Joe Huffman makes the legitimate observation that most of the issues I mentioned in the last post were pretty easy, but mentions they can be harder:
How about question such as banning all semi-automatic firearms? Or nationalization of the banking industry? Nationalization of the oil/energy industry? Nationalization of telecommunications industry? Nationalization of health-care? Nationalization of the software industry? Nationalization of all corporations? Confiscation of all real property?
With the exception of the banking industry, and possibly health care, most of those aren’t currently on the table, and I was more attempting to frame the issue in what we’re dealing with today. Even Obamacare doesn’t go as far as nationalization of health care (so far), and governments have been so heavily involved in banking since modern banking emerged, that I’m not as concerned about the prospects of some banks being nationalized, especially if it’s under the auspices of the FDIC process for insolvent banks.
But there’s little doubt we’re slowly moving toward many of these things. I don’t think there’s an easy answer to the problem. Unless there’s some majority, or even a sizable minority, I’m not sure how you have an organic “people” who can offer legitimacy to a government through their consent to be governed by it. If a majority of people are happy or indifferent with a slow creep toward social democracy, I’m not sure what can be done to stop it. In other words, I don’t think the Second Amendment provides a solution for the boiled frog problem. The idea being if you want to cook a frog, if you throw him into boiling water, he’ll just jump out. If you put him in cold water, and slowly turn up the heat, he’ll never realize he’s being stewed.
I heard it suggested tonight that John Edwards is actually right, and that there really are two Americas. I sometimes wonder if our political discourse is devolving to the point where the two Americas won’t be able to tolerate being in one America with the other. Last time that happened, things got ugly.
Two or more Americas may be exactly right. I think that reigning in the feds and increasing State sovereignty will solve or reduce this problem, to an extent.
The big issue is that the members of the left that I regularly debate with do not like this plan. “We are all part of a community, and must act like it.” To this, I ask “When a minority of the members of a community no longer agree to be a part of that community, and wish to peacefully leave, should they be restricted from doing so?”
At this point I am accused of quoting Jefferson Davis and supporting slavery.
Quoting the President of the failed confederacy is accidental. The content is not. My phrase, when read at face value, doesn’t support slavery anyways.
I have no desire to live in a nation that the leftist are building. i also have no desire to live in a nation that the religious right is trying to build.
I am perfectly fine with Californians making a socialist paradookey if they so wish. I am cool with Utah making a religious something or other, as well. Only as long as each maintains a republican form of government.
Why can we not get the same live and let live courtesy?
Using the logic of the controllers, those people who live in North Korea better live there and they better like it.
You wrote “I sometimes wonder if our political discourse is devolving to the point where the two Americas won’t be able to tolerate being in one America with the other. Last time that happened, things got ugly.”
Sir, I really hate to say it, but mirrors in bathrooms all across the nation and of every political spectrum have been broken these last few years and decades. I fear that we may come to a head whether we like it or not.
I started in politics because of my guns. I stayed, and studied, and learned, because I really just want to be left alone.
I can only hope that I bring the message of liberty to enough people in enough time to make a difference.
-Jdude (not a 3)