You Need Me On That Wall! A blog about military service, gear, leadership, politics, motorcycles, watches and whatever else strikes me.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
This is going to sound crazy, but...
I'm going to start putting together my survival kits for the upcoming meltdown of society.
There, I said it. Now I'm officially a crazy conspiracy theorist. Except I don't think there's a big conspiracy out there to bring the country down or anything like that. I just think that we are headed to a meltdown.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the direction in which our country is headed. If you look back a couple of posts I wrote about taxes and fairness and posted a chart outlining who pays the bulk of taxes. My argument is that the rich pay enough taxes and that we should flatten and simplify taxes so that more people pay some taxes. To me that's fair. There is a good article by Charles Krauthammer: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/274375/system-works-charles-krauthammer#
He argues that our system is working and that the upcoming election in 2012 will determine what direction we will take in the future. The choice (as I see it) is between increased government, which creates increased dependency, and less government, encouraging personal responsibility. These are the stakes in the 2012 election, and this is the source of my new-found desire to be ready for a societal meltdown.
The outcome I'm hoping for, obviously, is a narrow Republican victory. Enough to turn the tide of entitlement spending and put us on a rational economic path, but not enough to make them think they can ram any social craziness through.
I hope that the majority of people see what I see. That Democrat class warfare and dependency politics are paths to slavery and permanent poverty. I fear that people only see freedom from consequences to their decisions and freedom from responsibility for their own welfare. Our president is out there telling people right now that they shouldn't have to pay for their medical insurance and that the rich don't pay their fair share. It's hard to compete with that when the opposite message is that you should work and pay your own way. Which is more appealing?
If the choice is defined as either work to pay your own way, or get a free ride at the expense of the anonymous "rich," there really isn't much hope for the Republicans. Especially when you consider that half the country already doesn't contribute much, if anything at all. The Democrats need only to get their base and that dependent majority to the polls and they win.
This brings us back to the upcoming meltdown. I'm not concerned about an immediate upheaval if my preferred side loses, I'm looking a few years down the road and what I see coming worries me. If the Democrats win they will take this, rightly, as a mandate to continue spending and creating entitlements for their constituents. We will get the single-payer health care system, environmental regulation, expanded "free" education, increased direct welfare, etc... The whole liberal pie.
Paid for with ever increasing taxes.
To a certain point.
Until there is no more "other people's money" with which to pay for everything. But by this point people will have grown so used to having things handed to them that they will not take well to being told they may have to do without. We are more-or-less there already.
Now I believe what I've described is exactly what we have seen played out in the streets of Greece this summer and in Great Britain this past week. In England the cuts haven't gone into effect yet and the people are rioting. They haven't even had to do without yet, it's the idea of austerity that they are rioting over.
The way I see it, these European rioters are doing kind of a half-ass job of it. When Americans get a good riot going, we don't mess around with rocks and bottles. We have Glocks and MAC-10s.
We will have a mass of un- or under-employed, idle people used to receiving everything they need to live from Uncle Sugar, faced with the prospect of having to do with less than they are told they "deserve" and used to blaming their problems on this anonymous group called the "rich." The rich, of course, defined as anyone who has nicer things than you do, and what you deserve is whatever you want.
It will won't be long before this mob decides to go out and take what they "deserve" from the "rich."
I plan to be ready.
There, I said it. Now I'm officially a crazy conspiracy theorist. Except I don't think there's a big conspiracy out there to bring the country down or anything like that. I just think that we are headed to a meltdown.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the direction in which our country is headed. If you look back a couple of posts I wrote about taxes and fairness and posted a chart outlining who pays the bulk of taxes. My argument is that the rich pay enough taxes and that we should flatten and simplify taxes so that more people pay some taxes. To me that's fair. There is a good article by Charles Krauthammer: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/274375/system-works-charles-krauthammer#
He argues that our system is working and that the upcoming election in 2012 will determine what direction we will take in the future. The choice (as I see it) is between increased government, which creates increased dependency, and less government, encouraging personal responsibility. These are the stakes in the 2012 election, and this is the source of my new-found desire to be ready for a societal meltdown.
The outcome I'm hoping for, obviously, is a narrow Republican victory. Enough to turn the tide of entitlement spending and put us on a rational economic path, but not enough to make them think they can ram any social craziness through.
I hope that the majority of people see what I see. That Democrat class warfare and dependency politics are paths to slavery and permanent poverty. I fear that people only see freedom from consequences to their decisions and freedom from responsibility for their own welfare. Our president is out there telling people right now that they shouldn't have to pay for their medical insurance and that the rich don't pay their fair share. It's hard to compete with that when the opposite message is that you should work and pay your own way. Which is more appealing?
If the choice is defined as either work to pay your own way, or get a free ride at the expense of the anonymous "rich," there really isn't much hope for the Republicans. Especially when you consider that half the country already doesn't contribute much, if anything at all. The Democrats need only to get their base and that dependent majority to the polls and they win.
This brings us back to the upcoming meltdown. I'm not concerned about an immediate upheaval if my preferred side loses, I'm looking a few years down the road and what I see coming worries me. If the Democrats win they will take this, rightly, as a mandate to continue spending and creating entitlements for their constituents. We will get the single-payer health care system, environmental regulation, expanded "free" education, increased direct welfare, etc... The whole liberal pie.
Paid for with ever increasing taxes.
To a certain point.
Until there is no more "other people's money" with which to pay for everything. But by this point people will have grown so used to having things handed to them that they will not take well to being told they may have to do without. We are more-or-less there already.
Now I believe what I've described is exactly what we have seen played out in the streets of Greece this summer and in Great Britain this past week. In England the cuts haven't gone into effect yet and the people are rioting. They haven't even had to do without yet, it's the idea of austerity that they are rioting over.
The way I see it, these European rioters are doing kind of a half-ass job of it. When Americans get a good riot going, we don't mess around with rocks and bottles. We have Glocks and MAC-10s.
We will have a mass of un- or under-employed, idle people used to receiving everything they need to live from Uncle Sugar, faced with the prospect of having to do with less than they are told they "deserve" and used to blaming their problems on this anonymous group called the "rich." The rich, of course, defined as anyone who has nicer things than you do, and what you deserve is whatever you want.
It will won't be long before this mob decides to go out and take what they "deserve" from the "rich."
I plan to be ready.
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