[Cog]

The best part of being alive right now is the chance to see the mooch class gets what is coming to them. The howls about unfairness will be epic.

[Daniel_Plainview]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Timo', 'T')hey knew full well that the next president would get stuck with the bill for those unpaid wars ...

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'T')he best part of being alive right now is the chance to see the mooch class gets what is coming to them. The howls about unfairness will be epic.

[AgentR11]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mad_marten', 'I')t's like republican's will insist on using a nuke on an ant mound, because by God its their nuke and damn everyone else with an idea or who might be collateral damage.

[mad_marten]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mad_marten', 'I')t's like republican's will insist on using a nuke on an ant mound, because by God its their nuke and damn everyone else with an idea or who might be collateral damage.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Timo', 'T')he bills from the Bush wars finally came due.

[AgentR11]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mad_marten', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', 'D')o we have a Republic, or do we have an Imperial Seat and some petty rabble bickering about bread scraps.

[Oakley]

This controversy should highlight the simple fact that the federal government is both morally and financially bankrupt.

How with this bankruptcy play out?

It seems that ultimately people take things into their own hands when the pain and suffering from going along with a system of plunder and control reaches the revolution point, the point at which violence becomes more acceptable and less painful than accepting the status quo.

I am reminded of the French storming the Bastille, the Colonists resisting at Lexington and Concord, the South Carolina militia evicting federals from Ft. Sumter, and Soviet citizens resisting unwilling troops in Red Square. Ultimately people will take to the streets, so to speak, because life becomes intolerable under those in power.

I can almost hear Madame Guillotine begging for the blood of those who have brought us to this point in history.

If you regard this as a simple crisis of too much spending or too much borrowing you only address the symptoms, not the disease. The strain of the disease that afflicts us now began in 1913 when those occupying the seats of federal power colluded with bankers to substitute bank credit for money in the Federal Reserve Act. The Constitution gave us the money of freedom, gold and silver coins. This usurpation had a purpose, and that was to allow banks to create money out of thin air and turn us into their indentured servants paying them interest as we became bound by the traditional instruments of indenture, notes, bonds and mortgages. Is it no wonder that wealth in this country has become concentrated in the hands of the few, while the majority march down the road toward poverty. The scheme worked well as Franklin Roosevelt first took away our gold coins and Richard Nixon took away our silver coins, leaving us only with pseudo money.

The current monetary system has two advantages to banks and government. It transfers wealth to bankers from the public, and it facilitates the expansion of government far beyond what tolerable taxes possibly could. Bankers and politicians love it. The general public does not understand it, and are tricked by deflections such as the current debate.

But there is a catch to this scheme. It is unstable and unsustainable in addition to being predatory and unconstitutional. It can only end badly.

It may end in debt collapse in which the debts owed to banks become overwhelmingly worthless and the resulting insolvency can no longer be ignored and hidden by regulators and the outright fraud of the accountants we trust to tell us about the financial condition of the banks. This in turn would make the debts of the banks to us, i.e., our checking and saving accounts and CD's, worthless - a massive bank holiday and you lose.

It may end by the federal government attempting to borrow and spend a massive amount of newly created pseudo money, causing the public to treat what little of this paper they have left as a hot potato, driving its purchasing power down to near nothing. This is possible, but less likely as the resulting increase in prices would make life almost unlivable for those near the bottom, resulting is chaos and unrest.

But whatever the path the unwinding of the current monetary system follows, people will take to the streets, prompted by pain. Whether the federal government goes quietly into the night or follows the course of the King George in 1775 or Lincoln in 1861, will be seen in due course. I suspect that those in power will not yield to freedom without a fight.

The current charade by those in Washington, DC is nothing more than theater to help them maintain control of the government. Only Ron and Rand Paul are addressing the problem; the overwhelming majority of the rest are a mix of sociopaths and psychopaths, for sale to the highest bidder, and bankers bid very high.

[drgoodword]

The conflict between moderate Republicans and tea party Republicans during this debt ceiling "crisis" is Obama's best chance for re-election next year.

Between now and November 2012, the economy is just going to keep getting worse, no matter what is done. QE is played out and every other option takes money out of the economy (especially reductions in government spending) which leads to further contraction. Obama's biggest challenge in getting re-elected will be explaining the worsening economy. With the very public Republican in-fighting going on, Obama has something to point to as the reason the economy hasn't improved. I doubt it will be enough, but it's the politically best "justification" for the endlessly bad economy he and his team have.

The more down-to-the-wire the debt talks go, the better it will be for Obama, no matter which plan wins out by Tuesday. (And I'm sure they'll have a plan in place just before the deadline hits.)

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('drgoodword', '
')The more down-to-the-wire the debt talks go, the better it will be for Obama, no matter which plan wins out by Tuesday. (And I'm sure they'll have a plan in place just before the deadline hits.)

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Oakley', 'T')his controversy should highlight the simple fact that the federal government is both morally and financially bankrupt.

How with this bankruptcy play out?

It seems that ultimately people take things into their own hands when the pain and suffering from going along with a system of plunder and control reaches the revolution point, the point at which violence becomes more acceptable and less painful than accepting the status quo.

I am reminded of the French storming the Bastille, the Colonists resisting at Lexington and Concord, the South Carolina militia evicting federals from Ft. Sumter, and Soviet citizens resisting unwilling troops in Red Square. Ultimately people will take to the streets, so to speak, because life becomes intolerable under those in power.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '
')They didn't have machine guns and tanks during the French revolution.

[Cloud9]

The military and the police are not of one mind. You have groups like the Oath Keepers that are reinforcing the notion that it is lawful to disobey an unlawful order. There are different seats of power. Local cops depend on the support of the local population. Without it they are isolated and surrounded. The legitimacy of the government is eroding. Oppression will not reinstate that legitimacy. If anything it would make the government seem more illegitimate.

Like it or not, the Tea Party is a safety valve letting off steam. Its members reject both party elites. They see a third party as a viable means of wresting power away from the plutocracy. Will it succeed? I don’t know but I do not it is an alternative to blood in the streets or a constitutional convention.

[Oakley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '
')Yeah, this government is corrupt. The founding fathers didn't forsee the government becoming a giant wealth redistribution machine, powered by the "we aren't given enough for nothing" majority that pays NO federal income tax. The top 5% of income earners pay about 60% of the federal tax, and the top 1% pay about 40% of it. These people earn a FAR smaller proportion of the total income than this tax bite, BTW. Yeah, it is a pretty terrible deal for those who actually produce the most.

But don't worry. With people like your and Obama's "punish the successful" attitude, these folks are willing to provide less and less jobs. They'll invest internationally, leave, or both.

Who are "the people" you are talking about?

Most "poor" people are used to being on the dole, whether it be tax breaks, government services, tax credits (like unearned income credit) medicaid, food stamps, and on and on. Now the left wants to add endless unemployment insurance (welfare, apparently) to that.

Or is is the middle class who was too irresponsible to save and invest during their career, who now feels entitled to the federal dole?

Or someone else?
...

OK. So "they" take to the streets and plunder everything and perhaps kill everyone they don't like, like say the people who provide the jobs, or with the brains to actually run the infrastructure. After about 30 days of consuming "the loot" like all the food on the shelves, then what? (Sitting around and complaining that they are owed everything will NOT produce anything).

Or are you assuming that somehow this brilliant or lazy class of folk who couldn't make good with a giant safety net will somehow magically do fine now under new leaders who are Marxist or Communist or fascist dictators?

...

And by the way, do you really think the military will just sit there and watch?
Unless the system is REALLY bankrupt, the army (and para-military outfits like the police) will be ready to kick people's asses as long as they are being paid.

They didn't have machine guns and tanks during the French revolution.

...

Do you think these things through, or do you just enjoy fantasies of violence?

[AgentR11]

Two thing about domestic uprising that I don't think can be stressed enough;

1) Bob the Mooch... he's got this thing called a food stamp card. As long as the card works, his kids have food to eat, as long as his kids have food to eat, he is *NOT* going to have any interest in insurrection. I predict those cards will never stop working. They are too good a deal on their own as crowd control; and the continuous viable demand on food, insures that the industrial agriculture system will never seize up.

2) Our military is an all volunteer, war time force, highly trained, exceptionally well supplied and equipped. They have no equal. Every single one of them that is in service right now, carrying tens of thousands of dollars worth of gear a piece and hundreds of thousands of dollars of training behind them, joined, INTENDING TO GO TO WAR. They aren't '70s era dodgers, trying to find a way to avoid combat exposure. They joined IN ORDER TO FIGHT. And we have equipped & trained them to be the absolute best there is. Its not even close.

If you bring them into the discussion of domestic uprising and violence. The US military wins the violence issue, regardless of the circumstance.

So, Bob the Mooch, if insurrection was in his mind, would be choosing between laying low and behaving, or suicide. There is no "fighting" for him in this context.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', '
')So, Bob the Mooch, if insurrection was in his mind, would be choosing between laying low and behaving, or suicide. There is no "fighting" for him in this context.

[AgentR11]

One other thing of note about military in America, and its relationship with its civilian populations; the people that own most of the guns that could be useful in an uprising; are owned by the most right wing, pro military portion of the populations. They have little tolerance for blue hats, but if a battalion of US troops showed up in a fly-over country town wanting to set up headquarters and asking the mayor for assistance; they'd be buried in support so fast the quartermasters would have trouble keeping it all organized. They'd be talking about parades, not uprising. OTOH, if they went into a big city, most of the weapons owned, by gang bangers and liberal morons, can't even penetrate the normal armor worn by US Infantry. Which means, not only can they not kill them, but the infantry guy is in an invincible mindset, which means he'll take aimed shots in response, which means five shots, five dead gang bangers. Crowd rushing won't do either, they can, and would use continuous fire weapons against a crowd that penetrated the first line and was rushing.

There exists no situation in the US that would involve a successful uprising against US military forces. Thus, if they are in the mix, the fight never starts.

[gollum]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', 'T')wo thing about domestic uprising that I don't think can be stressed enough;

1) Bob the Mooch... he's got this thing called a food stamp card. As long as the card works, his kids have food to eat, as long as his kids have food to eat, he is *NOT* going to have any interest in insurrection. I predict those cards will never stop working. They are too good a deal on their own as crowd control; and the continuous viable demand on food, insures that the industrial agriculture system will never seize up.

2) Our military is an all volunteer, war time force, highly trained, exceptionally well supplied and equipped. They have no equal. Every single one of them that is in service right now, carrying tens of thousands of dollars worth of gear a piece and hundreds of thousands of dollars of training behind them, joined, INTENDING TO GO TO WAR. They aren't '70s era dodgers, trying to find a way to avoid combat exposure. They joined IN ORDER TO FIGHT. And we have equipped & trained them to be the absolute best there is. Its not even close.

If you bring them into the discussion of domestic uprising and violence. The US military wins the violence issue, regardless of the circumstance.

So, Bob the Mooch, if insurrection was in his mind, would be choosing between laying low and behaving, or suicide. There is no "fighting" for him in this context.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gollum', 'S')econd America is the most armed populace on the planet and with 75 million guns in private hands the military would be outnumbered by 150 to 1.

[AgentR11]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'H')ey, an odd roadside bomb here and there would certainly take a tasty bite of US military.
Even a hidden sniper with a shotgun could neutralize one or 2 soldiers before being taken out.