Barcode everyone at birth

[gdanaher]

Yep, can't argue with paranoia. The beauty of our system is that when it goes too far to the left, it self corrects back to the middle. When it goes too far to the right, it corrects back to the middle. Most people don't see things in the context of a black helicopter conspiracy. Perhaps you do, and good for you. Here in Texas you may be right though with STATE government. Perry seems to own it now, and there isn't anyone around with the guts to contest. If you are an appointee and you disagree, you get replaced. Period.

[fickman]

Yep, can't argue with paranoia. The beauty of our system is that when it goes too far to the left, it self corrects back to the middle. When it goes too far to the right, it corrects back to the middle.

I don't think this is always good because the "middle" is relative and changes with the wind. I agree that our system seems to pendulum the way you describe, but I don't necessarily think it's good for a few reasons.

Compromise is not always good. Sometimes one side is right and one side is wrong.
Ex: If I say 2+2=10 and you say 2+2=4, the pragmatists say we should compromise and agree to settle on 2+2=7. So then, a few things might happen:

- The wrong side will become more extreme.
Ex: I know you think 2+2=4 and that we have to compromise, so I shift and assert that 2+2=16. This way, when we compromise, we'll settle at 2+2=10 and I get my way.

- The correct side might become more extreme (and thus, leave the truth) to counter the slippery slope.
Ex: You still think 2+2=4, but you're afraid of compromise and know I've switched to 2+2=16. To balance, you now have to say that 2+2=-12 so that, after compromise, the truth is protected. In doing so, however, you've violated your principles and lost the moral high ground.

My head explodes when I hear the self-proclaimed pragmatist in D.C. championing compromise as the ultimate virtue. On many, many political matters, one side is simply flat-out wrong and should be told so. . . the real Truth is uncompromising.

[speedsix]

...it's not paranoia if they're really out to control and use you...how they go about it doesn't really matter...we have to be aware of their main goals to recognize the motive behind their actions...

[gdanaher]

...it's not paranoia if they're really out to control and use you...how they go about it doesn't really matter...we have to be aware of their main goals to recognize the motive behind their actions...

Exactly. The paranoia thing is normally about 'them' or 'they'. If you can define in fact who 'they' are, it might not be paranoia. If you can't, then it might be.

[speedsix]

...that reminds me of the old saying that , except for you and me, the whole world's crazy, and I've got my doubts about you...

[RoyGBiv]

Never Again.

I'd like to say Amen... but.. it's happening today, every day...

Sudan, Libya, Tibet, Congo, Somalia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Darfur...

[Slowplay]

Yep, can't argue with paranoia.

Isn't that a bit too condescending to your fellow posters?

The beauty of our system is that when it goes too far to the left, it self corrects back to the middle. When it goes too far to the right, it corrects back to the middle. Most people don't see things in the context of a black helicopter conspiracy. Perhaps you do, and good for you.

Again, a bit condescending with your latter comments there... Ideologues that support the increasing size and power of the Leviathan like to make people belief that actions by liberal/progressives will be "balanced out" if they go too far, like a pendulum swinging back once the non-liberal/progressives take back power.

However, we all know that is not the case. Once the state garners more power, it almost never relinquishes it. The U.S. Federal system was designed to be limited, but we're a far cry from what the framers intended.

Here in Texas you may be right though with STATE government. Perry seems to own it now, and there isn't anyone around with the guts to contest. If you are an appointee and you disagree, you get replaced. Period.

I hear this from many dyed in the wool liberal democrats, 'Perry is awful.., blah, blah, and Obama hasn't done anything bad.., blah, blah...

[Heartland Patriot]

Yep, can't argue with paranoia.

Isn't that a bit too condescending to your fellow posters?

The beauty of our system is that when it goes too far to the left, it self corrects back to the middle. When it goes too far to the right, it corrects back to the middle. Most people don't see things in the context of a black helicopter conspiracy. Perhaps you do, and good for you.

Again, a bit condescending with your latter comments there... Ideologues that support the increasing size and power of the Leviathan like to make people belief that actions by liberal/progressives will be "balanced out" if they go too far, like a pendulum swinging back once the non-liberal/progressives take back power.

However, we all know that is not the case. Once the state garners more power, it almost never relinquishes it. The U.S. Federal system was designed to be limited, but we're a far cry from what the framers intended.

Here in Texas you may be right though with STATE government. Perry seems to own it now, and there isn't anyone around with the guts to contest. If you are an appointee and you disagree, you get replaced. Period.

I hear this from many dyed in the wool liberal democrats, 'Perry is awful.., blah, blah, and Obama hasn't done anything bad.., blah, blah...

That makes me wonder: just how IS old Bill White these days?

[VMI77]

Yep, can't argue with paranoia. The beauty of our system is that when it goes too far to the left, it self corrects back to the middle. When it goes too far to the right, it corrects back to the middle. Most people don't see things in the context of a black helicopter conspiracy. Perhaps you do, and good for you. Here in Texas you may be right though with STATE government. Perry seems to own it now, and there isn't anyone around with the guts to contest. If you are an appointee and you disagree, you get replaced. Period.

There is no pendulum swinging back and forth across some theoretical neutral. Over the past two-hundred years the country has moved drastically away from the concept of individual liberty and being left alone by the State if you're not doing anything wrong, to an omnipresent government with power over practically every aspect of our lives....at best, it has become a Nanny State, and is probably headed to a full blown Police State. The Federal Government has operated so far outside the Constitution for so long that most people are no longer even capable of recognizing the infringement....a simple example, the Constitution does not give the Federal Government the power to create "gun free" school zones. The fundamental principle that the Feds have only the powers actually enumerated by the Constitution is long dead....so dead no one even bothers contesting obvious violations anymore.

You can be charged with a felony and sent to prison today for things that virtually no one would have accepted as being a criminal act 100 years ago. For example, you can be charged with a felony for making two $3,000 cash deposits of your own money into your own bank account or buying "too much" cold medicine. When I was a kid you could mail order guns, and except in extreme circumstances, the police served warrants by knocking on your door, not by breaking it down with a battering ram five seconds after announcing their presence and gunning down anyone inside moving to protect themselves who didn't realize the police were breaking in. I could walk down a residential street with a rifle or a shotgun and not trigger a "terrorist" alert.

Yeah, some things are better, but many things are not, and this pendulum you're referring to is swinging across a moving trend line of move government power and control and less individual liberty. The pendulum you believe is swinging can't swing far enough from where it is now to correct the course we're on now and return this country to the Constitutional Republic it was designed to be.

[speedsix]

...oooh, that hurts...dead on accurate and it's going to cost some of us everything before it's over...

[Heartland Patriot]

Yep, can't argue with paranoia. The beauty of our system is that when it goes too far to the left, it self corrects back to the middle. When it goes too far to the right, it corrects back to the middle. Most people don't see things in the context of a black helicopter conspiracy. Perhaps you do, and good for you. Here in Texas you may be right though with STATE government. Perry seems to own it now, and there isn't anyone around with the guts to contest. If you are an appointee and you disagree, you get replaced. Period.

There is no pendulum swinging back and forth across some theoretical neutral. Over the past two-hundred years the country has moved drastically away from the concept of individual liberty and being left alone by the State if you're not doing anything wrong, to an omnipresent government with power over practically every aspect of our lives....at best, it has become a Nanny State, and is probably headed to a full blown Police State. The Federal Government has operated so far outside the Constitution for so long that most people are no longer even capable of recognizing the infringement....a simple example, the Constitution does not give the Federal Government the power to create "gun free" school zones. The fundamental principle that the Feds have only the powers actually enumerated by the Constitution is long dead....so dead no one even bothers contesting obvious violations anymore.

You can be charged with a felony and sent to prison today for things that virtually no one would have accepted as being a criminal act 100 years ago. For example, you can be charged with a felony for making two $3,000 cash deposits of your own money into your own bank account or buying "too much" cold medicine. When I was a kid you could mail order guns, and except in extreme circumstances, the police served warrants by knocking on your door, not by breaking it down with a battering ram five seconds after announcing their presence and gunning down anyone inside moving to protect themselves who didn't realize the police were breaking in. I could walk down a residential street with a rifle or a shotgun and not trigger a "terrorist" alert.

Yeah, some things are better, but many things are not, and this pendulum you're referring to is swinging across a moving trend line of move government power and control and less individual liberty. The pendulum you believe is swinging can't swing far enough from where it is now to correct the course we're on now and return this country to the Constitutional Republic it was designed to be.

I agree with a large part of your assessment. Firearms are a key item to my beliefs because the ownership and usage are indicative of a person's political and ideological beliefs. To make an extreme example, it really shouldn't matter if you own a firearm capable of fully automatic fire without asking the government. It SHOULD matter if you take said fully automatic firearm and do horrible and nefarious things to others with it without any sort of legal justification. Same to be said with a sword being worn in a scabbard on someone's side...it could ride there day in and day out. If its never removed from the scabbard, it is simply impossible for it to hurt someone...the laws are made to control and regulate without regard to actual bad behavior. I'll admit, I am pretty much angry all the time because I spent 20 years of my life serving to defend this nation and the Constitution...and for what? So I can be arrested if the barrel on a rifle I own is 15.999999999 inches long instead of 16 inches and some BATFE goon decides to measure it, all because I didn't give the Federal government some of my hard earned money for the privilege? I could go to jail for 10 years for some arbitrary little bureaucratic rule like that? And the fact that I am to be seen by many as being extreme about this makes it all the more ridiculous.

[rm9792]

It isn't going to happen for a number of reasons. Religious freedom first gets in the way. I know many folks (perhaps some here) are, shall I say, cafeteria Christians. Not meaning to offend anyone, but some people take religion literally and some don't, choosing to pick and choose those aspects that they are happy with, or which are convenient. Levit 19:28 is pretty specific in stating that you will not damage the skin, a la tattoos and such, but many Christians do anyway. An orthodox Jew who observes the Law would never allow anything be done such as a tattoo, or a bar code, or any other permanent device. Just won't happen, and religious freedom guarantees the government won't do this.

The religous aspect will be moot at that point I am sure. If the government is that far gone they wont give a tinkers darn what yuor religion says. The rest is valid though.

[gdanaher]

The religous aspect will be moot at that point I am sure. If the government is that far gone they wont give a tinkers darn what yuor religion says. The rest is valid though.

Religious freedom is fundamental to the nation but things happen, certainly during the last decade to Muslims in the USA. The same problems that forced the Pilgrims out of England could force some of us to make Aliyah and be done with it.

[Bullwhip]

Funny thing though, so many want to do almost the same thing for immigration and voting.