Spent time knocking about SE Asia in my salad days as an E4. Had a first hand view of hell during the fall of Phnom Penh (over my shoulder as we were bugging out). It was a nightmare.
That being said, I have been reading folks here on the edge of blogdom writing about their sincere hopes for the fall of the US government. I really don’t know how to say this, so I will say it straight out, you are fools. You have no earthly comprehension of what true anarchy and an ineffective government looks like. Instead, you appear to have a turgid fantasy of yourself reprising any number of Mel Gibson roles. In this fantasy you have may or may not be wearing ripped clothing with your massive muscles showing through.
An unfortunately large minority of survivalist writing is in this genre. But sit down and think of what the fall of government has meant for the greater bulk of the time encompassed by “civilization”. For the most part it has meant savage repression of the general population by competing power centers, famine, massive social dislocations, and abject poverty. The “velvet”, and “Orange” revolutions were nothing of the sort. They were successful political changes, not revolution.
So there are folks out there who want it “brought on”, let’s fragment, lets go back to the good old days. But I am arguing right here and right now that the folks who wish this have too much time on their hands and not enough thought in their heads.
A much more fruitful use of your time if you are that disaffected is to emulate Dan W. over at Ashes, Ashes and get thee to your state legislature and start trying to change the system we have.
6 comments:
The present corrupt US Federal Gov't can fall and be replaced without a Mad Max situation. All it would take is our politicians to be accountable and stand down and let the people fix things. Of course, that would mean the bastards would have to lose their gravy train.
Pickdog
Good post. I spent my E4 days on this side of the water patching up you guys fresh from Nam. But I saw enough, heard enough, and have learned well enough to know I don't want to be around for the total anarchy that would swifty follow government collapse. History has proven itself out on that score.
Reality check is that while our government is bloated, over controlling, and largely ineffective, the alternative is likely to be much worse.
I don't question the huge changes that must be made if we are to preserve any semblance of our way of life. But I am in total agreement that those changes must come from the bottom up. Guys like Dan and a million others like him are what will change the system/government. It is my hope that just maybe the current economic disaster and soon to come peripheral damage will be the catalyst to move enough folks off their asses and in the direction of a sustainable future. Bitching and fantasizing are not going to cut it.
Amen Deg, it could get 10x worse and what we have now WOULD STILL BE BETTER THAN THE ALTERNATIVE.
It's not a movie, there won't be a cathartic moment and a tidy resolution.
Just a long, sucky slide into a grayer version of the current paradigm.
So buckle up and prepare to fix what we've got fellas: this car we're riding in may suck, but it's a much better than jumping out onto the pavement at speed.
It would seem that this situation is being presented in reverse. We are headed down the tubes because of what the current government has done wrong, along with help from bankers, lawyers, stockbrokers, etc. I know of no survivalist blogger who has done this to the country. But after you have been kicked in the teeth by those who say they have your best interests at heart it is no surprise that they wish for something different.
Michael
Thanks for all of the comments. I guess that what I see is a need for repairing the current system. We need to reimplement the laws that kept the looters at bay (Glass-Steigal would be a great start) and re-implement taxes on the wealthy and the greedy. We need to vote out the current set of venal and self-absorbed politicians and leave the current parties en masse.
We do not need to tear apart the government. We need to start making it do its job.
"We do not need to tear apart the government. We need to start making it do its job."
Agreed - and only the jobs delegated to it by the Constitution. We will need to impose term limits also.
Pickdog
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