Dean's World

Dean,

Why do you say that you have no clear answer? I think the answer is very clear: the Federal Government can do what it damm well pleases--very much to the detriment of our nation.

Occaisionally the people rise up to deflect the tide, but like the rock in the river, the people can not resist the flow of the water. Eventually, the government will have its way. Taoism is wonderful or hopeless, depending if you are the river or the rock.

The river is driven by the absolute corruption of the politicians in charge, and enabled by the apathy and narrow self interest of the masses (When they came for the Jews, I said nothing because I was not Jewish. When they came for ...).

It is a very horrible cycle of complacency. All civilizations to date have fallen. The better we have it, the more we can let things slide. When do we, the great big US of A, fall? When we run out of the fat that the current social system is sucking on.

John

[addendum 1]
To see the absolute corruption of politicians at high levels witness the illegal immigration policies of the Bush administration. For a more personal taste, experience the effect of the recent emminent domain decisions. Your local Planning Board (about 5 local bozos, the majority of whom are fairly corrptible) refuses to acknowledge the commercial value of your property. They confiscate it at a low price. They re-zone it to commercial status with very high value. They sell it at a profit. Next, they are thanked personally and extensively by the new buyers and by the City Council that recives increased tax reveneus. Corruption does not get more blatant than that. If you have not experienced it, you have not lived.

[sidebar 2]
To evaluate the possibilities of civilization's rise and fall, consider current international events.

It's possible that Islamic terrorists are just the thing we need to force us to re-engineer ourselves. But I doubt it. We are still pussy-footing around. We can occupy, or otherwise destroy every Muslim state in the world if we have to, along with anyone who objects. We are still being excessively nice, which does not really pressure our gut behavior.

I think that China holds the key. Here is the question that we will face: Do we want to be self righteous, but subservient to China? Or do we want to say "f-ck that" to China, and live with the guilty conscience that will accompany our victory? The Chinese are not fooling around. They are up-and-coming and they mean business.

[sidebar 3]
I think I have had too much to drink. But what do you expect, posting after midnight on a Friday? Get a life, would you? :)

If we are declining, then who or what is ascendant?

If we are declining, then who or what is ascendant?

According to the text referred obliquely to: Empire.

A clear barrier against the congress or the federal courts to trump states' rights are clearly spelled out in the 21st amendment to the US Constitution, which ended national prohibition in 1933 and gave to the states exclusive right to approve or disapprove delivery, possession and use of intoxicating licquors. Perhaps there are other examples.

Certainly there is the 10th amendment, which declaims:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Where the 10th amendment is followed in practice is another matter, but the constitution clearly spells out its own limits.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

That is a good question: If the West is declining, then what is ascending? The Russians have still to "get their act together", as the young people say, and the same with Africa and South America. It looks like Islam, an already long-decayed or fossilized ideology, the last excretion of the aging Magian culture, is taking over sheerly by our default, through that spiritual vacuum of which Whittaker Chambers wrote.

Well, for one thing, Kevin, you link from Dean's World is busted. Try it yourself. Click on the (www) beside your name above. All you get is plenty of nothing.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI