Re: Voting is Not the Problem… Americans Are the Problem

I haven't yet perused the whole of this post yet but I felt the need
to make a few observations.
Yeah, I'm from that "other board".

#1 The authorof this piece is historically ignorant:
"Abe Lincoln taught Americans to fear the government. He laid waste to
the South as an object lesson: Washington's authority is unassailable
-- and eternal. The union, at bayonet-point, forever. Like a bad
marriage from which there can be no escape save death."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He seems to be completely unaware of historical precident, Please send
him links to Shay's rebellion.
He makes a few candid observations but then quickly looses his place
in making a central argument.

It would be better if he had made a central point but this is the
normal expectation for products of the government education system
these days.






On Apr 23, 6:23 pm, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> Voting is Not the Problem… Americans Are the ProblemWritten byEric Peters
> Monday, 16 April 2012."Democracy" is the great moral system of our time according to mainstream political thought. But whether the people vote to impose tyranny upon themselves or it is imposed on them by a tyrant, the end result is the same.People votefortoo many things. Mostly they vote to take things from other people either their property or their freedom of action. Each election in modern America is for all practical purposes a no-reserve auction of other people's stuff. Vote for me, says The Candidate and I will giveyousome oftheirstuff. Or something even worse: Vote for me and I will forcethemto do This or That.
> It is never phrased quite so honestly, but this is the essential character of what goes on. Everything is up for bid. There is no off-limits. No "not for sale at any price."
> Apparently, the idea doesn't appeal tomostAmericans anymore. Most Americans view their fellow man with proprietary interest.
> And they, he.
> But the vote is just a mechanism. A tool. It is neither good nor bad in itself. It ispeoplewho are bad. Envious, malicious, vengeful, controlling people. Or simply ignorant people. Givethemthe franchise and nature will take its course.
> Envious, malicious people vote for wealth transfers to themselves -- theft byprocess, rendered lawful. You have more and I have less. Givememore.
> Voters with the itch to control their fellow man -- but lacking the courage to do so directly -- get proxies to do it for them, via the ballot box. It makes them feel good without requiring them to confront the nature of the thing and of themselves. People who would never in a million years march over to their neighbor's house and knock a cigarette from his lips will self-satisfiedly vote to have someone else do it for them -- never stopping to consider that they have just given license for their neighbor to exact revenge using precisely the same method.
> The simply ignorant, in their naivety, vote for laws that seem to them humane and "liberal" -- never following the sequence of events down the line, to the unfriendly end of thegunthat willimposetheir "humane" and "liberal" policies. Or, if they are "conservatives," for laws they may  genuinely believe will "keep us safe." Likewise never following the thought-chain to its necessary conclusion. Never realizing what they've just endorsed and how it willinevitablybe used in ways they may not like very much at all.
> But the franchise is  itself morally neutral. Like a gun. A gun can save a life -- or take one. The gunitselfis neither good nor bad. It is thehandthat wields it -- and themindthat controls it.
> And it is the minds of millions of Americans that's at the root of our predicament. Minds that have been molded (twisted) by great historical forces, embodied by a few very specific persons:
> Abe Lincoln taught Americans tofearthe government. He laid waste to the South as an object lesson: Washington's authority is unassailable -- and eternal. The union, at bayonet-point, forever. Like a bad marriage from which there can be no escape save death.
> Prior to the war, most Americans still held to the curious notion that government existed bytheirleave. It was their mererepresentative, charged with a few specific tasks and no more. When thisrepresentativeexceeded its mandate, it became immediately illegitimate -- a tyranny. The Southern states took this literally, attempting to withdraw on the principle that legitimate government exists by consent only -- and what was being done to them by the rapidly growing Leviathan in DC was being done manifestlywithouttheir consent and very much against their will. Hence, they exercised their right assovereign statesto withhold consent and to sever the relationship. To depart.
> Abe educated them.
> The principle of unlimited federal supremacy was established at Appomatox. The formerly sovereignstates(plural) became little more than fiefdoms ultimately owned -- because utterlycontrolled-- by the "monarch" in Washington. The formerly free people of the several states became citizen-subjects of the United States (singular) -- subject to its universal authority. Oh, they were allowed to vote. But never given achoice.
> Millions of Americans, though beaten on the field, still denied the right of Washington's rule in their hearts -- where they remained free in spirit, at least. They resented the newmassain Washington -- regarding him (rightly) as a usurper, a tyrant, a fiend. It was understood they were ruled by force and very much without their consent.
> Roughly four score and seven years later came FDR and another pivotal moment in the changing (the warping) of the American mind. FDR taught browbeaten Americans tolovethe government. To look upon it as a benevolent source of Manna (sourceof the Manna always left unspoken). Hard times? Bad luck? Washington can "help." Over the ensuing decades, this became institutionalized -- leading us to the present debacle of annual, every other year and every fourth  year auctions presided over by the most loathsome characters imaginable -- politicians -- made possible by an increasingly loathsome -- because degenerated -- mob.
> Up for bidding: The property of your fellow man -- including even his physical person. And as he bidsyou, you in your turn bid onhim.
> The auctioneer, meanwhile, collects his commission.
> Until enough people to make a difference recover their moral sense and decline to partake these auctions will continue. More, they will increase in rapacity as the crowd loses all scruple and demandseverythingwhich it inevitably will. Because nothing is off the table. Then, of course, there will benothing. At least, not for the screeching crowd. Everything will have been consumed and not one of them will have a rightful reason to complain. He who victimizes cannot object to being victimized in turn.
> And the auctioneer? He'll end up owningeverything-- including you and me.http://www.americandailyherald.com/pundits/eric-peters/item/voting-is-not-the-problem-americans-are-the-problem?category_id=198

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