Illinois Careens Toward Bankruptcy: ReportWhat, you mean they're not "too big to fail"?
No federal protection for states [More]
I certainly am comforted knowing the Illinois political machine has moved it's headquarters over to Pennsylvania Avenue.
And they've brought their economic policies with them.
After all, Chi-Town isn't a place, it's an attitude!
12 comments:
Can't wait for when the money runs out and all those unemployed people and those recieving no welfare or other checks start to get hungry. Think they'll go on a food drive, or door to door collecting cans or what? When the SHTF in the big cities, I don't want to be there. I'm thinking of Matthew Bracken and the "long pork".
States' bankruptcies just may be our salvation. You will note that in each case where the financial straits are the direst it is a venue which has the least individual liberty, the most oppressive state government, the most complete meddling in the daily lives of its citizens, and it is the most liberal (politically speaking).
When these states fail completely there will be chaos and violence. There will be starvation, disease and exodus. And in that maelstrom of misery could very well be the salvation of the rest of the nation.
Most of the directly affected will see clearly, for the first time, that the system they thought "would and should take care of them" could not sustain such a burden. They will be forced to self-reliance or starvation. Those not living in those failed states will of necessity realize they must not socialize their political and economic systems if they are to avoid the same fate. The die-hard socialists will develop a timidity of pushing their agenda as the ranks of their followers dwindle.
Failed states may just be our salvation. Failed states may just be the object lesson that lets us avoid armed rebellion in the restoration of this nation and its constitution.
"States' bankruptcies just may be our salvation. [...] Most of the directly affected will see clearly, for the first time, that the system they thought "would and should take care of them" could not sustain such a burden."
Naah. The ordinary voter will still believe that Socialism works, if only the right people were in charge. They'll go looking for the right people to put in charge, and perhaps they'll find a charismatic nutcase pushing a race/religion as a scapegoat: Mexican, Chinese, Muslim? Millions of German Jews were willing to go to the gas chambers without a fight before they would give up their religious faith in gunverment.
http://catb.org/~esr/writings/anarchist.html says:
William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is one of the most subtly horrific pieces of writing ever uttered. The single most chilling paragraph in a book that does not flinch from describing Nazi atrocities is this one: On August 19, 1934, 95% of the Germans who were registered to vote went to the polls and 90% (38 million) of adult German citizens voted to give Adolf Hitler complete and total authority to rule Germany as he saw fit. Only 4.25 million Germans voted against this transfer of power to a totalitarian regime. With this vote, the position of Fuhrer as an amalgam of President and Chancellor -- the elevation of Adolf Hitler to the status of dictator -- was formally and democratically approved by the German people.
"in the restoration of this nation and its constitution"
straightarrow, you clearly believe that Socialism would work, if only the right people were in charge. Stock up now on Threeper patches, for when wearing them is made mandatory as a mark of official disapproval and shame.
anon, I had a long rebuttal, but erased it. You're an idiot if you believe what you said about me. I won't tell you to go **** yourself because you just did.
A constitution is a Soviet five-year plan for liberty production. It assumes that all the means of liberty production (police, courts, army) have been nationalized, and are being run collectively. Collective policing doesn't work any better than collective farming does, and for the same reasons.
Do I think you have the deliberate aim of putting innocent people in concentration camps? No. Do I think you are carrying your football towards the wrong goal, and unintentionally supporting the Bad People? YES. All support of "political" methods helps the Bad People. A small amount of politics (articles of confederation) does not work as a hedge to prevent a huge amount of politics (current US situation). You have no historical evidence to support the claim it does. None. Zero. Small, limited governments have never stayed small in all of recorded human history. You might as well expect an avalanche to stop and hover three seconds into its fall.
Here is what I propose instead: more self-defense. Anyone sticking a gun in your face and saying 'your money or your life' is a criminal to be rebuffed. The demand at gunpoint is how you tell they are a criminal. However, in your zeal to fight criminals, don't become a criminal yourself. Don't stick your gun in anyone's face and demand their money or their life.
Well in all your libertarian zeal you might not have noticed that our constitution is the only document anywhere in the world that limits the powers of government. In fact, it is the only document in history that has done so. It also is the only document in the history of the world which affirms that all power and rights belong to the individual, with the rare exceptions made by those individuals so that our servants (government) may perform their delineated chores.
There wasn't a damn thing wrong with the constitution, in the main. The problem is we citizens did not stop the abuse of it and barely noticed when it quit being used by our servants as their job description.
You sound like so many who say "The system doesn't work." My reply is "How the Hell would you know? We haven't used it in decades."
I assume by your ignorance of the subject that you have not read our constitution. Because if you had, you would realize that under it socialism of any stripe is impossible.
Oh yeah, and if you read it, you would note that the second amendment provides for stopping runaway government at force of arms. Tell me again how it is a 'five year plan'. Show me in there where all the collective is authorized. You cannot do so. But I can show you where it is prohibited. The flaw is in our characters for not being as protective of our powers and rights as were the first few generations of Americans. But we got fat, dumb and happy. That is on us, not the nearly perfect document as regards individual liberty ever adopted anywhere in the world by any people in history.
We also became immoral, when we started being bribed with the benefits of other people's labor we granted the government the power to confiscate those fruits for our use, being too stupid that eventually they would get around to us.
So don't blame the document and don't misrepresent what it is. Put the blame where it belongs. On us.
I believe the idea of government limited with writing had predecessors in the Torah, the ten commandments, the Magna Carta, and a bunch of other English law documents. All of which failed.
"So don't blame the document and don't misrepresent what it is. Put the blame where it belongs. On us."
The combination of Man + Constitution doesn't produce the result the sales pitch said it would. We don't have as high a percentage of saints as the Constitution would require, and we're not going to ever have them. Man's nature is unchangeable. This leaves the government as the only available adjustable part.
You keep using the words "we" and "us" as if I concede the legitimacy of government. I don't. That use of "we" is the Socialism, it starts right at the top with "We the People".
The Constitution was advertised as a mechanism to keep a government under control. It didn't work. What good is a jail if the windows have screens instead of bars? Do we blame the guards if the criminals escape? Is expecting the criminals not to be criminals a practical approach to security? The Constitution fails for the same reason that gun control laws fail.
once you resort to semantics you have admittedly lost the debate.
"once you resort to semantics you have admittedly lost the debate."
I am not trying to blow smoke up anybody's skirt. Your favored system of Politician Control Laws works no better than Gun Control Laws, and just like Gun Control Laws they infringe on the innocent. I didn't agree to any of it. It has no moral hold over me. I can't be blamed for its failure; that's the worst sort of Soviet-style collective punishment. Let's instead talk about alternatives which don't have these flaws.
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