Don’t despair about ObamaCare
posted at 12:30 pm on December 20, 2009 by CK MacLeod
In a post featured in the HotAir headlines (and headed by a music video clearly intended to devastate the souls of all foolish enough to click), blogger Instapunk has used my “Go Ahead, Make Our Decade” post (also at the Green Room here) as a prime example of “Polyanna Syndrome” among conservatives, characterized in particular by the belief that the ongoing “political suicide” of the Obamacrats, most vividly on display in the Health Care legislation working its way through the legislative intestinal tract, may provide an opportunity far more important than any damage they have done or will yet do.
I referred to this idea in passing as “‘the worse, the better’ rightwing Leninism.” Instapunk calls it “absolutely dead wrong… no ifs, ands, or buts about it”:
It’s sheer giddiness to think that it’s somehow better for conservatives if the Democrats succeed in passing this truly horrendous healthcare bill. Madness, in fact. Yes, the Dems will experience huge losses at the polls in 2010, but even the rosiest of all possible electoral scenarios is nowhere near rosy enough to undo the damage the bill would cause. The Republicans could retake the House, but not by the majority the Democrats presently hold. It’s less likely, though remotely possible, that Republicans could retake the Senate.
Psychological diagnosis notwithstanding, Instapunk comes fairly close here to conceding my initial point – that (quoting myself and adding emphasis) “purely from a political standpoint, this should be a time for celebration.”
To be clear, we don’t differ much at all, as far as I can see, on the policy question. I readily concede that Obamacare if enacted and implemented would be a disaster for conservatives, for Americans, and by extension for the world. On this note, Instapunk rightly emphasizes that policy is in the end more important than politics, then adds a gloomy forecast regarding the latter ever turning sufficiently to overcome the former:
However, there’s no way on earth the Republicans could command the 60-40 majority that has made possible the currently imminent hijacking of one-sixth of the U.S. economy. Which means that there’s no way to get to the magic number that would be required for repeal.
To me, this logic suggests a fundamental misreading both of what we’ve seen transpire and of how American democracy works.
The history of Western democracy includes some truly stunning partisan wipe-outs, but we don’t need to dwell on what today seems a remote political possibility (as remote as, say, a ca. 60-Democrat Senate seemed in 2002). Dismantling, impeding, nullifying, and, in the end, fully repealing this bill does not require 60 Republicans or 60 conservatives: Greater legal, legislative, and historical minds than mine must already be studying the precedents and gaming the scenarios, but we can observe here that, if passing popular legislation in the Senate always required partisan super-majorities, we wouldn’t have had a major piece of legislation signed since 1979. We don’t know yet how the final votes in the Senate or for final passage after a House-Senate conference may go, but reversing them down the road would merely require a popularly backed majority joined by a passel of fence-sitters, perhaps including Democratic senators who in the current session vote for cloture but against final passage, perhaps including a few changes of heart. It could be as simple as that.
Looking further ahead, speculatively, the President himself would likely remain a roadblock to formal repeal, but, even prior to the election of 2012, the “damage control” that Instapunk describes, involving excision of particularly obnoxious elements of the bill, might effectively impede its implementation. Moreover, it’s well worth keeping in mind that removing the budgetary heart of the bill can be achieved via the Senate reconciliation process on a simple, unfilibusterable 51-vote majority (especially easy to justify if Obamacare finally passes on party line votes as narrow as Pelosicare’s in the House). If virtual repeal on this basis looks achievable as early as, say, 2011, the President might veto an O-care-destroying budget, while hoping for a re-play of the Clinton-Gingrich government shutdown confrontation of 1995, but such a battle could unfold in many different ways. After Obama is gone, a conservative president and conservative majority, at the crest of a continuing or revived conservative wave, could much more easily achieve effective or formal repeal.
The only reason to consider such outcomes impossible would be belief that the public will change its mind, that we do not face a looming fiscal and economic crunch, and that entitlement programs, once enacted, cannot ever be rescinded.
The first two propositions are at minimum debatable, and the tides of opinion and economic projection currently seem in conservatives’ political favor – a very well-evidenced observation that provided the basis for my “Make Our Decade” post and to varying degrees for the positions of my fellow Polyannist-Leninists. As for the third point, on the supernatural immortality of entitlement programs, we hear and read variations on it frequently – sometimes offered with a knowing laugh, lately from conservatives who have been attempting to gin up opposition to O-care – but, if and when the bill passes and is signed, the embrace of this perspective would be defeatism pure and simple.
It would also remain an exaggeration, because entitlements or their equivalent have repeatedly been cut or eliminated around the world and throughout history – though frequently, it must be admitted, only as a result of economic or political breakdown. The modern European welfare state has indeed been extremely difficult to unravel, but it hasn’t been around for very long. For most of the time that it has been in existence, progressivism, socialism, and their variants were historically new and on the rise, and were further supported by economic and political contingencies (including military and economic support from the US of A) that cannot last forever.
As for this specific entitlement, what makes anyone believe that any guarantee it entails or calculation it depends on will be sustainable for very long, much less become “permanent”? We will soon have to make some difficult fiscal choices on an almost incomprehensible scale, or have them made for us via national bankruptcy – under which latter situation all such entitlements would merely entitle the citizen to go searching with devalued dollars or theoretical guarantees for scarce to non-existent goods and services. The crisis of debt-supported, obligation-deferred, risk-displaced welfare state capitalism that exploded last year is not over. It’s hardly even in abeyance, and Obamacare promises to deepen and accelerate it.
Before the next reckoning is reached, a coherent political force can achieve things that previously seemed politically impossible. That sort of change, believed in or not, has happened before in history, several times in our own history, and sometimes far ahead of the schedule set by the change agents themselves. Furthermore, as has been pointed out by many observers ever since the polls turned decisively against Obamacare, no legislation this sweeping, partisan, and unpopular has ever before been passed. To use one of the Obama Administration’s favorite words, enactment of Obamacare would be truly unprecedented. We should therefore consider that unprecedented events tend to imply unprecedented responses, and unprecedented political events require and ensure unprecedented political responses: The only real question is how long the equal and opposite reaction can be denied and suppressed.
If Obamacare, on its own terms or as implicated in approaching fiscal catastrophe, remains anywhere near as unpopular over the coming years as it is now, there is no fundamental reason why it can’t be rescinded – piece by piece or all at once. I therefore remain convinced that the proper response by conservatives to its passage cannot and must not be despair – certainly not yet, certainly not while a popular wave against the prime perpetrators is rising, and not while the tools of democratic self-government are still within reach.
I can see why Instapunk and others might feel justified in calling me or anyone else out for unwarranted optimism as we stand on the Obamic “precipice,” but in my opinion defeatism and pessimism are far worse responses. This is a moment for sober judgment, and for confidence in one’s own beliefs and analysis, whichever best keeps you in the fight. It’s a moment to decide whether our message to the Obamaist progressives is going to be: “You win – we give up” or “We’re coming after you, and getting rid of your laughable, embarrassing, and repugnant health care bill (presuming you ever get around to passing it) will just be the beginning.”
cross-posted at Zombie Contentions
This post was promoted from GreenRoom to HotAir.com.
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I’m not sure it is plausible, either, but it’s pretty clear that there are two diametrically-opposed visions of how society ought to be governed floating around (yeah, many people don’t even have one vision of how society ought to be governed, but those are the people on the “whom” side of the “who-whom” question), so how do you square that circle, or, to switch metaphors, undo that Gordian Knot? Well, like Alexander the Great did when he saw the knot, I say cut it rather than get all twisted up trying to untangle it. A perfect example is every discussion I’ve had with a Leftist on tax policy over the years. They really believe that the US can go back to 1950′s-level tax rates without harming economic growth because, “Hey, we grew quickly back in the 1950s even though we had 70-80% tax rates”. Seriously, how do you ever reach a compromise with that type of “thinking”? At a certain point, it’s better to just say you go your way and I’ll go my way. Even trying to compromise and splitting the difference between the 15-20% tax rates I’d like to see and the 70-80% tax rates ends up unsatisfactory in the long-run.
I’d be one of those refugees. I live in a blue state for business purposes and most of the business purposes would probably become null and void if businesses had the opportunity to relocate in friendlier locales. That most of the corporate headquarters are in blue locations is an artifact of the time when the country as a whole was much “redder” than it is now.
venividivici on December 20, 2009 at 5:48 PM
I quite agree, and I believe that the red states would be inundated with Democrats escaping their own tyranny.
royzer on December 20, 2009 at 5:48 PM
Secession is a fact. What do you think those “sanctuary cities” are? If secession is okay for the illegal aliens in this country, it should be available to citizens.
Buddahpundit on December 20, 2009 at 5:51 PM
This migration would also put the lie to the idea that Lefties like to throw around about blue states subsidizing red states. It’s red individuals within blue states sending their income and other tax dollars to DC to then have them redistributed to red states that provides that apparent subsidy. Having red individuals migrate to red states would eliminate the DC middlemen.
Picture this playing out on a much larger scale:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124329282377252471.html
Millionaires Go Missing
Maryland’s fleeced taxpayers fight back.
Here’s a two-minute drill in soak-the-rich economics:
Maryland couldn’t balance its budget last year, so the state tried to close the shortfall by fleecing the wealthy. Politicians in Annapolis created a millionaire tax bracket, raising the top marginal income-tax rate to 6.25%. And because cities such as Baltimore and Bethesda also impose income taxes, the state-local tax rate can go as high as 9.45%. Governor Martin O’Malley, a dedicated class warrior, declared that these richest 0.3% of filers were “willing and able to pay their fair share.” The Baltimore Sun predicted the rich would “grin and bear it.”
One year later, nobody’s grinning. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. In 2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were filed by the end of April. This year there were 2,000, which the state comptroller’s office concedes is a “substantial decline.” On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year — even at higher rates.
No doubt the majority of that loss in millionaire filings results from the recession. However, this is one reason that depending on the rich to finance government is so ill-advised: Progressive tax rates create mountains of cash during good times that vanish during recessions. For evidence, consult California, New York and New Jersey (see here).
The Maryland state revenue office says it’s “way too early” to tell how many millionaires moved out of the state when the tax rates rose. But no one disputes that some rich filers did leave. It’s easier than the redistributionists think. Christopher Summers, president of the Maryland Public Policy Institute, notes: “Marylanders with high incomes typically own second homes in tax friendlier states like Florida, Delaware, South Carolina and Virginia. So it’s easy for them to change their residency.”
All of this means that the burden of paying for bloated government in Annapolis will fall on the middle class. Thanks to the futility of soaking the rich, these working families will now pay Mr. O’Malley’s “fair share.”
venividivici on December 20, 2009 at 6:04 PM
Small revolt brewing in the Senate: Republicans have brought Reid’s bribe to Nelson into the open, and are asking, state by state, for other states to enjoy the same federal Medicare subsidy Nelson got.
Baucus is objecting, but is being painted, along with his corrupt boss, into a corner.
Per C-Span 2, right now.
MrScribbler on December 20, 2009 at 6:14 PM
How can dem senators from liberal states like Mass., NY, NJ and others with medicaid deficits face their constituents? After all, Nebraska and La. get the deal and they get zip?
I think we’ve finally descended into total corruption.
chris999 on December 20, 2009 at 6:24 PM
I wish I knew a realistic way to untangle the knot. The damage, once the Barrycare beast is passed, seems irreparable. Yesterday I posted a comment that detailed how, in my opinion, the Repubs could potentially repeal the worst legislative monstrosity in history, but it would be an arduous and dicey endeavor. It would also require bipartisan cooperation.
Like you, I live in a blue state, and I’ll also be one of the refugees.
anXdem on December 20, 2009 at 6:33 PM
Never mind. The “rebellion” was quickly snuffed out and the Dems are rolling along again, unimpeded, toward their goal of making this land a nation fit for traitors, totalitarians and spendthrifts.
MrScribbler on December 20, 2009 at 6:40 PM
Interesting article. I’m certain a great many people will go missing from the blue tax states in the coming months and years. I plan to be one of them. Alas, I’m not a millionaire, though, with property in a tax friendlier state.
Unfortunately, I live in NY– a state that holds the distinction of having the highest taxes in the nation (although, we may rank second to CA). In any event, I’m considering a move to a red state such as Georgia or Tennessee. If at all possible, I’m confident these states would pioneer the road to secession.
anXdem on December 20, 2009 at 6:49 PM
A good point.
The cow giving the milk for this batch of government cheese would just have been born if this passes. A cow has to attain sexual maturity, mate, and give birth to a calf before she can produce any milk. That won’t happen till what, 2013, 2014?
The problem with rolling back entitlements are the populations depending on them. If the cow’s not giving milk, nobody’s surviving on the cheese, so they may not be in a position to object if you prefer making a hamburger out of the cow instead.
Sekhmet on December 20, 2009 at 6:55 PM
Malignant maggots always destroy their host. The host must fight back.
Dhuka on December 20, 2009 at 6:56 PM
I believe in Anthropogenic secession!
royzer on December 20, 2009 at 6:57 PM
Someone mentioned sanctuary cities above.
I must bring this point up, to offer a slightly different take on it.
Every city across America that is now a “sanctuary city” is in OPEN REBELLION against the federal government and immigration laws of the United States of America.
I have been saying for years that the intentional (and impeachable) refusal of presidents such as Clinton and Bush 43 to address massive violations of U.S. law was going to be the rip in the American fabric that tore our country apart down the road. Clinton and Bush allowed a foreign invasion of our Southwest. there is no other way to put it.
Now, oddly enough, the existence of these “sanctuary cities” across America, in which people illegally in the U.S. are being allowed to bleed dry the health-care system, and providers (by law!) are not allowed to ascertain citizenship, might actually provide the armor that allows states to defy the federal government and tell Obama to stick it in his ear.
When the bill comes for ObamaCare, and certain states refuse to pay (the lurking “opt-out” clause), they can refuse based upon the fact that they refuse to pay for people illegally in the country, and that they refuse to be penalized for refusing to obey a law that makes them pay for illegals blatantly living in cities where the mayors are openly defying federal immigration law, with the acquiescence of the federal government.
If states reject ObamaCare, then by Equal Protection under the 14th Amendment, they should be able to petition the Supreme Court that if the Feds make them pay at financial gunpoint, then the Feds also either must ensure that no money goes to illegals, or that they must arrest the “sanctuary city” officials in rebellion and kick out the illegals. You cannot have selective enforcement this massive and preserve the Union.
At some point the country cannot hold together if large blocs are allowed to ignore the law, and then unfair laws are passed to force other blocs to pay for the law-breaking blocs. You just can’t selectively enforce the law to steal people’s money.
This is exactly what historically has led to armed revolt and revolution.
Something just has to give here. This illegal immigration issue is the undoing of obedience to American law.
cane_loader on December 20, 2009 at 7:02 PM
I’ll say one thing that the election of Obama has done – it has given us all an object lesson in states’ rights and why they matter. Before long, we probably will become all-too familiar with the states’-rights positions of each of our governors.
cane_loader on December 20, 2009 at 7:10 PM
Secession: Where are all the military bases and forces in the seceded states going? I have never seen that addressed. Is the federal government just going to say, “That’s okay, you can keep them.”
rlwo2008 on December 20, 2009 at 7:15 PM
The blue state government in DC will have enough trouble on its hands handling the urban unrest to care about military bases in the seceded states.
I think the “urban pseudo-aristocracy” of the Left is actually quite weak and only stays in power because the rest of the country plays by its rules. If you change the game, the Left’s urban coalition will crumble quite quickly, just like the French aristocracy did.
venividivici on December 20, 2009 at 7:36 PM
Colin, congratulations on making it to the big time. Everyone at ZC is proud of you.
Howard Portnoy on December 20, 2009 at 8:01 PM
Not necessarily. A dangerous last resort perhaps but certainly not any of your adjectives.
rplat on December 20, 2009 at 8:09 PM
Now listen up, son.
We’re all frustrated.
We’re all angry.
And God knows, many of us, myself included, have occasionally fantasized about things that, in better times, would be unthinkable. But those things are just venting in order to relieve some pent up frustration.
We have a war to fight, son. It’s going to require you and all of us to get on the same page and do some constructive planning and action. Going rogue right now is not productive. It would be destructive to both the rogue and his cause- all of our causes.
We will win this battle, and we will win it together. And, God forbid, if it comes to violence or actual revolution, we will fight side by side, legitimately and righteously. We’ve got much to do before then.
Keep your powder dry and stay healthy for the challenges yet to come.
Besides, son, the Steelers won today in a squeaker. It’s a day to forget politics and rejoice.
‘course, if you’re a Packers fan, ignore this last paragraph.
justltl on December 20, 2009 at 8:16 PM
Don’t go on a tear, just grin and bare
Just try and not think how much better the ruling rats will fair
When they get more and more of what should be your share
MB4 on December 20, 2009 at 8:41 PM
Chaos always wins because it’s better organized.
Murphy9 on December 20, 2009 at 8:44 PM
RE:venividivici
Bull. The United States of America is a constitutional republic and arguably the oldest continually function democracy in the world. People don’t go to war to defend a business but they will to defend their home. This isn’t simply some troubled corporation that you can divest and cut up to sell off the assets. This is the country that better people than you or I have died to leave us and we owe it to them, ourselves and humanity not to run it into the ground. Here’s another news flash: If we lose what we have here there isn’t somewhere else you can go and enjoy the freedoms that you have here.
I find your analogy offensive to the core and the reasoning behind it is pretty emblematic of the thinking that has brought the “right” off rails. (100% my way or the whole thing can just collapse. What difference is there between that and the leftists who wanted to lose Iraq?)
The USA isn’t something that can be given up on. If you disagree you don’t belong here.
Boxy_Brown on December 20, 2009 at 9:25 PM
This is not an innocuous piece of legislation. It is a vastly over-reaching encompassing intrusion into our very lives! The Dems and Obama and his Chicago henchment know what it means, which is why they are giving away our hard earned dollars to miscreants like Ben Nelson and every other senator for their Judas betrayals. We will live to rue the day that this power is given to the federal government and the travesty will last long after the Ben Nelson’s of the US Senate are long gone into campaign oblivion. The bureaucracy will live on with its dictates and “it’s the law” mandates.
TBenton on December 20, 2009 at 9:30 PM
Having seriously looked into emigration I’d have to agree, if only reluctantly. Of the usual list of options people think about when considering leaving the USA, only Australia is left among the list as a viable alternative that isn’t going to go belly-up in the near future.
Again, agreed, but do you really think that if push comes to shove a dissenting faction – even a sizable one – can seriously hope to grab all of the USA?
Dark-Star on December 20, 2009 at 9:55 PM
The “USA” has always been as much an idea as it has been a geographic reality. What I’m saying is that in much of the landmass currently occupied by the politico-legal entity “The United States of America”, there is a sizable and, in all likelihood, permanent, gap between the idea of the USA and the ideas held by the residents of that landmass, e.g. Cambridge, MA, Berkeley, San Francisco, NYC, Chicago. The people in those areas will drag the whole idea of the US down if you let them. You think you are going to persuade the Leftists who live in those places to give up their totalitarian dreams and embrace limited, Constitutional government? You’re not and the sooner you realize that and come up with a plan to either make your peace with that totalitarianism eventually making its way to your home town OR figuring out how to extricate yourself from any legal and political relationship with the places from whence that totalitarianism emanates, the better. The “USA” will still exist, only smaller and, hopefully, wiser from the experience of coming face-to-face with “home-grown” totalitarians.
If you prefer a more touchy-feely analogy, the Left is like a family member who’s become hooked on drugs and if you don’t cut him out from the family, he’ll steal the heirloom china and everything else that isn’t nailed down to get a fix. Only the Left’s “drug” is government and they won’t stop taxing you until they’ve gotten their full fix. Oh, and their tolerance to the drug grows every day, so they need to tax you more and more to get the same high.
I realize the US is the world’s “last, best hope”, but, realistically, a good 30% of that “last, best hope” has been lost. Permanently. We simply don’t have the resources to deprogram tens of millions of Leftists. Better to just give them some land and let them f*ck up over time and become a current-day version of Burma or Cambodia or something. Once they’ve all “re-educated” each other to death, simply walk back in and re-take the land.
Mark Steyn had a good article criticizing Bush’s idea that the desire for freedom is part of human nature. Steyn said it wasn’t even clear that the desire for freedom even existed among large segments of the West’s population, given the way they embrace the nanny state as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
venividivici on December 20, 2009 at 10:30 PM
It just might. But this time it might be the South and West and Midwest rising.
There Goes The Neighborhood on December 20, 2009 at 10:40 PM
Sounds like I’m not the only who is NOT despairing. I am flat out p*ssed. I live in Texas. Everyone come on over to my place. Don’t let ‘your state’ door hit you in the *ss on your way, we are awaitin for ye.
Yellowdog12 on December 20, 2009 at 11:06 PM
The lib trolls are out en masse, espousing secession, 3rd parties et all.
Don’t fall for these Acorn and Alinsky tactics.
The republicans WILL win in 2010 by voting in conservative candidates only and wiping out these scumbag democrat traitors in the 2010 election.
Make them pay in 2010.
dthorny on December 20, 2009 at 11:11 PM
Secession is still way out there, I agree. But I’m afraid it’s not as far out as we might prefer.
If it happens, it will be from a sense of powerlessness. The Civil War started over multiple issues, including high tariffs and slavery, but the core of it was the fact that the South reached a point where they felt powerless. The North and the west — which we would now call the Midwest — had enough power in the House and Senate to pass any laws they liked, and the South couldn’t do anything about it. As they lost power, they became increasingly determined and demanding that their interests be heard. That worked for a while, but eventually they were just outvoted.
That’s when the secessionist talk grew strong. And it could certainly happen again, if enough people watch as their government ignores them. I don’t think Obamacare itself is enough to do it, but the whole thing that keeps our country relatively stable is the fact that we can resolve our differences in the framework of the Constitution and political processes. If that breaks down completely, we’ll see new attention paid to other means. Texas, for example, may decide to nullify Obamacare in its own borders. But Texas can’t nullify federal taxes, or control how federal tax money is spent. So if the federal government takes money from Texas taxpayers for Obamacare and Texas nullifies the laws, then the citizens of Texas could be shortchanged.
There Goes The Neighborhood on December 20, 2009 at 11:26 PM
I’m sorry, but if you really think that liberal trolls are the ones espousing secession/armed rebellion and 3rd parties, you are completely clueless!
Spend 15 minutes of googling hotair.com and such words as recession, revolt, etc. Then look very carefully at what posters are in favor of these things.
Dark-Star on December 20, 2009 at 11:28 PM
It wasn’t just feeling powerless – they WERE powerless. Both politically and economically. Thanks to short-sighted greed, the South painted itself into a corner with “King Cotton”, requiring slave labor in order to be profitable on a large scale.
Eventually the national conscience could no longer turn a blind eye to their vile practices, and England’s mills began looking to other sources of raw material. They HAD no way out, resulting in the collective mental escape mechanism of ‘Southern chivalry’ and ultimately the use of arms when their verbal arguments finally lost weight.
Dark-Star on December 20, 2009 at 11:32 PM
Is it actually possible that we may have a chance to defeat this bill because some Dem Senators won’t be able to get to the Senate because of the snow storm? Can anyone confirm this? Twitter’s all over it, some guy on C-Span just alluded to it.
russcote on December 20, 2009 at 11:42 PM
“Can it be reversed” is certainly a very interesting topic. Obviously, it’s far better to not let it happen in the first place.
Just as obviously, if it passes, it looks well-nigh impossible to simply reverse it, unless we get huge majorities in both the House and the Senate.
If this passes, then the obvious response is to do our best to get just such majorities. In fact, given an almost certain veto from Obama, we really need to get big enough majorities to override a veto.
That said, it may not be as hard as we might think. Even if we don’t have big enough majorities of Republicans, not all Democrats are in favor of this bill. Plenty of them are having to be bribed and threatened, because they know good and well that the people at home don’t like it.
If the mood of the country is clearly demonstrated to be against this bill, even generally loyal Democrats can cave to political survival.
One other thing going in our favor is the game they play in taxing us for several years before we see any benefits. Just imagine running for election with the promise of repealing Obamacare and returning taxes already collected to the taxpayers. At one stroke, it would cut the record deficits and stimulate the economy.
Even the execrable public option can be ended by spinning it off to a private company with no more privileges or protection than any other insurance company. Replace the Obamacare taxes with premiums paid directly to the new company rather than the government, and allow other companies to compete for those same customers by offering lower rates and/or tailored plans, and the public plan could be ended within a year.
The biggest problem with doing that will of course be the same people who inflicted it on us, who can be counted on to fight tooth and nail.
There Goes The Neighborhood on December 20, 2009 at 11:52 PM
Oh come on, those talking that secession would be peaceful. That would be the excuse that Obama needs to fill all those secret non-existent interment camps. It would allow him to suspend the constitution and rewrite it to his liking. All you talking about taking up arms are not fully comprehending what your talking about. We need to vote them out not take them out. It may come to it that they take up arms against us first, suspend the constitution and elections, then we will have to take up arms, but what a tragedy and horror that would be. Not something we are hoping for. Stop the bull shit bravado talk. VOTE! God help US!!!
Ed Laskie on December 20, 2009 at 11:54 PM
I am not sure secession will be necessary. I think, again, that it may be relatively easy to repeal an entitlement that does not have a dependent constituency. Dependent constituencies have always been the problem with repealing entitlements—but 0bamacare isn’t gonna buy so much as a single bandaid for anybody before 2014.
The Left may count on not losing as many seats in ’10 and ’12 as they are probably going to lose, and they are counting on the state-run media to manipulate the story to look like those seeking repeal are trying to toss some poor quadriplegic left-handed l35bian with AIDS out into the cold, cold night. Problem is, folks are POed and the Dems are in for a reaming in ’10 if not in both ’10 and ’12. Plus, the media has shown too much of its hand in 2008 and thereby lost much of its ability to manipulate voters.
Sekhmet on December 20, 2009 at 11:57 PM
And that’s why I said the Tea Parties were so important in exposing the fact that the political process has broken down when it comes to its ability to respond to a desire for limited government. There has never been a similar movement on behalf of the concept of limited government in the US, nor has the government ever passed legislation so clearly unwanted by the majority. I realize that in a republic it is not strictly speaking “majority rules”, but the situations in which the majority is overruled are typically those in which the majority is advancing some form of odious policy that dispossess the minority of its Constitutional rights, which is distinctly NOT the case with opposition to Obamacare. When it becomes clear that the political class recognizes no boundaries on what it has a right to inflict upon the nation unwillingly, clearly the political processes inherent in the Constitutional order have broken down. Secession would simply be a recognition of that fact, as well as having the practical effect of freeing up those who don’t want to accrue any more future tax liabilities for “entitlement” programs from being forced to do so.
I realize there are intermediate remedies, but, your point here
shows that those may have limited practical benefit compared to the severance of all legal obligations to the DC government.
venividivici on December 21, 2009 at 12:07 AM
I am staying up tonight. I must say that I was very despairing yesterday over all of this, but after reading EVERYTHING that you have all written, I have taken heart…I highly recommend that anyone that is coming in on this discussion, take the time to go back over all the comments. It will take time, but I am so prould of the astute and thoughtful discussion that has been going on here.
There has been no name-calling–maybe a little sniping, but nothing that has been so destructive on other threads. I think this has led to very measured responses.
All in all, I find the references that harken back to what our forefathers/mothers encountered and fought for, to be at the crux of this matter–that being that–THEY DIDN’T GIVE UP. At Valley Forge, the War of 1812–(my God, they burned our capital)–during the Civil War, the Depression, WWI, WWII, Cold War–we have fitting examples of sacrifice and determination.
There are other examples of fighting a losing battle–look at the Jews that organized daily activites within the concentration camps, look at the fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto, The 300…
I WILL NOT GO QUIETLY INTO THE NIGHT! I believe we are involved in both spiritual and political warfare. We must gird our loins and prepare for battle. Nash your teeth if you must–but grab your shield and spear–or, in modern terns–cock and load. We MUST get involved in local politics, and at the same time support nationally those that will bear political arms with us.
People like hawkdriver,the rest of our veterans, and current members of the armed forces, are sacrificing their very lives to preserve our country–can we do anything less?
lovingmyUSA on December 21, 2009 at 12:24 AM
Politically, the South was powerless, and for a good while before the War started. Economically, the South’s cotton was so strongly desired abroad, especially in England, that the South convinced themselves that other nations would lend them aid against the North to keep their supply of cotton coming.
And it was nearly true. If England’s mills hadn’t been self-sacrificing enough to do without the cotton in order to avoid helping the practice of slavery, it just might have worked.
The cotton plantations were very successful and profitable. But their reliance on slave labor to be profitable actually contributed to the South’s loss. If the South had to pay free men to harvest their cotton, the plantations would have been less profitable, but the South would have had to be more heavily populated, which would quite possible have tilted the entire war to the Confederacy. If it was ever fought at all.
There Goes The Neighborhood on December 21, 2009 at 12:27 AM
Don’t think we’re not keeping score here, brother….
Obama to Ben Nelson the coward……. Not to mention that we will take away the Air Force Base in your state….. Corruption that we expect in all 3d world countries and NOW from the scum bag president of our beloved country. Yet, we listen to Rush and we listen to Laura and we listen to Hannity and we listen to Levin and yet they are all preaching to the choir….. NO ONE is really doing anything about it other than………….Sarah. Well, I only hope and pray that there is enough behind her to make a difference in the destruction of our USA…. I’m praying folks and emailin, and letterin and talking and NO ONE is listenin….. Where are all these so called listeners of Rush so called 6 million daily and on and on….. Sorry, it aint working. This guy in the WH has the leverage. He has the threats and can take away and give huge rewards to the whores in the Senate and House. AND he does… and they do accept. So, now what, please help me understand what we can do to save our country…..
highninside on December 21, 2009 at 12:29 AM
Even the WSJ, the bastion of “tempered” conservatism, sees that if anything is “unprecedented” here, it’s the trampling of the public’s desired type of reform:
venividivici on December 21, 2009 at 12:38 AM
There are fortunately a number of intermediate remedies before we reach the point of seriously discussing secession. But the unrestricted right of the federal government to tax citizens’ income directly could be the trump card that prevents those intermediate solutions. It gives the federal government an essentially unlimited amount of money to get their way, and the threat of withholding that money is often enough to make the states fall in line.
See, for example, the 55-MPH speed limit enforced across the nation under threat of states losing their federal highway money. Or both Texas and Alaska taking stimulus money that their governors tried to reject because of all the strings attached.
The fact that taxes can be raised by a legislative body in Washington far away from the control of their constituents makes tax policy far less responsive to the will of the people. Even when the people of a state know their representatives voted to raise their taxes, the representatives have plausible deniability because they’re such a small part of the national congress that they can’t always be blamed for the resulting taxes. Which is why even thought the federal government and the state governments are supposedly both “of the people,” it’s always the federal government that has all the money to spend.
Well, that, plus the fact that they have the power to print money at will.
There Goes The Neighborhood on December 21, 2009 at 12:59 AM
venividivici
So the solution isn’t any of the obvious things, like get off your ass and work to counteract their influence, or indeed anything that involves work at all, the solution is secession.
Probably not, but I have, can and will work to limit the influence that they can exert on the political process. Often that work is made more difficult by people who dislike what the left wants to do as much as I do, but have found some rationalization for not actually DOING anything other than shooting themselves in the foot. You see plenty of them here calling for purges and calming that turning over the government to a modern day pol pot will cause the USA to jump out of the pot of boiling water…
I will personally drive you to the airport so that you can extricate yourself from the USA.
Since we are dealing in hypothetical secession fantasies this isn’t a threat. But hypothetically, if you were somehow to become persuasive and credible to enough misfits who can’t see that this country has stood up to bigger threats than the pile of crap that is our current leadership and if you and this merry band of misfits, crybabies and idiots were somehow able to produce a genuine secessionist movement that would cut up the United States then in this hypothetical scenario I would have absolutely no problem blowing your brains out.
Sorry, you are going to have to do it the hard way. Alter and abolish if you must, (that takes work) but break away because you can’t exert your will over everyone else? Nope. We went down that road in the 1860′s and look how well it turned out.
There is no such thing as “permanently lost”. A generation or two and it can go either way. And we certainly aren’t talking about 30% of the population. It just seems that way because they were out working last election while most of the “right” were at home on the couch kidding themselves that if they just sat back and let this miserable, incompetent communist have 4 years of raping the country then that ought to teach everyone and we would get the ghost of Reagan past to lead us back to the good ‘ol days.
Gee, why not set up camps. The solution to Obamacare isn’t civil war and the “solution” to dealing with Americans who disagree with you isn’t walling them in and hoping that they kill each other. It’s idiotic.
If people of good will actually work to reclaim the government and ignore those who have a million reasons to just roll over and let the opposition make a mess or spew stupidity about secession we can and will push this back to at least a functional equilibrium. We must. It is the only choice (other than whining on the couch and letting them utterly ruin what’s left) because splitting up the country is not going to happen.
Boxy_Brown on December 21, 2009 at 4:55 AM
I’ve just spent an hour on my one down day here in Iraq reading all of these posts. I can’t muster one bit of excitement for the future of individual liberty in my country. Everyone of us will bitch and moan but none of this bill will be killed off. The Repugs held the House and Senate and gladly took their bribes from wealthy power brokers, lobbiests, and foriegn governments via business relocations into their States. How many of the sitting Repugs were wheeling and dealing through the Bush years? How many of these two-faced lying b@stards are now SUDDENLY all for fiscal responsibility? The Repugs and DemoRats bought each other off all through the 1990′s during the massive BRAC process that closed dozens of military bases and put thousands of people out of work. How many millions of dollars did Pelosi’s husband make off the former Navy base ‘redevelopment’ deals he brokered in CA. How much money did the Repugs in Texas make off “closing” Kelly AFB and the conversion of Bergstrom AFB into Austins new airport? NOW, the ‘Rats control both houses and they are breaking it off in the our a$$es while laughing all the way to the bank. Even if they loose every House seat in 2010 and their few Senate races, it doesn’t matter because they have won this battle and they will move back into power in another 6-8 years. They pushed through Johnson’s Socialist wet dream and yet controlled Congress all through the Carter and Reagan years. We don’t need to split the country into separate ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ countries, that only strengthens China and Russia and weakens us in the global economy. We don’t need a third party to water down our votes and keep the Marxists in power. We need to get off our asses, grow a pair, and take it to the streets. Scare the living sh*t out of the the little cry-baby 20 & 30-something, video game playing, metrosexual little wimps (we have helped raise) and take our country back. We can beat Soros at his own game. We can beat ACORN, and SEIU, and MoveOn.org, ABC, NBC, CBS, MS-NBC. But it takes being fed up with the politicians that ‘claim’ to represent us. You have to fight fire with fire. You have to kick people like Soros and the MSM behind the curtain and humiliate them in public while they are still rubbing their backsides. And when you trip them in the hall, you have to kick them while they are down….they are doing that to us right now. You have to be willing to fight standing up or just sit back and keep bitching while our country becomes another backwater Euro-lite Socialist faliure.
saltyrover on December 21, 2009 at 5:18 AM
Dark-Star on December 20, 2009 at 11:28 PM
If conservatives believe in that then we will lose in 2010. What a ridiculous idea to preserve Nancy Pelosi as reigning queen for life by seceeding, 3rd parties, not voting…THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT GOT US HERE- apathy by conservatives.
Stand up and protect your freedom, these libs are destroying your liberty right in front of your eyes.
dthorny on December 21, 2009 at 8:00 AM
You write as if the attempt to drag you down into the socialist mire just started a few months ago. It’s been going on for nearly a century, bit by bit. Every victory against being dragged down has been temporary. Doesn’t that give you a hint that there is something about the current institutional and legal framework that enables your socialist enemies and disempowers you? Working harder at a futile task doesn’t make it any less futile. A smart worker determines if the task is futile before committing effort to it.
I’d argue that we haven’t really faced worse enemies. It’s like the old line, “We have met the enemy and it it us”. It’s always been a truism of America’s position in the world that we couldn’t be brought down by an external enemy, but that a determined internal enemy could do the job. I agree that the Left is composed of complete and utter piles of crap, both as individuals and collectively, but they’ve got numbers and arguments that sound plausible to the morons educated in public schools. A man taking action on behalf of a false idea may some day realize the idea is false, but in the interim can do a lot of damage.
See, this is where I think you are getting off the rails. There is such a thing as “permanently lost”. We see it here at HA with the resident trolls. They have been exposed to quality responses and critiques of their ideas on every thread where they’ve shown up. Has it changed one mind? Not on anything substantive, I can nearly assure you that. The ~30% of the country that self-identifies as liberal is just as hardened in its beliefs as any Communist over in Russia was before their revolution, I can assure you of that. For every David Horowitz who ends up seeing the light, there are a few dozen who go their whole lives with those Leftist blinkers on.
I was never an advocate of the “elect a Carter to get a Reagan” strategy. I made calls for McCain, which was the first time I every volunteered for a political campaign. I attended Tea Parties and was heartened by the fact that people who’ve never taken an interest in politics were participating. But, let’s face it, if ObamaCare passes and becomes the Trojan Horse for single-payer that it probably is, the Tea Parties and “town halls”, for all of the good that they did, will not have accomplished their short-term goals.
The people on the Left from whom we need to separate ourselves are American in the same way the Rosenbergs were American (don’t make that into an anti-Semitic comment, I’m must using them because they’re high-profile) or Benedict Arnold was American. They rely on your predisposition to good-will toward your “fellow Americans” to stab you in the back and co-opt your God-given freedom. They are snakes in the grass of the worst kind.
If you are right, consider it a “Pyrrhic victory” because 10-20 years down the road, not having started the wheels in motion to split the country will be to your detriment.
venividivici on December 21, 2009 at 9:15 AM
I don’t remember the name of the program, but I do remember Dan Rostenkowski being chased out of a meeting hall by a bunch of senior citizens.
On the other hand, this program was killed before it ever took full affect. So we do have a window of opportunity. For the first year, this bill is all tax and no benefits.
MarkTheGreat on December 21, 2009 at 10:05 AM
I’ve had heated debates with normally reliable conservative types who defend both of these programs on the grounds that since they paid taxes to support the program all of their lives, they are entitled to the benefits from them. They don’t care that the rest of us are paying into a program that we will never benefit from them. They want what they want, and will fight for it.
Once a subsidy is passed, those who are being subsidized will fight to the death to preserve the subsidy. And since the number of people being subsidized outnumbers the people being forced to pay for it, the subsidy will never be eliminated.
In what ever govt replaces this one, it will have to be an unchangeable part of the constitution that only those who pay taxes are allowed to vote.
MarkTheGreat on December 21, 2009 at 10:11 AM
This is one sick ass country and is spinning down the sewer at warp speed.
rplat on December 21, 2009 at 10:12 AM
Anyone who thinks the economy can possibly avoid a major crash is living in a dreamworld. It’s not only “likely” to happen; it is already happening. And there is no possible question but that the architect of this collapse will veto ANY legislation designed to undo his life’s work.
All of our efforts need to be geared toward 2012. Getting a slim majority of RINOs in 2010 – all working like crazy to cooperate with the new regime – will do absolutely nothing but ensure these Socialist “reforms” will stay in place indefinitely.
logis on December 21, 2009 at 10:16 AM
Yes, and the vision that come to mind is from Ben Hur when Heston was tromping straw in the mud pits . . . that scene quite vividly reflects the plight of our hard working, independent tax paying citizens.
rplat on December 21, 2009 at 10:18 AM
Our motto: Representation without taxation is EXACTLY as unfair as taxation without representation.
logis on December 21, 2009 at 10:22 AM
Actually it wasn’t “Ben Hur” . . . it was “The Ten Commandments”
My apologies.
rplat on December 21, 2009 at 10:24 AM
You only have to buy auto insurance if you want to drive a car on a publicly owned road.
Secondly, the type of insurance required covers the damage you may do to someone else if you cause an accident.
This shouldn’t be a precedent, but then the SCOTUS hasn’t bothered with the constitution for at least a generation.
MarkTheGreat on December 21, 2009 at 10:27 AM
ACTION IS NEEDED BETWEEN NOW AND THE RECONCILIATION VOTE.
A suggestion:
(1) The most vulnerable House Democrats who are potential votes against Pelosi should be identified. Presumably, this is the self-identified “Blue Dogs,” but perhaps a few others. We need 41 Democrats to vote against the bill, so we need to identify at least 50.
(2) A PAC should be formed (call it “The Accountability Fund” or something more clever) to collect money that must be used to support the 2010 general election opponents of any of the 50 who vote for Obamacare. The PAC can be formulated as a trust that is legally required to disburse all of the funds by the 2010 election, and then it dissolves.
(3) If $50 million is raised, and all 50 vote for Obamacare, then $1 million goes to each opponent. If 25 vote for Obamacare, $2 million goes to each opponent. Etc.
Here’s why I think this could be effective:
(a) Some of the Democrat swing votes may think that their constituents will forget their votes by November 2010 or, because the bill really won’t take effect until years from now, that their constituents will see nothing bad happen in the next 12 months and will decide that the “yes” vote wasn’t so bad after all.
(b) If money goes into the PAC, however, it must be used to support their opponents in 2010. Therefore, there is no opportunity for people to forgive or forget. Once the money is in the bank, it’s a threat to them that is guaranteed to materialize in 2010 if they vote for the bill.
(c) Money talks. If a substantial amount of money is raised between now and the House vote, it will speak volumes. (I suppose the PAC could be structured to spend some percentage on TV ads to raise more money and to publicize the issue before the vote.)
(d) There will be a snowball effect. If all 50 vote for the bill, then their opponents will split the funds 50-ways. But as some Dems decide to vote against the bill, the denominator wills shrink, and more pressure will be on the remaining hold-outs.
I don’t have the resources to organize this, but I suspect Michele, Hannity, Beck and/or Palin have the connections to get this organized, and can give it free advertising until enough money is collected to buy ad time. (I do, however, have the resources to write a check, and will gladly donate $1,000.)
Time is short. Action is needed.
SwampYankee on December 21, 2009 at 10:30 AM
You totally ignore the issue of trade and economic independance. Only a tiny fraction of southernors owned slaves, yet all were harmed when the northernors required southernors to buy machine tools from them instead of Europe. All Southernors suffered when the north made it impossible to sell cotton to anyone other than northern mills.
Few people thought slavery was worth fighting for, but freedom was. Slavery was widely recognized as a dying institution, only the super rich could afford to own a slave.
MarkTheGreat on December 21, 2009 at 10:30 AM
What makes you feel so confident that the Democrats won’t fix the elections? People hack computers for very little pay-off but the criminal ACORN types in control of the Democrat Party have no interest in hacking the voting software to fix the vote?
Buddahpundit on December 21, 2009 at 10:37 AM
The real problem is that Americans are graduating grade school – and beyond – without understanding why the concept of “Constitutional precident” is an oxymoron. The whole POINT of having a constitution is that it remain inviolate unless changed through the Amendment process.
Once Congress and the courts decided they could change the “meaning” of the Constitution at will – based on absolutely no justification beyond: “Well, we got away with it last time,” then the path to tyranny was paved. All the rest is nothing but a matter of time.
logis on December 21, 2009 at 10:37 AM
I can imagine King George saying just that.
MarkTheGreat on December 21, 2009 at 10:38 AM
I’ve read that even at the time of the Declaration of Independance, only a minority of colonists wanted to break from England. Most didn’t care that much one way or the other.
MarkTheGreat on December 21, 2009 at 10:40 AM
So any idea that seems “nutty” to you, by definition is?
Who made you the ultimate authority on reality?
MarkTheGreat on December 21, 2009 at 10:44 AM
Looking more and more likely.
justltl on December 21, 2009 at 10:45 AM
I posted this on my site. Things are as bad as they seemed to be. I wrote about this possibility thirteen years ago in a novel. http://www.revoltthebook.com
Man, I wished I had been wrong.
—————–
Redstate hopes all is not lost. I say, not lost- just stolen.
Posted December 21st, 2009 by admin
http://www.redstate.com/bs/2009/12/21/the-democrats-health-care-hari-kari/
As one more debt crushing, future stripping government program begins to ooze its way under the tent wall, a number of us think the opportunity for political gain grows.
And the defensive line in a football game thinks they are on their way to the quarterback until they realize it was a screen play.
The progressive democrats, like the Asians, have the ability to look down range farther than the rest of the world. A fifty year plan is just that, a fifty year plan. It may ebb and flow, but it is like a slowly rising tide relentless in its push to overwhelm.
Here is a link to a UK article. The reporter is seems to be waking from a stupor and realizes his options to be a free man with free will may end on this earth.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/janetdaley/6845967/Therell-be-nowhere-to-run-from-the-new-world-government.html
So, with Obama as president being the pin pulled from the grenade, we are experiencing the next explosion of statist/Maoist almost demi-godly surge of a relative few people’s effort to rule the planet. Sounds like a mad scientist moment, but then again if you are in fact being assaulted by mad scientists is it a stretch to say so? There is no other explanation. Obama does not seek justice. He seeks revenge and control. The people behind him are worse; they seek total control under the guise of social justice.
My Mensa bright buddy said it will collapse as it always does because the human being simply cannot abide slavery forever. I disagreed. Look at Russia’s history. Look at China’s history. Look at the current history of many nations and even the EU. People, by and large, are sheep. As long as they have just enough food, water and shelter they’ll go along- only when their lives are threatened do they fight back, and that is usually too late.
The war between classes is ancient. As I have said before, I homeschool my children and one of the courses we are working on is world history. Even in the accounts recorded by the first humans there is an almost immediate reference to “kings.” Then the kings began to consolidate power and pass it on to their blood only. “Those who would rule, and those who would be ruled.” As I teach the course, I make the point over and over that this “war” between the classes is ancient and ongoing. Whether a king gets his power from being a great warrior or a degree at Harvard, he is still a man wishing to rule others.
Make no mistake; the democrats are more than willing to take one step back for three steps forward. They know even if they are swept from power by 2012, their work will guarantee their return- eventually, and when that happens, it will be forever.
archer52 on December 21, 2009 at 10:49 AM
It doesn’t matter to you if the US becomes a communist dictatorship. To you, the only thing that matters is that they still call it the US?
MarkTheGreat on December 21, 2009 at 10:51 AM
It’s unlikely that a taxpayer “revolt” will initially take the form of armed insurrection. It will be much, much uglier than that.
Of course there will be absolutely no need for the people who create the wealth of this nation to initiate any of the violence. Liberals will be more than happy to do that; The only question is will they be any GOOD at it?
logis on December 21, 2009 at 10:53 AM
What about ObamaCare and an EPA that requires every company in the company to get permission from the Feds before they can make any changes to their buildings, in the name of controlling CO2.
MarkTheGreat on December 21, 2009 at 10:55 AM
The reason why the north had most of the mills was because the north had most of the mountains and hills with streams that could be damned to create the water power that was necessary to power said mills. It had nothing to do with short sideness or greed, it was pure geography.
As to the English mills switching away from southern cotton, it had nothing to do with squemishness on their part. The congress passed laws that put heavy tariffs on the exportation of raw cotton.
MarkTheGreat on December 21, 2009 at 10:58 AM
Speaking of which, Red/Blue STATE maps mean nothing. Look at a red/blue PRECINCT map sometime.
If you narrow it down to areas where over 75% voted Democrat last year, you’ll see that the vast majority of hard-core support for American collectivisation is concentrated in a few square miles of utterly-dependent urban blight.
logis on December 21, 2009 at 11:15 AM
WannabeAnglican on December 20, 2009 at 5:45 PM
Two things about the notion that something like Obamacare, once passed, is near impossible to dislodge:
1. Fleming v Nestor (1960) clearly states that there is no property right inherent in Social Security. This means you don’t own, nor are guaranteed, your full share. Now, no Congress is going to foster social unrest by completely screwing you out of any Social Security money. But Congress in the future will do everything it can to ensure the cost of supplying that money is kept to a minimum, and if that means minimizing the benefits, all the better.
2. This son of the Great Plains was told throughout his childhood that he should never rely on Social Security or any government benefit. Implicit in the message was the idea that the big, bad Feds can monkey with it at any time. Teaching me this was done as a means of motivating me to seek something better than just a mere government bennie.
So this notion that “we can’t stop Obamacare; it’s just too permanent when passed” smacks of a defeatism that is not worthy of us.
BradSchwartze on December 21, 2009 at 12:11 PM
I’d say the takeaway message is that politics is too unpredictable to get too happy or too depressed.
TheUnrepentantGeek on December 21, 2009 at 12:14 PM
MarkTheGreat on December 21, 2009 at 10:51 AM
Whenever you want to pack your bags, call me and I’d be happy to help. Or are you going to pull an Alec Baldwin when it comes to nut-cracking time?
BradSchwartze on December 21, 2009 at 12:16 PM
Hey, don’t be too hard on him. Look at all the libtards who hollered that they’d just up and leave America if Bush got elected/reelected…and then quietly slunk back into their holes with nary a peep. Empty threats of emigration are nothing new to either side.
Although I do know ONE liberal who made good on his promise and is now living happily in Canada. Have to admire him for being ‘one of the few’, at least.
Dark-Star on December 21, 2009 at 1:06 PM
Having seriously looked into emigration I’d have to agree, if only reluctantly. Of the usual list of options people think about when considering leaving the USA, only Australia is left among the list as a viable alternative that isn’t going to go belly-up in the near future.
We’ve seriously considered it of late.
PappyD61 on December 21, 2009 at 1:11 PM
I’d recommend it with all my heart, even if the place has a ridiculous amount of lethally poisonous critters. Because quite frankly the list is growing very short.
The UK is a nightmare nation and getting no better. Canada…well, I don’t think I need to lecture you on the state of THAT union. Most of mainland Europe’s nations are refusing to seal their borders against massive Muslim immigration, and it’s probably just a matter of time. Central and South America are (generally) only a few steps above Africa as being all-around toilet bowl continents.
The land down under is about the last one worth considering, at least if you’re really looking at the long run. If you do decide to go, let me know if I can help in any way.
Dark-Star on December 21, 2009 at 1:16 PM
Broken Axelrod was on one of the news gab shows over the weekend bloviating how he thinks the 2010 midterm elections will fair well with the Democrats.
He obviously is huffing and puffing on the Hopium again, because I think he is going to be in for a seriously rude awakening come next November.
pilamaye on December 21, 2009 at 1:20 PM
MarkTheGreat on December 21, 2009 at 10:05 AM
You’re thinking of the very aptly named Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988, which was passed and then rescinded the following year after seniors, burdened with a new tax specifically aimed at Medicare recipients, turned in rage on its sponsors, especially Dan Rostenkowsi, then Chairman of House and Ways & Means.
CK MacLeod on December 21, 2009 at 2:01 PM
Dark-Star on December 21, 2009 at 1:16 PM
How much is the price per acre for land?
Otis B on December 21, 2009 at 2:24 PM
I don’t think that would be enough, either. IF it happens, it will not be because of one or two things, but because a pattern of tyranny develops, where the government does whatever it likes, no matter how much the people protest.
IF it happens, though, Obamacare will be the beginning of the pattern.
Fortunately, I believe there are still a lot of alternatives before we reach that point. This is a deeply unpopular bill, and the Democrats can’t hold their power forever.
tom on December 21, 2009 at 3:23 PM
After ObamaCare kills the private health care industry, and Uncle Sugar is “reluctantly forced” to take over the provision of all health care, repeal will be impossible.
OhioCoastie on December 21, 2009 at 3:33 PM
If this bill passes it will become the new 3rd rail of politics. It will be extremly difficult (if not outright impossible) to reverse the effects this bill will have over our lives. This is not the final nail in the coffin but more like the first step toward total control of our lives and the creation of the socialist utopia that these moonbats have conjured in their clouded little minds. Don’t believe me….it’s already happened with Medicare and Social Security. The current government monstrousity has only become larger since it’s birth…not smaller. Why would any thinking person think that the outcome will be any different with Obamacare?
I think of the line from the last Rambo Movie where he is talking to the female missionary and she asks him. (Paraphasing here) “Don’t you want to make a difference and change things?” when talking about going into Burma to help refugees there. And Rambo replies, “Are you taking any weapons with you?” The woman says, “No.” And Rambo says, “Well, then you’re not changing anything”
Only when the angry Mobs with pitchforks and torches come marching down Pennsylvania Ave and Constitution Blvd with these dregs in our government get the picture.
To the liberals the believe that once this is passed, unicorns will fart dream dust and everything will be ok. Free healcare for all everybody the world will be one again and we all have the great Obama to thank for it.
Don’t agree? Just shut up and take another sip of the Obama Kool-Aid!
Scorched_Earth on December 21, 2009 at 3:44 PM
RE: venividivici
There have always been socialists, fascists, communists and other bad actors and there always will be. Destroying the country because there are people out there who disagree with you isn’t an option, neither is imprisoning them for their beliefs. You are going to have to reconcile yourself that it is literally a never ending battle and you are going to have to win the argument on it’s merits with your efforts and example. Pulling some foolish stunt like trying to break up the country is not a good place to start.
Maybe next time “we” score some victories “we” wont just sit back and rest on our laurels. Perhaps the next time “we” win an election by defeating someone like Al Gore or John Kerry “we” will keep on the ass of the guy we elected and insist that he veto’s a spending bill or two. Maybe “we” won’t be so quick to toss out a “miserable RINO” like Norm Coleman if it means replacing him with a scumbag like Al Frankin. Maybe “we” will smarten up a bit and chose our battles smarter and with an eye toward the long term and ignore the idiots who always have a rationalization for why “we” should be helping the opposition. (including some of our supposed “conservative” commentators who helped get “us” in this MESS to begin with by trashing “McShamnisty” all the way to defeat at the hands of a watered down version of Pol Pot from the Chicago political machine.) Maybe “we” should wise up next time because “we” blew it.
Frameworks can institutions can be altered. I know this because they have been, the left did it with dedicated, patient pressure and good old hard work until it wore us down. Where were we when they took over the schools? Etc.
Again, if you think restoring the USA is a futile task you need to get your ass out of it. It isn’t, it will just take work, which probably scares you. Easier to whine on the internet that other people haven’t been doing enough to produce the society that you envision. It’s easier to float pipe dreams about breaking up the country so you can rule over your tree house.
OK, The SEIU has hydrogen bombs and the ACLU has 27 divisions of Wehrmacht ready to march and the teachers unions just perfected their doomsday device… Oh wait, no one is going to stick a bayonet in you for demanding your rights (yet). So guess that little theory is BS too.
Indeed, I have argued with people who want to lose the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Elect people like Barack Obama to teach the country a lesson, who have advocated violence toward elected officials and now the break up of the country. They have all been “conservatives” (or people posing as them to help get their leftists elected into office by demoralizing the malleable on the right side of the political spectrum) on conservative forums. One even advocated spitting on a veteran. Acting like a bunch of crybabies isn’t going to thwart the leftist goals of socializing the country. Taking your bat and ball and going home doesn’t work when your home is threatened.
Boxy_Brown on December 21, 2009 at 4:03 PM
RE: venividivici
Then get out. If you think the country is permanently lost then go somewhere else that isn’t. Ill stick it out and fight until there isn’t any fight left.
You mean the ones who want us to be demoralized and give up on the USA? Them? Those trolls?
Maybe the quality of your argument is lacking. Maybe the solutions that you advocate aren’t getting the job done. Maybe they aren’t ready to accept it but they will be later. Maybe they will never agree, then what? Empower them? That’s basically what you are advocating.
”
So on to something stronger.
Oh no, I have been stabbed in the back by my fellow Americans before, from both sides of the aisle, such is the price of dealing with humans. It isn’t going to force me to abandon the Constitution or my homeland. And my freedom wasn’t “God given” per se, it was given to me by my father, given to him by my grand father, etc with the understanding that I would pass it on. Do you want to be the one to break the chain?
Your secession is as close as the nearest airport, again, Ill drive. Hopefully the rest of us will gut it out, smarten up and push back to reclaim this country and reaffirm what made us the most blessed people on earth. That gift isn’t something I will sit by and allow it to be cut up into pieces.
Boxy_Brown on December 21, 2009 at 4:10 PM
The Czech republic was once a communist state, now it isn’t. Poland was once a communist state, now it isn’t. What I have working for me is that communism doesn’t work, it is in fundamental opposition to basic human nature.
If the country is in danger that is when it needs it’s citizens the most. Not the time to talk BS about breaking it up.
How did people lose sight of this?
Boxy_Brown on December 21, 2009 at 4:16 PM
Actually, re the liberation of Eastern Europe from communism, that was achieved in some cases by political separations–the Soviet Union is no more, split into numerous republics, some of which are old school socialist states and some of which are budding free market polities. Another example is the Czech Republic, which you mentioned. The CR was actually a part of a larger entity, but it split off and it is well more western and free than its former communist partners. That could not happen, chained to its old political/economic partners.
I believe that socialism is unconstitutional and at odds with the idea of America that has, until recent years, held this country together. There are a good number of folks, however, including some of my own family and neighbors, who want the country to move to what they regard as the superior western European socialist model. How do we bridge that? I don’t see a bridge. Both groups may advance by splitting and going their separate ways, just as the Eastern Europeans did only 20 years ago.
We can have a new union of free American states that is geographically smaller than the present USA but which will be an economic dynamo and will be free, united and happy. How bad would that be?
james23 on December 21, 2009 at 5:26 PM
1) The point was that political and economic systems are changeable, for good and for bad. We are seeing change for the worst in the USA now, if something can be changed one way it can be changed in another. When someone writes “There is such a thing as “permanently lost” it is clearly incorrect. Just ask the post Carter democrats or the participants in the Velvet revolution.
2) Czechoslovakia was a country held together by external forces throughout it’s existence. Once the Soviet Union and a militaristic Germany ceased to exist there was no need for it to be married to Slovakia. Note that the split didn’t happen until 1993- 2 years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Boxy_Brown on December 21, 2009 at 6:04 PM
I just don’t think you appreciate how dug-in the Left is and how impervious to reason they are. I’m not talking about imprisoning anyone, I’m talking about separating myself, and others who are not interested in Leftist totalitarianism, from them. Believe me, they’ll do enough imprisoning of each other, since every Leftist sh!thole eventually turns into one big prison anyway.
Yes, there have been some unforced errors on the Right over the years and this has allowed the Left more leeway to advance its agenda. Part of the Left’s advancement was also the post-WWII “zeitgeist” which rewarded “experts” who claimed to be able to “manage” national economies. Since the Right never really tried to play in that arena, preferring free markets, it was a setback. This is what Buckley meant when he said a conservative’s job was to stand athwart history yelling “Stop!”. We now know that experts can’t, in fact, manage economies, but many of the institutions set up in the era when it was believed they can, and which favor the Left by default, in many respects, remain. One of the appealing aspects of simply making a clean break is that none of this institutional baggage from a bygone age would be required to come along.
Yes, again, I agree, but the window of opportunity is probably too short for this to be realistic. Again, better to start afresh and leave the Left holding the bag for their own institutions, which, of course, are funded by taxing the crap out of the Right’s two most natural constituencies, executives in corporate America and small business owners.
Me leaving the country won’t make the task any less futile, either. The “society I envision” is one where people leave other people pretty much to their own devices, to succeed or fail. I help bring that about by pretty much leaving people to their own devices, to succeed or fail. I don’t want to “rule” over anyone. Think of me as Greta Garbo. I just want to be left alone.
After WWI, Marxists in Western countries saw that they would never be able to come to power via violent revolution, so they adopted a “cultural” approach. They don’t need bayonets or hydrogen bombs. They come after you with lawyers and theories of victimology and guilt. These “weapons” are, arguably, more dangerous because they appeal to soft-minded people and work by repetition until the minds of those who believe in them are impervious to any other arguments.
I’m not being a “crybaby”, I’m being realistic. You might not want to agree, but let’s leave out the puerile insults, OK? As for homes being threatened, as someone mentioned above, a huge proportion of those who vote Left is concentrated in a few urban areas along the coast and other urban enclaves scattered throughout the country. Isolate them there and they won’t be threatening your homes. Yes, it will mean that there is no longer a singular, continuous entity covering the lower 48 states, but so what? Really, so what? Is giving up New York City to the Left really that big a deal, if you could keep the other 80% of New York state that swings more to the Right? Or giving up Cleveland and finally letting Kucinich implement his socialist wet dreams there? I can see that having been a big loss when the urban centers were also industrial centers, but now they’re just socialist sh!tholes with huge city workers’ unions sucking off the taxpayer teat in perpetuity. Excuse me if I don’t get all teary-eyed at the thought of letting these places figure out some way to sustain the unsustainable besides new taxes and fees that take money out of my pocket and put it into the pocket of the local Parks Commissioner and his staff of 100 nepotistic cronies.
I didn’t say the country was permanently lost, but that a segment of it is. I don’t care what you say, the public workers unions, the teachers unions, the state and federal bureaucrats, the academics who are aligned with them at the university level et al., are LOST. They don’t believe in the Constitution and limited government. Period. Why fight them when you can just say, “Hey, we need to have the political equivalent of a divorce. You take your sh!t and I’ll take my sh!t and we’ll call it even. Have a nice life and see ya on the other side.” It’s not really a big deal. In fact, they are the ones who should be scared because hardly any of them do any of the sort of work that is required to sustain a real civilization. They’re “knowledge worker” parasites who use their verbal abilities to convince you that they are actually important enough to keep paying taxes to pay their salaries. Once you see through their BS, you realize that they would not be missed if there were a giant hole that opened up in the ground and swallowed them.
No, the quality of the argument is a secondary consideration to these people. I’m lacking only because I don’t agree with them. They judge your argument by the extent to which it agrees with what they already think. And, I don’t need to “empower them”, since they already hold Congress and the White House. What splitting the country would do is force them to create a self-sustaining society on the foundation of their own labor, not mine. Right now, the Left exists because it is protected by the very capitalist society it tries to tear down. If forced to create a society that produces goods and services in sufficient quantities for the masses to live comfortable lives, they can’t. But, they can siphon off those things from you and me. We already know that almost half of people in the workforce pay zero income tax. Now, obviously some of those people are young and pay no tax because they make very little and they are not good little Leftists, so we can excuse them, but many of the remaining people who pay no taxes expect to get benefits. That’s a constant refrain here and I agree. Again, splitting the country in two would force those people to fend for themselves.
Pope Benedict adopted as one of his mottos, “succisa virescit”, meaning “once it is pruned back, it grows back stronger”. Prune off the deadweight of the Left, make some minor corrections to the Constitution (seems like just clarifying the Commerce Clause would eliminate a significant proportion of the problems caused by the Left, so in the “new” country clarify it), commit to not allowing statists to educate your children, and get rid of entitlements and the intergenerational chain of freedom will become strengthened, not weakened.
Anyway, you put together a couple of reasonable responses, so I wanted to respond in kind.
venividivici on December 21, 2009 at 8:12 PM
Boxy_Brown,
I’m going to address you in this one comment only, because I don’t have the time or desire to put up with the abusive commenting style you seem to be enjoying, and because you won’t change my mind, after having read your comments on this thread.
In this entire thread we discussed a lot of things – secession included, civilly and productively. You are the first commenter in this entire thread to go on a sustained ad-hominem blitz against anyone engaged in rationally and hypothetically discussing the machinations and ramifications of secession – the first one to lose your cool. So seeing as how you operate, I won’t be tempted to answer a single one of your comments, as your opinion is clear.
1. Read the entire thread and you see that it was not about trolls.
2. The discussion of secession was not about giving up on America. It was about discussing how the current situation could lead to red states finally having enough of tyranny from the blue states and using their economic leverage to end it.
3. You seem to have missed that the thrust of this discussion has not been about leaving America. It’s about forcing a RESTORATION of the Union that is currently broken when blue-state America left US. It’s about (if pushed far enough beyond today’s conditions, if the trajectory of the blue states does not change), forcing the blue states to rejoin America as productive members instead of leeches and tyrants.
4. If you had your way and no one had ever seceded, blacks would still be slaves. There was an unbridgeable gap between North and South then that led inevitably to secession, just as there now is a-borning (in its infancy) between blue-state city entitlement populations and red-state producer populations.
5. In tearing apart rational commenters who have been conducting a very interesting HYPOTHETICAL discussion about the relative strengths of the states and their ability to avoid becoming vassals to the blue states, you seem to be intelligent, but a poor reader of others’ comments and so are belittling people and slinging arrows. I hope that you can do better than this because your understanding of Eastern Europe shows that you’re not stupid.
That’s all. I won’t hold a grudge myself, and hope you will read carefully my wording before blowing up, but I couldn’t help notice how you were the only one on the thread acting like that and how instead of engaging people with respect you’re calling them whiners and nuts and BS and cowards.
You do realize that you have been using the same tactics on your fellow posters as Sen. Whitehouse?? While slam-dancing can be fun, sometimes it’s not the time or place to slam-dance at the club if it happens to be disco night.
cane_loader on December 21, 2009 at 8:13 PM
Der Krieger posted
this link
in a different thread. Possibilities there. Less radical than secession. Probably would garner more support. Wouldn’t have to photoshop new boundaries.
Whatcha think, vvv? Boxy? Cane_loader?
justltl on December 21, 2009 at 11:34 PM
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