I have never heard such a thing. Of coure lots of folks love to get their return, but I’ve never met one who thought this meant no taxes, in fact you’d have to be a functional illiterate to believe that.
So you claim. Our history seems to have worked out rather differently.
One man’s opinion something more than two hundred years ago.
Let’s see, most of Federal expenditures go to Military and Social Security-Medicaide services, yes? This is bad?
Perhaps, but perhaps you can step back from your ideology to realize that a complex modern economy requires very different things from a simple early modern agrarian economy.
States rights? Whatever. Pretext to attack politics you don’t like. Nothing socialist about trends towards federalization, as you imply below. Centralization is as much a thing of the right as the left – look at the history of European states. In fact the market(s) like it – it is much simpler and efficient to have federal standards for one entire market (USA) than to have a multitude of varying state standards. As much impetus for Federalization/Centralization comes from business as not (or from citizens seeking guarantees that the market will work properly – much regulation is all about that, providing security for consumers. As much as companies like my own may bitch, top brass among us realize that regulation covers our butts and makes it easier to do business in many respects. Of course not all regulation is created equal nor efficient, but…)
Romantic visions of the old days are not a substitute for grappling with real world economies and social change.
I assume you mean socialist is the abusive illogical sense since our system ressembles no form of socialism I’ve ever read about. As noted, the tendency to federalize is driven as much by economic and social changes in the United States which render many aspects of state level policy making inefficient. Not that we always have to choose the most economically efficient solution --efficiency not being a synomym for “good” or “moral” but to think its becuase of “Socialism” is just plain wrong.
It looks like you haven’t learned the lesson taught by the Vietnam and Afganistan conflicts. A guerrilla campaign can be sustain itself as long as it has four things.
[ul]
The support of a chunk of the population. ( Not necessarily a majority. )
Matériel support from allies.
A sanctuary to train, rest, and equip its troops.
The will to continue resisting.
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As long as they can maintain these then Goliath cannont defeat David. The last is the most important. You don’t win battles and wars on the ground, in the air, or on the sea. You win when the other guy decides that he’s had enough. In both these wars it was the aggressor, who could not deny the enemy these necessities, who came to this conclusion.
Which brings us to political considerations. Do the rebels have a support base at home and abroad? What are they fighting for? How badly does the government want to prevent these goals? These questions are important to understanding your hypothetical rebellion. A government cannot exist without the support or at least acquiescence of the population. The ratio of force to space is always too low for a country to occupy itself. Occupation needs outside intervention. A rebellion means that a population is divided against itself. Usually the system, which is supposed to smooth over these differences before they get out of hand, has broken down. Since our system is mandated by our doddering constitution, I don’t think that a revoulution is out of the question.
IIRC ('cause it’s been a while since I read the books), the previous VP lost his office due to a scandal and Ryan was appointed to the position a la Gerald Ford. Then the 747 crashed into the Capital and Ryan became POTUS. I now remember a sub-plot in the next novel had the previous VP try to get the Presidency from Ryan, claiming Ryan had not been properly sworn in.
Y’all can continue your debate now.
I think a rebellion is possible to attempt, but it’s unlikely to happen because it’s frankly easier to just vote the bastards out of office. Term limits help, too.
what about a form of economic rebellion. what if all americans refused to buy cars selling for more than $30,000?
this would be perfectly legal. what about everyone using their VCRs to skip commercials? no one could tell until it started affecting consumer spending. also perfectly legal.
That’s perfectly valid. I myself gave up on money for six months straight and didn’t buy or own anything beyond the clothes on my back. Partly, I must admit, because Peter Jennings non-chalantly opened a news segment one night with the statement “we all know no one can survive without money.” Wrongo, pal.
But it is highly unlikely most people would be willing to do this no matter how dire the circumstance. The old story, which I believe to be true although don’t ask for a cite, of the Jewish prisoner in WWII who claimed a guard told him he was sorry about the situation, but that he hadn’t had a job in six (or so) years and had a family to feed. Which is patently hysterical. Once people deicide they must have a paying job in order to survive they are at the merciless whim of whatever controling force runs the economy.