Katzenjammer wrote:
Katz, I think you did a pretty nice job there, and hope you finally got your lunch.
This is heading into the primary season, which IMO should generate the internal debates on both philosophy and candidates. You may be right as to the two camps, I'm not sure as I haven't been around here for a while. I certainly fit into the camp of the ballot box. Whether the system is salvageable or not, the alternative to the ballot box is, for me, unthinkable. But yes, I want a smaller, less intrusive government. I also want to see a more fiscally prudent government and that means for me, reducing our debt dramatically. It isn't for my grandchildren to assume, it's for us. We created it; we need to fix it.
But like you say, it's for another thread. This one has likely run its course.
Again, nice post and really well thought out. 
Thanks MAC. I wouldn't say that my taxonomy is universally applicable, but I do think that a lot of the "opposing" comments that I see repeated over and over in a lot of the threads can be traced into either of the two camps pretty clearly. (That is, when you peer beyond the labels and names that we all throw around so loosely at times.)
Whether the system is salvageable or not, the alternative to the ballot box is, for me, unthinkable.
There you have it. It is indeed "unthinkable" at so many levels, but like anything else, if the root causes have been set into motion (which I think that we all agree that they have, to a certain degree) and they have proceeded far enough down the "track" (referring to Fish's
post in the "GOP goes quiet on Obamacare" thread) which I think is the area open for discussion; then it really doesn't matter what you, I, nor anyone else may believe to be "unthinkable."
Personally I think that anyone that believes a coming "crash" will be anything like we've ever experienced in this country before is kidding themselves. I do believe that it is coming, and is unavoidable at this point, but no one that I know can tell us anything specific about the timing, or the specific precipitating event(s). But it will be brutal, horrific, widespread, painful, and deadly. (I very rarely post my thoughts on this, simply because they are so depressing.)
I also think that most of us believe that the "timing" is very subject to which players on the field are in control. At a very abstract level, Ds in control seem to serve to quicken the pace, Rs in control seem to slow it down a bit. But here is the part that I wrestle with constantly, are we better served by letting it come as quickly as possible, or by delaying it as long as possible? That answer seems to be "the latter" in most folks' minds, but is it? And my views on it are very much shaped by my response to your second point below.
It isn't for my grandchildren to assume, it's for us. We created it; we need to fix it.
Precisely. I have an opinion (and some strong feelings developed over years of contemplation) about this point that places it in a larger context than just the debt burden.
I realize that at some point in the past decades (I can't really be sure of when I became fully cognizant of it) that I began to see that our nation was in a steady decline, from virtually every point of long-term measure or comparison. And I realize that in some ways, it has been that way since I was born, but I certainly never saw it until much later in life. Now the reason that I can say with some certainty that the overall decline has been with us for my whole life, is that I believe that a great deal of what we are living with and through now, was really set in motion around 100 years ago. This period is often traced as the start of the "Progressive" movement in this country. (The scope of this movement and the ills it has introduced are far beyond a post in this thread, but as a quick shorthand, I point to the establishment of the Income Tax, the creation of the Federal Reserve (and movement to a fiat currency), and the 17th Amendment as an unholy trio that emerged in 1913.)
And accompanying these (and other) fatal distortions introduced into government, we have also fallen victim to very deliberate plans to alter our society via a whole host of mechanisms and movements that have really begun to payoff in Spades. (Again, for quick short-hand, think of what Gramsci described in the Long March through the Institutions.) Vast segments of our population have had their reasoning and critical thinking skills so destroyed that we are virtually sitting ducks at this point. Over and over our civil society and government is being relentlessly destroyed by the steady application of a form of the Hegelian Dialectic (Problem - Reaction - Solution), over and over. Just in the recent decade or so we have seen it applied in several major ways:
- (War on) Terror - Protect Us! - Patriot Act (wholesale destruction of personal freedoms and liberty, and monstrous deficit spending to beat the band!)
- Financial
Crisis - Save Us! - Dodd-Frank (just wait to see the destruction that will flow from this rarely discussed behemoth!)
- Healthcare
Crisis - Heal Us! - 0bamacare (still watching this one unfold!)
- Immigration
Crisis - Reform Us! - {fill in the blank at this point}
And if we are honest about all of this, there is no stopping the momentum.... there are simply not enough people voting that have a clue as to what mechanisms and forces are running roughshod over us. (Too many have been convinced that voting "for" these things are actually going to "save" them. I haven't seen a workable solution to this. And I am also not convinced that the election process still yields clean results.)
To your original point on the debt, especially if you account for what the federal gubmint doesn't account for (i.e., the unfunded liabilities that run close to $100 Trillion at this point, depending on which study you read), it can simply never be paid off. Not by our children, grandchildren, nor their grandchildren. So at some point it has to come crashing down.
So given all of that, one could safely say that we are in a permanent state of decline. Many of us that are older can pretty much say that we've weathered it for the most part, a lot of us have actually led wonderfully fulfilling lives and have no regrets. We can deal with whatever comes our way on the downside. Great. (And I will leave the Spiritual aspect of all of this off the table in this discussion, other than to say that for me, it is the only thing that helps me keep this in the proper context, most of the time!)
But what really concerns me, are the lives of our children and grandchildren. The simple truth of the matter is that for a given 30 year old, or 3 year old for that matter, they have already experienced the most freedom and liberty that they will ever see in their lifetimes, assuming that the train just keeps going down the track. In 10 years, 20 years, however far you want to extend things, the tyranny will just get increasingly hardened, the debt burden will keep growing out of control, and gubmint will control more and more aspects of everyone's lives. That prospect saddens me deeply. I simply can't stand to think of how difficult it will be for younger people in 20 or 30 years down the road.
So that is why I no longer want the train to be kept on the track for as long as possible (unless I slip into the totally selfish mode that just wants my remaining years to be as peaceful as possible). At this point I would rather it come off the rails as soon as possible, as horrid as that prospect is sure to be. So that the 30 year old (and 3 year old)
may have a chance at living a life where each year brings new hope, new opportunity, new accomplishment. Where we can once again get back to that almost universal truth of American life in which each generation has had more opportunity to do better than the prior generation.
Of course there are no guarantees that any "re-build" or "re-start" will go as we would like (for those that actually survive). There will certainly be forces at work to prevent that from happening. But this too argues my point for a "sooner, rather than later" outcome -- if it happens too much later, when most of our generation is dead and buried, the next generations will approach it with less resources (intellectual capital for one) at its dispose. Better we, that should shoulder more responsibility for what has become because of our unwillingness to stop it sooner, pay more of the price and perhaps can contribute to a solution before all of our memories and collective wisdom (and American spirit) are lost.
I certainly know that this sounds very outlandish to some, maybe to you. But think about things in this context, it may not be as unreasonable as it appears. I take none of this lightly, I understand the implications of it all (to the best of my abilities), and wish that it weren't so. And more than anything I would like to be proven wrong about it all. But until that happens, I just can't get excited about the prospects of seeing people put into office that are simply enriching themselves off the taxpayers while the can just keeps getting kicked down the road a few more feet.
You can call me cynical, pessimistic, and even crazy, but I don't think that I am wrong. Sadly.
