Sean wrote..

When the sheeple are literally hungry and homeless and penny-less. Not until then.

The problem is, if it gets to that point, we'll have something like the French Revolution or many Third World revolutions, where the poor will simply be out to kill and seize the property of anyone who has more than they do.

The original American revolutionaries were prosperous, educated, upper-middle-class property owners.

Also, no offense intended, but I dislike the word "sheeple". It sounds too much like the Marxist term "the masses".

Both terms treat people as part of a collective rather than as individual human beings.

Rasmussen had a recent article saying that only 22% of the American public think that the government has the consent of the governed:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_c....

Note that this came out before the events of last Thursday.

Quote:

Democrats are evenly divided as to whether or not the government has the consent needed for legitimacy. Only eight percent (8%) Republicans and 21% of unaffiliated voters believe it does.

Obviously, that 50% D to 8% R ratio will flip instantaneously the moment that President Romney is sworn in, which only goes to show that far too many people have a rah-rah-yay-team attitude towards politics and political philosophy.

The masses of Americans are indeed "sheeple" because one half doesn't realize the extent of the problem, and the other half just doesn't care. They have to go to work, watch TV, take the kids to soccer, have a 4th of July BBQ, go to Walmart and buy worthless ****, etc etc etc, you know, everything that being an AMERICAN is all about today, and thinking about the REAL situation would be just too inconvenient to their lifestyle. And thus, no matter what you do to explain it to them, they flock together, fight against you, call you a conspiracy theorist, and then stick their heads back in the sand.

Individuality be damned. Our fellow Americans are afflicted with the worst kind of group-think and hive-mind the world has EVER SEEN. They ARE part of a collective. Whereas Americans like us here on TF make up an infinitesimal minority.

It's sad but it's true, and it's exactly why nothing is going to change anytime soon.

I keep hearing in the back of my head the quote from Ronald Reagan:

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

It is sad to see what so many have died for being lost almost imperceptibly through a lack of vigilance--a lack of even caring--on the part of so many in my generation. The only solace I have when I think of Reagan's words is that I have no children to have to explain this to. But this is little consolation when I see the storm clouds gathering for future generations. Let us hope more of our fellow countrymen wake up to the incremental losses in their freedoms before Reagan's words come to describe us.

Pissing in the wind comes to mind.

....and there is no reason to pick up Arms and play into their (violent) "Revolution". We can put an immediate stop to this nonsense without firing a single shot in anger. That day comes once a year. Think about it.

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....and there is no reason to pick up Arms and play into their (violent) "Revolution". We can put an immediate stop to this nonsense without firing a single shot in anger. That day comes once a year. Think about it.

If only it were that easy.

But please elaborate for the sake of enlightening others, because I have no idea what you're talking about.

Paladin: It is that easy, it just takes common will.

Come tax day, what does the government do if *NOBODY* sends in a check?

He thinks that, by not sending in a piece of paper on April 15th, and keeping our heads down from the bullets all around the other 364 days, we can affect change.

I think it's pretty clear that a tax revolt is the next step. But how do we do it?

Rickl: We already are. Look at the percentage of people who actually pay tax vs those that only take.

[Edit: Of course it's not heading in the direction I'd prefer, but it is happening...]

And just how do you convince EVERYBODY to not pay taxes? Hell how do you convince even 1 percent to not pay taxes?

Even if you did, the government would just print and run up more debt, so it really doesn't matter. Collecting taxes doesn't have a damn thing to do with what this government spends. There are no limits. They do what they want. Nobody will stop them.

The only thing that ever happens is a bunch of people bitch about it on the internet over, and over, and over, and over, and over, ad nauseum. The same catch phrases, the same historical quotes, the same bitching over and over.

And nobody ever DOES anything.

And on it will go, forever.

There's no stopping it. I wish I could believe otherwise. But at this point, I can't.

His name was Joe Stack
His name was Joe Stack
His name was Joe Stack
His name was Joe Stack

Paladin: We're already well over 50% that collect more from the government than they pay in.

You won't ever convince everybody.

It took less than 10% of the electorate to get prohibition passed.

What you have to have is a large group that's dead set on something - and you'll get it. Right now we have the FSA which, while I dread the hell out of the end game, is having the same effect.

And it took 3% to actively fight and beat the British...

I understand what you're saying, but my point is, it doesn't matter how little the tax revenue our government takes in is. It has absolutely nothing to do with what they'll spend because as they've proven time and time again, they do not play by the bounds of any kind of budget. And as the WHOLE WORLD has proven time and time again, they won't cease to "loan money" or do business with our government, and there's no way in hell the other countries will stand up to what's going on.

It's a farce. It's all one big stupid farce. What does requiring taxes even DO at this point? It's a dog and pony show, just like voting. It creates the ILLUSION That our government needs revenue to spend and do all the things it does. But it really doesn't! It prints, it "borrows", it pulls one bull**** scheme after another on the whole entire world and not one *******n thing ever happens to put a stop to it.

I guess I've just reached the point where I've lost the little remaining faith I've had in humanity to do the right thing. I just don't ever see it happening in my lifetime. They've figure out how to kick the can infinitely down the road. Infinitely.

For ****'s sake, the average American still has no problem with going to the Airport and allowing the government to SEXUALLY MOLEST them, their wives, their daughters, their sons, nor do they have a problem with them all being seen naked. WHO THE HELL WOULD HAVE EVER THOUGHT AMERICANS WOULD STAND FOR SUCH A THING?!?! Yet what do they all say? "Ohhhhhhhh, it would be too INCONVENIENT for me to drive to my business meeting. Ohhhhh, I can't DRIVE across the ocean!!! Ohhhh I hate it but I have to do it, I have to keep paying the airlines my money and letting the TSA violate me, because my LIVELIHOOD depends on it, my BUSINESS depends on it! I can't possibly stand up to the tyrants, IT WOULD BE TOO ****ING INCONVENIENT." And THEN they all fight against you calling you a conspiracy whackjob and say that they'll do whatever it takes to "protect us from duh turrrhheerrrrists". It never ends!!

I am so disgusted with our countrymen right now. So ****ing disgusted at all the things they've let go because they weren't paying attention, or they were to worried about going to work buying **** at walmart and watching Dancing with the Stars. Too worried about living the comfortable little lives they managed to build for themselves all while the forces of evil were encroaching upon it.

I am so disgusted with my fellow American on this 4th of July I just want to puke.


Here we are. And here we stay. Because nobody in this country wants to be inconveniences or, god forbid, have their happy little ignorant lives change.

I just want to puke.

Paladin: You're not alone.

Remember this place? I'm sure the coming collapse will have a destabilizing effect there, too, as if more was needed. But, that's OK. The US and the UK, the two main proponents for the invasion, the two countries that independently operated the non-UN-approved no fly zone, and the two countries that would NOT have received oil development contracts if the embargo had been lifted as there was pressure to do before the invasion (pressure from other governments for their own selfish reasons, of course, not because they were truly humanitarians) got their oil development contracts.

Look forward to this after we leave Afghanistan:

http://news.yahoo.com/iraqis-face-long-f....

Iraqis face long future of fear as attacks mount

Excerpt:

BAGHDAD (AP) — Whenever he leaves his home, Mohammed Jabar, a Sunni Muslim, carries his cellphone so his family can find out quickly whether he is safe if a deadly bomb attack hits. Shukria Mahmud, another Sunni, rarely ventures from her house because of the rash of violence that is gripping Iraq.

Laith Hashim, a young Shiite Muslim, is considering moving away from Iraq if security continues to disintegrate. Such a breakdown, he fears, would spark a new round of bitter sectarian fighting of the kind that brought the nation to the brink of civil war just a few years ago.

Tensions simmer between Iraq's Sunni and Shiite communities, yet they share an increasingly widespread despair. Al-Qaida-style attacks are on the rise, faith in the government's ability to keep people safe is on the wane and a fatalistic acceptance of a life of fear is perniciously settling in.

Nine years after the U.S. led an invasion of Iraq that overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein — purging the leadership and military of his supporters and leading to a fight against insurgents in a bloody guerrilla war that left more than 100,000 dead — Iraq's outlook is increasingly bleak in summer 2012.

Instead of a Western-style democracy functioning in peace and cooperation, what's been left behind is dysfunctional and increasingly violent. Many of the attacks of the past month have targeted Shiites on annual religious pilgrimages, raising fears of a return to the deadly cycle of destructive violence between Sunni and Shiite communities.

"The Sunnis should be warned that there will be retaliation if the attacks against Shiites continue," Hashim, 18, said Wednesday in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood. The impoverished area in the capital's northeast is home to the Shiite Mahdi Army militia that battled al-Qaida during Iraq's darkest days between 2006 and 2008.

"Patience can't last forever," he warned.

-------

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_c....

According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report published in October 2007, the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost taxpayers a total of $2.4 trillion dollars by 2017 when counting the huge interest costs because combat is being financed with borrowed money.

And we know that when it comes to projecting costs, the CBO is always ridiculously low.

The construction and operation of the Large Hadron Collider has cost $10 billion to date. The entire US ground based astronomy effort including all telescopes cost less than $10 billion.

Our priorities are seriously out of whack.

I find it ironic how everyone gets all patriotic for one day, singing songs, waving flags and dancing in circles while their very government is busy robbing them blind. Irony indeed.

Bruceallen123:

I spent the day in mourning.

I thought about flying my flag upside down, but in the end I didn't bother putting it up at all.

Now that I'm living in the USSA, I probably need to be careful about calling attention to myself.

The current PTB will lose all credibility when the ponzis collapse. After that, the question on the table will be whether we will bow to the autocracy which the elites have been constructing -- IN OUR FACES, as it were -- so their looting can continue? Or will we regain our liberties under the principle that Jpg elucidated?

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Government has no power that the people do not consent to. Any such taking of power by government is illegitimate.

Not only does the government have no power that the people do not consent to, they cannot consent to give the government a power they do not themselves have.

I have a right to defend myself and my property; I can consent to have the government maintain a police force to defend my person and my property.

I do not have a right to stick a knife in my neighbor's ribs and demand he pay for my medical expenses (or anything else). Therefore, I cannot consent to have the government do that on my behalf.