Article by Lonestranger:

While I admire your fervor for prolonging a dying country, I think you have to accept the ultimate truth that it is a dying country. Like all things living, countries have a finite life span, and they too must cease to exist. In the case of America, the argument could easily be made that it ceased to exist in its intended form a long time ago. What we have now is an America that resembles its former self in appearance only, and even that is stretching it.

The sad truth is that the people who today proudly call themselves Americans would run and hide from the level of freedom enjoyed by the earliest inhabitants of the states. We are so conditioned to accept what the founders would have abhorred that, much like Brooks in The Shawshank Redemption, we would rather kill ourselves than taste freedom.

Democracy, Republic, democracy, republic. It doesn’t matter what name you give it or whether you capitalize the word. That is merely semantics. What matters is when the ball got rolling because the lives of nations are etched on a wheel. There is a point where they begin and a point where they end. Granted, those points are not always easily defined, particularly when it comes to the end. After all, no one enjoys celebrating the end of something loved. But the freedom enjoyed at the beginnings of this country will never be enjoyed again by its citizens. The wheel has started turning. The end will most likely be beyond any of our lifetimes, but it is coming.

Man enjoys all manner of rights. Governments are instituted to protect those rights. Unfortunately, all governments operate under the greedy guise of helpers when the wolves in sheeps’ clothing (votreprenuers) are really about solidifying their own power. This is done through the usurpation of the peoples’ rights.

All rights exist in the ether, and all belong to the people. When the people enter into a government, they voluntarily set aside a portion of those rights for the good of society. The trouble is not that the balance never stays the same. The trouble is that the flow of rights only happens from one side to the other. (I’ll let you guess which direction that is and where they are being stockpiled right now.)

Ever read The Firm? In that story, the shady law firm throws money at new associates and gets them accustomed to the good life for a few years before they tell them the truth about the dishonest business dealings. That’s how we’ve gotten hooked as well. We’re comfortable with the way things are regardless of how much we kick and scream about the guv’mint, and the votreprenuers know this. They know they can continue to slowly chip away at our freedoms with our permission and in front of our very eyes as long as they allow us the comfort of the illusion of freedom.

It will continue this way because there cannot be a net gain in rights for us. We started with all of them. The best we can hope for, and the position you seem to take, is that we can reach a happy medium whereby we reach a steady state of no net loss. But governments are tricky by their very nature. As you point out, democracy thrives on short-term thinking. I’d refine that statement further to say that government thrives on short-term thinking. Government rewards the connivers and cheats, making it far unlikely that we can ever beat them at the game of who gets to keep the rights.

Therefore, we’re faced with a dilemma. The government is a politically capitalist entity. And despite our best efforts, we cannot match its efficiency because we designed it to be ruthless in order to stave off all manner of external and internal attacks. Unfortunately, in our haste to craft an unbeatable system, we placed ourselves outside the wall. The citizens of America have reached the point where we no longer can control the behemoth.

That’s why I believe you’re off base with attempting to salvage the current system. It’s like trying to put toothpaste back into the tube. What we’re faced with, and what most people will probably never acknowledge because it threatens their illusion of America, is the realization that we cannot turn back the rolling wheel. It will continue to roll, and the best we can hope for is to slow its acceleration toward death.