midst. Many of these 18 countries are not in possession of very much petrol at all. To wit, the 2002 nightclub bombings in Bali, Indonesia which saw over 200 revelers killed in an act of mass murder via terrorism.

And, this is by no means an isolated incident in Bali -
'Government Urges Aussies to Delay Bali Travel'
(By Emma Chalmers; The Courier-Mail, Jan. 02, 2010)

*'Very High Threat' terror warning issued.
* Travelers told to reconsider travel to Bali.
* Indonesia issued warning on New Years Eve.
` see link for more:
http://www.news.com.au/travel/aussies-urged-by-federal-governemnt-to-del...

Additionally, besides Indonesia, there are numerous known terror cells in other countries with very limited oil reserves such as Algeria, Somalia, Britain, and Denmark off the top of my head.

It's the worldwide Caliphate, baby. It's the strict Wahhabist interpretation of Islam, jackson. It's Sharia Law, homie...don't ya' know me? Don't ya' know me, homie?

It's you and I being subjugated to a status of Kuffir, and extorted out of a Dhimmi Tax to "allow" us the "privilege" of living in a state of Dhimmitude amongst our "superior" Islamic counterparts.

Or, they could just kill us. Either way, they don't really care all that much if there's "oil" or not.

Sat, 01/02/2010 - 01:20 | 180360 Damn Yankee
Damn Yankee's picture

@ Anonymous:

"Mr. Yankee,"

We're all friends here.  Call me Damn. ;

First, I have to clarify that I don't advocate armed revolution; the very idea of it is hopeless not least for the very reasons you stated; so I'm with you on that.  Besides, the American Revolution wasn't merely against tyranny; it was for Liberty.  So, no revolution.  But there will be mayhem.  Lots and lots of mayhem.

Excellent points about FEMA.  But even FEMA employees have to eat.  If their paychecks are worthless, they'll become demoralized; and the value of their pensions and paychecks will sink like a stone when (not if) the government overplays its hand, because the U.S. government will lose legitimacy on the world stage and everyone who now loans us money will run, run, RUN from the dollar and all its works.

It won't happen right away.  Things will continue in this maddeningly petty pace for years and years.  But there will be a tipping point; an event or series of events that will cause a worldwide panic.  The U.S. is all powerful now because we have the Money and we have the Money because people around the world Lend it to us by buying our paper.

Right now the government can get away with double speak.  Many if us, myself included, continue to hope that reason will prevail, that our government actually will begin to act in the interests of its people, as against the interests of the Oligarchy.  But actions speak so much louder than words.  See Obama's Health Plan.

And I'm not saying the government won't shut down infrastructure to control us.  I'm saying that when they do, they will immediately lose legitimacy.  Even if the people believe the story that terrorists did it, the government still loses.  People around the world aren't stupid.  And you cannot fool all of the people all of the time, even if those people are Americans.  They can shut down infrastructure once, maybe even twice with a bullshit story about terrorists.  After that no one will believe it, even they're too afraid to speak it out.

About those NW Florida cops, you're right.  I overstated my case on cops.  We don't have the clan up here in New York, but Law Enforcement is a logical career choice for sadists and racists.  But this doesn't represent ALL of the cops, not even a majority.  And I know many cops and many more soldiers (Marines, usually) who've read the constitution and take it seriously. 

You wrote: "The expression, made to Alexis DeToqueville 230 years or so ago, "As long as men can speak with liberty, you can bet they won't act," has never been more apt."

Now that's cool.  I'm going to use that one.  But the government is already on that "Free Speech" problem. We'll know when they've "succeeded" because people like you and I won't bother to post on ZH or anywhere else anymore.  And the world will see it for what it is, tyranny.  And the government will be hit where it hurts the most, their big fat wallet.

When the stuff hits the fan, it'll be a barter economy until things get straightened out.  Booze and cigarettes, maybe even nylons and chocolate, will be the medium of exchange.



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