Is our political system obselete? And if so, what's the alternative?

[cjjtulsa]

Sure they were, if you weren't black.

Lots of "ifs" as concerned the freed slaves; Lincoln was supposedly for the idea of repatriating them (or some of them) to Africa; Mr. Booth put an end to that. It was thought to be a shaky proposition monetarily, but was supposedly discussed. Had he not been assasinated, who knows how things would have turned out. If the CSA had won, who knows how things would have turned out. The actual results certainly put the clamps on state's rights, regardless of the effects on any demographic.

 

[Junior Bonner]

The defeat of the Confederacy was so complete and Reconstruction so oppressive that there's really no way to guess what it would've been like if the CSA had won (though my pet theory has long been that a Confederate victory would only have delayed the inevitable reunion of the states). How much hatred might've been avoided if the South hadn't gone through Reconstruction--or even if Lincoln's moderation had carried the day, and the carpetbaggers hadn't run roughshod over everyone in sight?

And you might recall that the Indian nations didn't exactly get anything even resembling a fair shake from Uncle Sam; who can say if their lots really would have been worse as citizens of the Confederate States of America? Also, white Texicans intermarried with Hispanics before the war; can you really say with certainty that Hispanics would've been worse off if there hadn't been the post-war flood of people into Texas, some fleeing from the carpetbaggers?

I'm not arguing that minorities would've been better off if the South had won, only that you always need to remember that the victors write the history books, and that sometimes what you know ain't necessarily so...

No way the South could have won. Bunch of barefooted supermen armed with muzzleloaders running up against Gatling guns and repeating rifles.

 

[farmerbyron]

Should have stuck with the Articles! Also, things would probably be better in the CSA if our ancestors had fought a little harder for independence, or resisted the occupation more. I think it's time to try again. People always say how the issue of secession has been decided already, but I think a lot has changed since '65. I don't think the current crop of pantywaists in the executive branch have the stones to do what it would take to keep the country together... or that they would prevail even if they tried. The nature of warfare has changed a lot in the past 150 years.

I am always in favor of secession and decentralization of power... right down to it's logical conclusion ultimately, but most folks probably aren't ready for that yet. Anyway, the more jurisdictions there are and the more autonomous they are, the more likely it is that you will be able to find refuge somewhere if you get crosswise with the local Gestapo somewhere else. Also, the smaller and weaker a State is, the less they seem to have grandiose ambitions for everyone's lives. Secession is pretty much always a net plus for liberty IMO.

Short of secession, overthrowing/disbanding the government, etc., some concrete steps that could be taken now to improve the current system would be:

1) Repealing the 16th Amendment

2) Amending State Constitutions/Bills of Rights to provide explicit protection for freedom of association, including freedom from interference in voluntary relationships of all kinds, whether they be economic, contractual, marital, sexual, residential, or anything else... protection of economic freedom in particular would really cut down on the corruption in government, since the government would have much less power to make and break businesses with legislation, regulations. Less governmental power over business = less incentive for big business to try to influence politics with lobbyists and money.

3) Repealing legal tender laws and allowing competing currencies -- this would curtail the government and the Federal Reserve's power to inflate the currency and pass on the cost of government expansion via the inflation tax and the national debt.

4) Ending or greatly cutting back on drug prohibition, which has been the source of countless losses of liberty.

5) Adhering to a strict non-interventionist foreign policy. Ending or greatly reducing the government's meddling in foreign countries would greatly reduce the number of foreigners who are hostile to us, as would building strong commercial ties with all of the world.

6) Explicit recognition of jury nullification in the courts... if everyone knows that the law is on trial as well as the Defendant, I think you would start to see less prosecution for victimless crimes and other anti-liberty BS.

(7) Start instituting separation of education and State... the government educating the populace on how to be good citizens is the fox guarding the henhouse. Plus it prevents desperately-needed competition and innovation in the field of education.

8) And here is one that will be controversial in libertarian circles... as long as there is going to be gov't-run education, States should require a course on basic economics, so less people will fall for economically illiterate political agendas like minimum wage, protectionist tariffs, etc.

9) Widespread use of nullification and interposition by States... even if the feds continue to enforce their laws, this rallies people around the cause and weakens their loyalty to central authority.

10) Repealing all governmental recognition of political parties, including ballot access laws that favor the two main parties, government funded primary elections, etc.

^^^libertarian pornography.

 

[farmerbyron]

Keep in mind that the government follows the economic system.

The founders wrote the Constitution the way they did because they lived in an agrarian society. They couldn't have imagined most of what our government does today.
The industrial revolution spawned the progressive movement, and massive top down government evolved to match wits with massive top down economic entities.
Things aren't that way anymore, and the massive bureaucracies don't work with diffused and empowered societies. The internet has allowed us to become tribal people again, and to form communities that the industrial age eliminated.
This is the 4th Age of Man, we aren't hunter-gatherers, we aren't peasant farmers, and we aren't child laborers shoveling coal for robber barons. I have the entirety of human knowledge in my pocket and your government can't keep up. The younger generations of today will be the first to live in a post-government society. There isn't anything you can do about it.

Thats a bit optimistic. The statists will not accept this and the statists are far more numerous than any other group of liberty minded people. Plus the statists will use that same technology liberty lovers enjoy to continue to oppress.

 

[farmerbyron]

IMHO, that problem would've been corrected regardless of who won; it was no longer a sustainable macroeconomic proposition, even by then.

Have you seen the movie "12 years a slave"? That **** wasn't ending until someone made it end. Outside of the slavery issue, I am very much an advocate for states rights. Just damn unfortunate that slavery ever existed.

 

[tRidiot]

I agree, slavery wasn't going anywhere as long as there was money to be made off of it.

 

[Junior Bonner]

I agree, slavery wasn't going anywhere as long as there was money to be made off of it.

One has to wonder at the fairness of being conscripted to fight for the rich landowners. The slave owners were exempted from the draft, while impoverished sharecroppers had to get out there and fight. The Southern Gentleman sipped mint julips from a rocking chair on the veranda, listening with concern to the cannon and rifle fire in the distance.

 

[SoonerP226]

Have you seen the movie "12 years a slave"? That **** wasn't ending until someone made it end.

As I see it, one of two things would've happened: either the Confederacy would've ended it, or it would've destroyed their economy and the states would've been forced to abolish it as they re-entered the Union. Either way, it would've been ended.

Slavery was profitable on the microeconomic scale, but it was already having a negative impact on the South's economy as a whole, even before the Late Unpleasantness Between the States. (IMHO, one major reason that the North's industrial-driven economy was so far advanced over the South's primarily agrarian economy was that a lack of free labor forced innovation in manufacturing.) It certainly killed any possibility of the South winning, as was well explained in the movie Gettysburg--the European powers could not support a country that had legal slavery.

Outside of the slavery issue, I am very much an advocate for states rights. Just damn unfortunate that slavery ever existed.

^This. As voiced by Tom Berenger in the aforementioned scene, "We should have freed the slaves, THEN fired on Fort Sumter. "

 

[tRidiot]

One has to wonder at the fairness of being conscripted to fight for the rich landowners. The slave owners were exempted from the draft, while impoverished sharecroppers had to get out there and fight. The Southern Gentleman sipped mint julips from a rocking chair on the veranda, listening with concern to the cannon and rifle fire in the distance.

I agree, but it's perfectly in line with their world view that their skin color and birth status gave them the right to own other people, beat them routinely, torture them, maim them, rape them repeatedly, steal and sell their children and kill them indiscriminately at the slightest whim.

I agree with the line from the movie listed above -

"Sooner or later, somewhere in the course of eternal justice thou shalt answer for this sin."

 

[120 Acres]

What do you want to pick from?

or

Or a free market?