The Iraq was based on lies and nothing but lies.And how would “a quick effective convincing win” make an illegal war of aggression right or good .A nuclear bomb would have made it quick!

“Every generation needs a new revolution”.
Thomas Jefferson

“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not”.

“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government”.

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”.

As you can see from a few of these Thomas Jefferson Quotes he would agree with you and take it one step further. I don’t advocate violence but I do advocate revolution as long as it’s the Ron Paul kind.

What’s funny is that I have more friends that I served in combat with who are consistantly anti-war, than my other friends. It’s seems it is also the case with Vietnam vets, I see more of them at rallies than I do aging hippies.

Peace!

The “two parties” are more one party than two, both are about the money and control, not the people; the smoke these corrupt creations blow doesn’t mask what they are about; the recent massive financial deceit and resultant legalized(in their minds) theft(bail out scam) from the American people along with their refusal to listen to the American people and obey the Constitution is proof enough what the “two” parties are about: control and money, little else. These greedy creatures are not going to give up either easily, they will have to have their power undermined at the grass roots level first.

Great post.

I have long thought that before creating a new law, there should be a requirement that an older law has to be taken off the books since we do have that “mountain of laws”. That might put a bit more constraint and consideration into the process. But laws are like taxes, once legislated, the politicians are very reluctant to remove them. With taxes, they prefer to change the name and reroute the funds. With laws it is a means of control.

Reptilian is starting to sound like a better description for our present government, but socialism does describe forcibly taking from one to give to another via legislation. It may not be true socialism or communal socialism, maybe it should be called politicized socialism when one is forced to participate no matter how much the participation goes against the Constitution and what he believes.

I think I will start using the term “reptilian” when I write the creatures inhabiting Congress. When I look at the eyes of most of them, there is a definite resemblance to repitiles.

When it comes to warfare, neither party fights to win. When the Iraq war was started, I said it will appear to go well until the concession stands are opened with no one guarding the till. And so it came to pass. The money became more important than anything else, including America, a quick effective convincing win was not even on the table, all that kept the table supported was the money flow and the lies.

Iraq was a farce, the people are already demonstrating against America. We cannot give other countries freedom, they won’t appreciate it unless they have to fight to attain it for themselves. And now America has a naive president that probably isn’t Constitutionally qualified to hold office bowing and scraping before a muslim dictator in Saudi Arabia, I find that disgusting and treasonous. The man should resign, but that would put Biden in a postition he should never have gotten close to holding.

I agree that rotating leaders and drawing them from the ranks makes sense as a means of minimizing corruption. I am for term limits wherever people are elected to positions of power. I recall someone once facetiously proposed that lotteries be used to fill all political ranks. Such a system would certainly be an improvement over what governs us now.

It can be argued that psychopaths, hungry for unearned wealth and power, comprise some small percentage of all societies and should be guarded against. It is they who work tirelessly to create crises and then manipulate any system in order to concentrate power in their hands.

However, I am not optimistic about the long range success of any sort of democracy limited by rules. What stands in the way of any majority from violating the rights of a minority in the name of majority rule? The Bill of Rights is very clear in its protection of individual rights and yet, over time, these protections have been severely eroded by the process of democracy massaged by the machinations of the political classes. What practical options are available to abused minorities other than armed rebellion and secession from the majority?

The problem with law makers is that they feel compelled to make laws in order to justify their existence. Has any legislature ever declared that we are sufficiently guarded by laws and then dissolved itself?! Very few laws are needed to safeguard our rights. The rest are an assault on liberty and property. Yet the existing mountain of laws is added to every year, and we are sternly admonished not be ignorant of any of it! Every law has someone enforcing it, punishment for all who violate it and death for those who resist the punishment. How often is any unjust law repealed? And how much time, effort and expense by the ruled is required to do so?

It seems to me that, however constrained by rules, unlimited majority rule along with its consequence, unlimited lawmaking, will ultimately burst its chains and ruin us all.

Here, I must voice some disagreement. The condo association you describe suffered, in my view (and based on your description) from a delegation of power, not a true direct or council democracy wherein the barriers between rulers and ruled is broken down and eventually eliminated altogether. My counterpoint to this example is the Mondragon Co-operative Complex, a federation of workers’ co-operatives that has remained remarkably stable over the course of several decades and maintained a high (by the standards of more conventionally organized firms) degree of economic equity. Indeed, it is appreciably more productive, on average, than ordinary corporations. Certainly, some division between administrative/supervisory and ordinary work is inevitable even within a cooperative venture- although I would argue that many existing technologies and forms of organization are designed to accentuate this- but the concentration of power is not. It can only happen if people allow it to. And given an environment in which they were highly engaged in decision-making, rotated such supervisory tasks, reaped all the dividends of production and productive efficiency, and whatever else, they would have both the knowledge to and the very strong vested interest in stopping any tendency toward oligarchy. If you feel some level of hierarchy is unavoidable, would it not be more just and wise to draw leaders from the ranks of ordinary people, rotate leadership positions and subject the leaders to the same conditions they may create for the workers or citizens in a firm or municipality? Would it not tend inhibit any tendency toward despotism or the uneven distribution of costs and benefits that is characteristic of states and corporate entities in our day and age?

One can imagine examples of voluntary socialism within a capitalist context and not violate the principle of private ownership of all property. For example, condominium residences are individually owned while all parts of the building outside the residences and grounds outside the building are owned and managed collectively by the residents. This form of ownership can even be extended to, say, entire subdivisions. It is not inconceivable that any number of workers can pool their money, purchase land and build a factory which they can collectively own and operate and share in the profits and losses. There have also been examples of voluntary socialist communities set up in the U.S. during the 19th century. Maybe it is even possible for an entire country to be organized in such a manner. In every instance the property rights of each socialist enterprise would be acknowledged and protected from encroachment.

Where socialism flies off the rails is when the principles of freedom of association and voluntary cooperation are violated, and coercive methods, in the name of some collective, are used to realize someone’s vision of how society should be organized. Such an approach will inevitably attract violent, power hungry psychopaths which is what too much of the last century of world history was about.

To govern collectively is ultimately an unrealizable utopian dream. As in all human enterprises, division of labor will assert itself and a small group of managers will eventually emerge who gradually amass the power to boss around everyone else. That was the theme of Orwell’s Animal Farm. It seems that power, exercised by a few on behalf of even a small scale voluntary collective such as a condo association, is corrupting. I’ve witnessed this phenomenon in my condo building and have heard of even worse horror stories from condo owners in other buildings.

Maybe all voluntary collectives and forms of government contain the seeds of their own destruction. No one would ignore a tiny cancer or a small fire, yet humans are collectively indifferent to serial encroachments on their liberty and property until they wake up too late behind barbed wire. Eternal vigilance is indeed the price of liberty.