What is the future of America going to look like?

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America, on its present course, is not a place in which I would want to live in the next 25-30 years. That is sad for me to say, as the father of three (soon to be four :)) little ones.

Pat Buchanan said something about 6 months ago that really stuck with me:

The worst thing we may ever learn about Joseph McCarthy was that he was absolutely correct.
 
No, no, no. America is not headed toward Fascism. Fascism historicaly put great importance on privet property and classical middleclass ideals. Socialism was the ethic of the lazy, the lower class, the wilfully miss-informed.
America Is already Socialist and turning into a harder socialism with technology-boosted population management. If you look at England today and imagine it even worse, with more snitches, you'll get the picture.
But remember. If we go to civil war, China will take that opertunity to jump up and down on our fat, ignorant, lazy heads.
 
Before the renaissance there were indeed dark times. Expect things to get much worse before people come to their senses (i.e. commonsense).

Some reference material on the renaissance: http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/r/renaiss.htm



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Peace through superior firepower...
Keith

If the 2nd is antiquated, what will happen to the rest.
"the right to keep and bear arms."
 
How can you say that America is socialist? The textbook definition of socialism is government ownership of the major means of production. That is not the case. Yes, the government taxes the means of production and seeks rent from the means of production, but collecting taxes is a basic function of government. As Ben Franklin pointed out, in the phrase everyone has heard, I'm sure, that death and taxes are the only two sure things in life.

I dislike taxes as much as the next guy, but without them, the government could not function at all. That is a major obstacle Russia faces today: it hasn't been able to collect taxes effectively. America has to have at least SOME government to provide defense and other public goods that a market cannot allocate (firemen, police, etc.).

Yes, we do have social safety nets that appear "socialist," but you have to look at the big picture. If we looked at all the countries in the world on a scale from individualistic democracy to total tyranny, both of which are unattainable in practice, America is the closest to the democratic extreme (Britain has more or less caught up). Socialism might be maybe a quarter of the scale away from absolute tyranny. Close to there you have Sweden, and in between Sweden and the US you have Western Europe, Japan, etc.

I realize this is a simplification, but I am just using this illustration for pedantic purposes. My point is that, relative to the rest of the world, we in the US have the most individualistic, the most laissez faire, the most democratic government in the world. We may be moving to the left a bit, but this is minuscule on the scale of world governments.

The US is certainly NOT socialist.
 
Thanks for the responses. The forest is hard to see for the trees, but some of us can look past and see the whole picture (or at least most of it).

For the "optimists" out there, I am thankful for the smidgen of freedoms we have left, but I can't see a half full glass without thinking about how much fuller it COULD be. Just my nature I guess.

For those who want to know why Socialism is a self fulfilling prophecy, just think along the lines of Marx. All struggle is between classes, haves and have nots. Modern Socialism is not quite a perfect match with Marx' beliefs, but that's the premise.

Modern Socialists seek to "right" this situation through govt, which usually means controlling wealth and redistributing it. They believe that they're playing a zero sum game, in other words if they take a million bucks from Bill Gates and give it to the poor, the poor are a million bucks richer and Gates is a million bucks poorer. This is "social justice" for some people.

Problem is that wealth distribution is not a zero sum game. Gates' wealth is determined by the value of his company which is ever increasing, largely dependent on available capital. The poor don't have the knowledge to use the million as capital and so it quickly disappears leaving them dependent on future checks, where as if Gates had held on to that million, he could have used it to expand his business, which would have created increased jobs and prosperity. Even if he just pissed it away by adding an indoor basketball court to his house he would have created wealth and jobs in the private sector but that opportunity no longer exists.

Instead, the poor are appeased momentarily but they (and the burueacracy that administers the confiscated wealth, which itself needs a good size chunk of the booty to survive) need more next month. So a bunch of good hearted but economically ignorant politicians look at Gates, decide he has "too much" and confiscate another million. Of course the bureaucrats whose jobs depend on the gravy train fully support this decision with graphs and charts and studies up the wazoo.

So, the more wealth that is confiscated, the less operating capital there is in the private sector, which hinders the creation of jobs and opportunity, which contributes to there being more poor people, who need more confiscated wealth from the private sector to keep from starving to death, which prompts more agencies to come up with more statistics that indicate the need for more "programs", which influences the good hearted politicians to raise taxes and redistribute the wealth, which gets them the votes from the ever expanding "entitled class" and keeps them in power and so ever increasing amounts of future wealth are assured to be confiscated and on and on in a vicious circle. All the while the numbers of people who have a stake in the process are increasing exponentially.

Entitlements of all kinds are more than "the camel's nose under the tent," its more like planting cockroach eggs in your pantry (sorry, best analogy I could come up with on short notice).
 
Idler,

We are moving closer to fascism than to socialism in its more pure and less viable form...so much worse for us, as fascism is more sustainable in the long run, unfortunately. One other problem is that most sane, reasonable and effective people have families (aka hostages). Those folks in the position to fight best have most to lose. On the plus side, the never-do-wells may be numerous but less capable of intelligent action. Real trouble strts when people enslaved don't evn know that they are: witness Japan! Munro, what do you think?

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Oleg "cornered rat" Volk (JPFO,NRA)

http://dd-b.net/RKBA
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Oleg Volk:
We are moving closer to fascism than to socialism in its more pure and less viable form...so much worse for us, as fascism is more sustainable in the long run, unfortunately. [/quote]

While I agree with most of what you say in your post, I'm not convinced on this point -- that fascism is sustainable in the long run or that the US is particularly close to it. I agree that America is a fervently nationalist country, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it is a right-wing dictatorship.

Fascism usually thrives on a threat to the nation. There are many threats, of course -- many internal, but things would have to get alot worse really fast for a totalitarian government to take over and gain legitimacy. In a society with a strong rule of law, and a constitution which has lasted over 200 years, it seems unlikely to me that this would happen unless there was a national catastrophe (like a nuclear war or a massive economic depression), which would so disenfranchise the people that they would actually reject their way of life for a totalitarian government.

Oleg, I thought you were an optimist?
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Fascism usually thrives on a threat to the nation. There are many threats, of course -- many internal, but things would have to get alot worse really fast for a totalitarian government to take over and gain legitimacy.
[/quote]

Perception of a threat is easy to fanufacture and present for public consumption. Rememeber "German nationals machinegunned by Czech armored cars"?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Oleg, I thought you were an optimist?[/quote]

Varies from day to day :(

Trouble is, you and I can only do so much each day. The good side is that I can attribute 50% of PR pro-RKBA efforts I see to fewer than a dozenindividuals.

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Oleg "cornered rat" Volk (JPFO,NRA)

http://dd-b.net/RKBA
 
Forgot to mention: anyone read "Expanded Universe" collection of stories by Heinlein? A great primer to dirty American politics AND some eye-openers on selling US military secrets to Soviets in USSR and China...in 1950! Check you local used book store.

[This message has been edited by Oleg Volk (edited February 17, 2000).]
 
I believe the degree of control the FedGov has over our economic institutuions, and our various intitlement programmes, push us over the line from a true free-market economy to a government controlled economy.
I am not one who decrys the fact that we pay taxes. But I believe the unreasonable high degree of taxation, and what's done with it, is redistribution of wealth. Socialist.
We are a Socialist country.
The FedGov also doesn't like Nationalism. The FedGov doesn't like flag wavers because they tend to care about things other than things like wealfare, Medicare, BigBrothercare, what have you.
Those in power over us are Socialists and nothing else. Sometimes they even slip-up and refer to themselfves as such.
 
Oleg: I agree about perceived threats. In fact, it would be probably be even easier to manufacture perceived threats with the technology of today.

Shin-Tao: I don't think having social programs makes the U.S. a "socialist" country. There is SOME redistribution of wealth, yes, but not on the magnitude of Scandinavia or the former Communist Bloc, which are/were self-proclaimed socialist countries. Our Lorenz curve is curved more shaply than most countries' (the flatter, the more equitable the distribution -- or redistribution -- of wealth).

But perhaps I digress too much!
:)
 
Just a thought; I have heard MANY people talk about them hating all Arabs for terrorism which, in the speakers' feeble minds, is part and parcel of "their" culture.

What kind of reaction would faked video footage of "incidents"(or even merely selective editing) have on public opinion? I am just waiting for Germany(against Turks) and Rumania( against Gypsies) to lead the way in anti-immigrant action based on "evidence" of that sort. Our politicos would learn from theirs.
 
Well, we've seen what impact perceived terrorist threats (whether real or not) have had on internal policy in Russia. That's the whole impetus for the Second Chechen War. Whether the threat (i.e. the apartment bombings and the attack on Dagestan) was actually Chechen in origin is open to debate.

I don't think that will happen in the U.S. -- except in the movies. But I'm generally an optimist.
 
Anyone who is unaware that contemporary American "liberalism" has Stalinist overtones is asleep or in denial.

However, having said that, I do not think that the Constitution is on the way out, or that the rise of socialism is inevitable. Syndicated columnist Samuel Francis has said that the worst thing about "black helicopter" paranoia is that it causes people to miss the REAL left-wing conspiracies. My concern is that the "socialism is inevitable" attitude might lead people to quit working within the system to fight the Left.

I would argue that, overall, the political power of those of us with traditional constitutional beliefs is STRONGER now than 20 years ago. How can I say this?

20 years ago the three major TV networks and the two weekly newsmagazines -- all liberal -- had an almost complete strangelhold on the flow of information and debate. Today, the Internet and talk radio have broken this monopoly. There are now a dozen or more national conservative and libertarian journals of opinion, whereas 20 years ago there were two.

20 years ago, anyone of any political party who attacked racial preferences in hiring and education would have been a pariah. Now, it is simply a matter of guessing whether the federal courts or the electorate (as in California and Washington) will demolish them first.
 
100K. Go ahead and start Future of America II.

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"If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance."
-- Samuel Johnson
 
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