Tuesday, August 25, 2009
I don't want to alarm you, I just want to look at the big picture for a moment.
Question: Why is it that the United States has the ability to go through so many changes in government without violence?
Proposition: Limitation of the stakes, Part 1: Because of our Constitution's limitation of Federal power, the stakes are lower than under other systems. Even if you don't like all of the new Administration's programs and policies, these things can only go so far, and only last so long before the current government is out of power and bad policies corrected. The "irritation" and damage that a grasping government can cause to the individual can harm, but rarely does it rise to the point that the average guy (there will always be a fringe) feels the need to take up arms and do damage.
Danger: The more power the government grabs, the more intrusive it becomes, the more it feels as though it is establishing institutions that can never be gotten rid of, the more the people feel the separation of powers isn't working to protect their freedoms...the more danger there is that we frogs will finally notice that the pot is near the boiling point.
Proposition: Limitation of the stakes, Part 2: Because in the local banana republic, when the government changes, the people who were on the other side have to worry that there will be a late night knock at the door and that their freedom or perhaps their very lives may be forfeit.
Witness: The banana republication of the United States (and related). This isn't just about keeping us safe going forward, it's about the current administration criminalizing policy differences with the previous:
Jules Crittenden: And Now For Something Completely Different
Politico: DOJ probe opens divides with Hill, CIA
Update: King on Holder: 'You wonder which side they're on'
A "furious" Rep. Peter King, the hawkish, maverick Long Island Republican, blasted a "disgraceful" Eric Holder for opening an investigation of CIA interrogators and chided his own party for what he described as a weak response to the move in an interview just now with POLITICO.
"It's bulls***. It's disgraceful. You wonder which side they're on," he said of the attorney general's move, which he described as a "declaration of war against the CIA, and against common sense."
"It's a total breach of faith, and either the president is intentionally caving to the left wing of his party or he's lost control of his administration," said King, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security and a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence...
[Via Weasel Zippers]
Please, please ALARM us all...we do no have until 2010 midterm elections...support the eligibility movement to remove this ineligible, not-a-natural-born-citizen now! All who are preoccupied with plans for change via elections are deluded, blind, dreaming...the "change" will be irreversible, especially after a "crisis." We have about 3 good weeks in which we need some positive movement in the eligibility movement, after that chances drop rapidly. Help now.
p.s. RE: that CAMERA "good news" on the Lutheran (ELCA) position on Israel abstract above the lead post here...uh, no, it's bad news, very bad new. I just read it, & it appears that the guy who wrote the analysis is a bit blinded by his antijudaic theological hermeneutic (even if he is writing for CAMERA, his theology's still antijudaic). CAMERA should get a dispensationalist to do the Christian analysis.
The "irritation" and damage that a grasping government can cause to the individual can harm, but rarely does it rise to the point that the average guy (there will always be a fringe) feels the need to take up arms and do damage.
I guess it's time to invest in a couple of passports, some kruggerands and a fast but quiet boat. If Americans begin to show that they're truly feeling the need to shoot each other over sectarian/partisan b.s., I'm so out of here. Since both sides favor big government, and since both become lunatic when they're out of power, it doesn't make sense to sympathize with either of them.
I'll watch the revolution and the end of a once-great country sipping rum punch on some warm beach somewhere - maybe a former banana republic that has wised up about pointless sectarian wars.
Anyone with common sense will do the same.
I LOVE Congressman Peter King.
He isn't afraid to call islamofascism, islamofascism.
He isn't afraid of "cair".
Here is his website.
http://peteking.house.gov/