[PBVBROOK]

How about abolishing the National Endowment for the Arts?

How about charging people to be burried in Arlington. Why should the rest of us pay for them?

How about closing the national parks? Having private companies charge for them is illegal.

How about closing the veteran's hospitals? Can't veterans get insurance like the rest of us?

How about charging for access to the airwaves? They belong to the people.

How about pay-per-click for the internet? It is heavily government subsidized.

How about heavy import tarriffs? That could help fund the government.

How about doing away with FEMA? Why should I pay for some folks in the south who have to live in hurricane alley?

Why not close down the National Weather Service? Let the people who need weather to do business pay as they go.

But no. You have to ask about the National Endowment for the Arts. Talk about how stupid the arguments have been. You want to talk about that while ignoring the real problems we confront. The National Endowment for the arts costs each American 46 cents per year. And you and your friends think cutting this will help?

If you want to cut government spending enough to make a difference you need to get into the programs that cost hundreds of millions. Stop the fucking wars for example. They have cost us nearly a trillion dollars and counting. That is nearly $3000.00 per American and counting. You need to go after Medicare, Social Security and Defense. They cost us far more than that. So good luck with that DDM.

Stop bitching about idiotic trifles and go after the real problems.

You really want to save America?

Ban the private owenrship of cars and trucks that get less than 35 miles per gallon. In foreign exchange alone that would save $250 billion dollars per year. That would free up $811 per person to use to pay down the debt we already owe.

Then we could go with open borders. After all the free enterprise system can figure out who to pay. That would save 3.5 billion in border patrol alone.

Sarcasm intended.

Time for you teabaggers to get your heads out of your asses and pay attention. You offer no solutions. But you go ahead DDM. You solve the problem 46 cents at a time. That will keep you busy.

"No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the sources of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." P.J. O'Rourke

[DanDaMan]

How about charging people to be burried in Arlington. Why should the rest of us pay for them?

They died serving us. I don't think they equate to those getting money for putting a cross in a jar of piss and calling it art.

How about closing the national parks? Having private companies charge for them is illegal.

Were charged anyway via taxation.

How about closing the veteran's hospitals? Can't veterans get insurance like the rest of us?

I think they earned their care because they put their lives on the line for us. Those can stay open.

How about charging for access to the airwaves? They belong to the people.

I think it would be wrong to tax the dissemination of what our government is doing.

How about pay-per-click for the internet? It is heavily government subsidized.

Have a link to that?

How about heavy import tarriffs? That could help fund the government.

I think we may have to do some of that in order to sustain our "financial and social status within our borders".

How about doing away with FEMA? Why should I pay for some folks in the south who have to live in hurricane alley?

I agree. Not with regards to emergency care and other organizational aspects... but rebuilding homes at our expense should go.

Why not close down the National Weather Service? Let the people who need weather to do business pay as they go.

That may be doable.

If you want to cut government spending enough to make a difference you need to get into the programs that cost hundreds of millions. Stop the fucking wars for example. They have cost us nearly a trillion dollars and counting. That is nearly $3000.00 per American and counting. You need to go after Medicare, Social Security and Defense. They cost us far more than that.

We should cut a lot out of them.

So good luck with that DDM.

Stop bitching about idiotic trifles and go after the real problems.

You really want to save America?

Ban the private owenrship of cars and trucks that get less than 35 miles per gallon. In foreign exchange alone that would save $250 billion dollars per year. That would free up $811 per person to use to pay down the debt we already owe.

I'm not into heavy fascism that gets into banning a car that someone can afford to drive.

Then we could go with open borders. After all the free enterprise system can figure out who to pay. That would save 3.5 billion in border patrol alone.

Sarcasm intended.

I saw a T-shirt on the television show Reno-911... it had the message under a picture of a wall that said.. "If you build it, they will not come"

Time for you teabaggers to get your heads out of your asses and pay attention. You offer no solutions. But you go ahead DDM. You solve the problem 46 cents at a time. That will keep you busy.

[Huntster]

How about charging people to be burried in Arlington. Why should the rest of us pay for them?

Because, in many cases, it's a contractual agreement with military veterans when they entered military service.

How about closing the national parks?

I love it. Close them forever. There is absolutely nothing in the U.S. Constitution authorizing the creation or funding for federal parks in the various states.

How about closing the veteran's hospitals? Can't veterans get insurance like the rest of us?

Veteran's benefits are, again, contractual agreements with veterans promised upon enlistment. More, most veterans do have insurance, don't take advantage of those benefits, and save the taxpayer money that is actually already obligated. I'm one of those.

How about charging for access to the airwaves? They belong to the people.

Long, long, long overdue. Indeed, considering the recent SCOTUS decision regarding the rights of free expression of corporations, why have media corporations and "non-profit" corporations always had the right to go as far as endorsing partisan candidates for office with unlimited investments of their own, and Exxon been limited on it's lobbying investments? I'd absolutely love to see the mass media corporations slashed down to the size they deserve.

How about pay-per-click for the internet? It is heavily government subsidized.

Stop government subsidies of the internet.

How about heavy import tarriffs? That could help fund the government.

Let's begin today.

How about doing away with FEMA? Why should I pay for some folks in the south who have to live in hurricane alley?

Sounds good. I can take care of myself after an earthquake here. Hell, with my income, I'm sure FEMA would just flip me off, anyway, if I asked for individual assistance.

Why not close down the National Weather Service? Let the people who need weather to do business pay as they go.

Sounds good to me. Indeed, stop national weather forecast services to airlines.

I don't fly anymore, anyway, and planes falling out of the sky would reduce the population, and thus reduce costs even further.

You really want to save America?

Ban the private owenrship of cars and trucks that get less than 35 miles per gallon.

If it's "private ownership", it's none of the government's business. Indeed, if it's private ownership, the government is obliged to leave it alone.

Then we could go with open borders. After all the free enterprise system can figure out who to pay. That would save 3.5 billion in border patrol alone.

But that would increase prison costs incarcerating illegal immigrant criminals, which is already too high.

Or, we can close prisons, too, and just let the private citizen protect himself and his property. They can bury the criminals they shoot themselves as the cost of self-defense.

Sarcasm intended.

I'm not bein sarcastic at all. I'm as serious as a nuclear holocaust.

[Rei Murasame]

I think I disagreed with about 100% of Huntster's response, but I just wanted to highlight one element here:

we can close prisons, too, and just let the private citizen protect himself and his property.

What the hell? What if the private citizen is a 4yr old ophan girl? How's she going to survive?

Also, if you've basically dismantled the entire state to the dismal point where it can't even exercise measures for punishment of criminals, then the whole idea of being a 'citizen' of a country kind of goes out the window doesn't it, so what 'private citizen'?

I hate to invoke the oft-used 'Somalia comparison', but in this case it is actually apt.

[Huntster]

I think I disagreed with about 100% of Huntster's response, but I just wanted to highlight one element here:

Huntster wrote:
we can close prisons, too, and just let the private citizen protect himself and his property.

What the hell? What if the private citizen is a 4yr old ophan girl? How's she going to survive?

If she is not taken in by others, she won't.

Life's a bitch. Then you die.

Also, if you've basically dismantled the entire state to the dismal point where it can't even exercise measures for punishment of criminals, then the whole idea of being a 'citizen' of a country kind of goes out the window doesn't it, so what 'private citizen'?

Fully private and no longer a slave to the state or society, unless he is not strong enough to survive the horrible world around him and he is forced to enter into private security agreements with other private individuals.

In short, a return to forms of feudalism, which may well occur, anyway, if government fails and collapses like Rome did. And, as the collapses of governments and empires in the past have repeatedly proved to us, that will occur again.

I hate to invoke the oft-used 'Somalia comparison', but in this case it is actually apt.

Yes, it is, which is essentially anarchy.

[Rei Murasame]

In short, a return to forms of feudalism, which may well occur

Meaning that you still will end up with a form of government anyway, because the feudal lords will obviously want to govern. Except what usually happens is that the hard Right (if they survive with weapons) immediately sets about doing a total takeover and so you never have to pass through the anarchy period, it just transitions directly into military dictatorship for a while, followed by soft-authoritarianism after order is restored.

And the fact that this has happened many times in history, means that if anarchists actually help to collapse the State, it'll probably happen again.

[Huntster]

Huntster wrote:
In short, a return to forms of feudalism, which may well occur

Meaning that you still will end up with a form of government anyway, because the feudal lords will obviously want to govern. Except what usually happens is that the hard Right (if they survive with weapons) immediately sets about doing a total takeover and so you never have to pass through the anarchy period, it just transitions directly into military dictatorship for a while, followed by soft-authoritarianism after order is restored.

Maybe. Better stock up on weaponry.

While you can call feudalism a form of government, it will be nothing like what we have now. And I doubt it will occur like you suggest. Look to the fall of Rome. That, while not our only example of the fall of government or empires, it is one of our most recent models, and we appear to be following that model rather closely. "Right" and "Left" didn't exist. By the time Romulus Augustus was deposed by Odoacer, the empire had essentially withered away and was taken by barbaric tribes (immigrants, not "the hard 'Right'", who currently oppose liberal immigration) piece by piece.

And the fact that this has happened many times in history, means that if anarchists actually help to collapse the State, it'll probably happen again.

Regardless the minute details of exactly how it will happen, it will happen.

All great empires and civilizations of the past are gone. This one will also die, and I believe I see that death ongoing.

[Rei Murasame]

And I doubt it will occur like you suggest. Look to the fall of Rome.

But why would we want to go that far back for a comparison of collapse, when we have various countries in Asia that went through an implosion in the last 100yrs, and so far all of them have skipped the anarchism stage and proceeded directly to some kind of dictatorship -- examples like Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea maybe... and then in South America there's Argentina of course.

And then historically, in terms of Feudal Lords, there's the old history of both Britain and Japan, where gradually they just collaborate with or annihilate each other until it becomes one country, example:

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

And this is an exact clone of what I was saying would actually happen:

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

"The ''Age of the Country at War'' (戦国時代 Sengoku jidai?) was a time of social upheaval, political intrigue, and nearly constant military conflict in Japan that lasted roughly from the middle of the 15th century to the beginning of the 17th century. [...] The upheaval resulted in the further weakening of central authority, and throughout Japan regional lords, or daimyo, rose to fill the vacuum. In the course of this power shift, well established clans such as the Takeda and the Imagawa, who had ruled under the authority of both the Kamakura and Muromachi bakufu, were able to expand their spheres of influence. There were many, however, whose positions eroded and were eventually usurped by more capable underlings."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azuchi-Momoyama_period

"The Azuchi-Momoyama period (安土桃山時代 Azuchi-Momoyama jidai?) came at the end of the Warring States Period in Japan, when the political unification that preceded the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate took place. It spans the years from approximately 1573 to 1603, during which time Oda Nobunaga and his successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, imposed order upon the chaos that had pervaded since the collapse of the Ashikaga Shogunate. "

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

"Following the Sengoku Period of "warring states", central government had been largely re-established by Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi during the Azuchi-Momoyama period. After the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, central authority fell to Tokugawa Ieyasu who completed this process and received the title of shogun in 1603. In order to become shogun, one traditionally was a descendant of the ancient Minamoto clan."

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

"The Meiji period (明治時代 Meiji jidai?), or Meiji era denotes the period in Japanese history during the 45-year reign of the Meiji Emperor (from 23 October 1868 to 30 July 1912). During this time, Japan began its modernization and rose to world power status. Meiji means 'Enlightened Rule'." [...] On February 3, 1867, fifteen-year old Mutsuhito succeeded his father, Emperor Kōmei and a new era of Meiji, meaning "enlightened rule", was proclaimed. The Meiji Restoration of 1868 ended the 265-year-old feudalistic Tokugawa shogunate.

So we see that they always bring back order, the beginning of the Azuchi-Momoyama period was that very process beginning.

[Huntster]

Huntster wrote:
And I doubt it will occur like you suggest. Look to the fall of Rome.

But why would we want to go that far back for a comparison of collapse, when we have various countries in Asia that went through an implosion in the last 100yrs, and so far all of them have skipped the anarchism stage and proceeded directly to some kind of dictatorship -- examples like Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea maybe... and then in South America there's Argentina of course.

I think the reason why one would like to go back to Rome would be to see the possible result of the decline/fall of the superpower, or empire. It changed the entire world, and did so for a thousand years. Smaller national collapses recently don't have such an effect, but if Western civilization falls to Islam, for example, that would be a major shift.

And then historically, in terms of Feudal Lords, there's the old history of both Britain and Japan, where gradually they just collaborate with or annihilate each other until it becomes one country

That's true, which is the long term rebuilding after the feudal stage which is possible after the fall of civilization.

So we see that they always bring back order

That's correct; after a long period of rebuilding society.

But that's not where we are now. We may be at the tail end of the long period of advanced civilization, which is in it's declining stages. The next step is the anarchy, which will eventually be followed by a rebuilding civilized society.