kunkmiester wrote:I read your comment several times in an effort to understand it. I failed.
Let me try, I've been thinking on it a few days. Looks like the thread has gotten ahead of me though.
You cannot do a "limited" government. It's the very nature of government to expand and increase until it's a total tyranny, or is overthrown. That's been proven out for all sorts of government all over the world ruling all sorts of people.
You certainly cannot do limited government when people keep removing the limits. Several Amendments have loosened the restraints originally placed on government, and the worst among them is the amendment eliminating the necessity to pay taxes in order to vote. If anything killed the nation, that was it. You will note that the unrestrained spending sprees started just afterward.
kunkmiester wrote:
We're heading for a revolution. It'll happen, it's one of those things that's hard to put a good timeline on. After that revolution, people will try again to put together an enlightened government that truly serves the people (and not just the people in charge). The Constitution will be rewritten, with supposedly more and better bonds and limits to keep the government under control. It won't work. Government expands to tyranny or destruction, so in time, perhaps more time that we gave or perhaps less, it'll lead to another revolution.
Perhaps, but hopefully so far off into the future that it won't trouble us or even our grandchildren's grandchildren further. We can do no better than this.
kunkmiester wrote:
To expand a bit, I feel that the growing speed of information will limit the time needed for the next cycle. The Romans had writing, the Founding Fathers had print, we have the internet. We will have the ability to see the descent into tyranny happen much sooner, understand where it's going much faster, and see the bonds breaking. That revolution will happen faster and then of course, being accustomed to the government, will place even more limits on it. Logical right? Rinse repeat.
Have you noticed my "Skynet is coming" thread? I've been suggesting for quite some time that technology is going to make dissident suppression dramatically easier in the future. We won't have machine overlords though. If it's any comfort, we will have evil humans at the command center of all those killing machines. It's just the same old tyranny with a new modern high-tech twist.
kunkmiester wrote:
At the end of history, we will be teaching our children how sad it was it took so much time and blood to understand the true nature of government and get rid of it all together. I don't know exactly what kind of social order they will live in, but it won't have a government, since people will get used to living without it looking over their shoulders, and it will become so dangerous but irrelevant that the government workers will just stop coming to work.
Wishful thinking. Not having a government is impossible. Whoever fancies himself as a bad-ass will always set one up. It starts out as robbery and extortion, but it eventually translates into crime bosses defending their turf, and the next thing you know, the meanest son-of-a-bitch becomes King.
It's like making a hole in water. It will last till the surrounding water pushes back in.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —