Two close victories for great grassroots candidates!
I was up late last night watching the returns and picking up the signs I’d placed at the polling places, so I’ll be writing more tonight. It was a great night for liberty activists in Colorado and I think we’re all just a little tired this morning.
Tired but happy: another step in the march to take back America.
Remember November.
“Tired but happy: another step in the march to take back America.”
Well, Al, I’m happy too that Buck won, but I don’t share your optimism that sending Republicans to office, even ones supported by the Tea and Cakes Party Movement, represents any kind of a “step in the march to take back America.” As the blogger “Old Rebel” says today over at the League of the South’s blog:
“What do you do when the government is too big and corrupt to fix, and has rigged the system to make genuine reform impossible? Thanks to their impossible restrictions on new political parties, the Democratic and Republican cabals guarantee that no new ideas or voices can penetrate the status quo’s hold on power.”
http://lsrebellion.blogspot.com/2010/08/watch-out-washington.html
Old Rebel goes on to reference the American people’s utter loss of confidence in DC, and that nothing short of a civil war or “Second American Revolution” (Third, actually, if we count the Confederacy’s rebellion against Lincoln’s illegal and immoral invasion) can fix it.
The Federal government (and many state governments too), have lost what political philosophers call “legitimacy”, which is “the foundation of . . . governmental power as is exercised, both with a consciousness on the government’s part that it has a right to govern, and with some recognition by the governed of that right.” (Sternberger) When the lion’s share of people no longer recognize the power or right of a government to govern — and many articles have recently appeared in the news showing that THIS is precisely what’s happened — then the government has lost “legitimacy.” The Declaration of Independence is clear as to what the people may do in this instance — “to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
If, however, it is true as Old Rebel says that both the Democrats and the Republicans have made real reform impossible, them voting them back into office season after season will effect nothing in terms of “taking the country back.”
And besides, in practical terms, the United States really isn’t our “country”. It is a plurality of “countries” unnaturally cobbled together by force. Early American political thinkers worried aloud about the prospect of preserving republicanism given the size of the land mass before that laid before them. Their fears turned out to be well-founded. Massachusetts is no more part of Texas’ “country” than Texas is Massachusetts’. An increasing number of thinkers (e.g., Bill Kauffman) are therefore writing about secession and more and more Americans are wonering about its desirability. Even Rush Limbaugh said the other day that “secession. . .is not the rantings of extreme kookism anymore.” (Actually, it never was – unless of course notables such as Thomas Jefferson are classed with the “kooks.”)
Long and the short of it, while I’m happy to see the American people begin to turn against the Obamaites, I’m afraid that a swing back to GOP control won’t do a damn thing to “take back the country.”
Nope, it’s time to start thinking outside of the box.
Thanks Snaggle-tooth. I appreciate what you’re saying. It might even come to revolution or secesion if we can’t fix the system or it proves unfixable.
But before we declare it unfixable, we owe it to ourselves and our country to give it one more try. If we haven’t got it moving in the right direction by 2012 then I think all bets are off.
Everyone seems to discount those many 1000s that are now involved in the process. The wins last night were made possible by a new awareness of what is happening to the country. With that awakening is a new accountability standard those that are sent to represent us will have to live up to.
Dan and Ken know that we aren’t going to just sit back and go back to sleep no matter who we send to Washington and Denver. Those responsibile for last night (besides the candidates, their families and staff) have no intention of allowing the GOP is just do business as usual.
Its a new day in Colorado.
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