so you have a crystal ball? you have some foreknowledge of the outcome of this particular battle of ideologies? i have always been a bit of a pessimist, with a rather dim view of humanity that is reinforced on a nearly daily basis, but even i wouldn't presume to count out the human desire for individual accomplishment just yet. governments have been usurping the power of their people for as long as governments have existed and still that individualist zeal survives. while politicians corrupt the best of our intentions and their statist followers clamor to fall in line behind that destruction, those intentions still exist in the form of the laws of this land. as long as those laws exist, there is the chance of some reversal of our fortunes. no one man holds our fate.
perhaps slowing them down is all that's required. perhaps enough people will wake up from their stupor and return power to the hands of the people. that same gradual change that has produced the ignorance displayed by people like buck has also limited the possibilities for every other citizen. not everyone is so lazy as to simply give in and lap up the leavings of an authoritarian regime. to approach the future with with such fatalistic defeatism and joining the ranks of the ignorant just doesn't seem to be an option. remaining true to one's convictions, even in the face of defeat, would seem the better alternative.
Sorry for the length, but I felt the need to be thorough with this - but still may fall a bit short.
Crystal ball, no... But I do have a fairly in depth understanding of history and the role of philosophy. When certain conditions occur, certain actions are taken by a people which are dependent upon their particular philosophy. For example, the philosophies of the Americans and the French in the late 18th century. Two similar situations, two completely different outcomes. Both ousted a tyrannical monarchy, one product was a federal government based on individual rights (with the exception of slavery), the other a democratic government based on collective rights.
I am actually pretty optimistic about the future, just not our immediate one. I'm not giving in by any means, and I don't count out any desire for individual accomplishment. We all have it in us... it is our nature to desire individual achievement, as well as in our nature to admire it (fiction novels are a great example of this, almost every one of them has a heroic protagonist who's pinnacle is some form of achievement). I think of my approach to this as more of a shock to the current form of the American Philosophy in order to return to what made us great.
Sometimes people need to see why something is bad in order for them to see what is good. I think that the 2006 Democrat majority in Congress and the 2008 election of Obama started it this, but just didn't quite do the job. If it did, then Romney, Perry and others of their ilk should have tanked in the polls. I'm doing my best to expose Perry and Romney as statists to everyone I can. I see the American people are still stuck on a R vs. D/conservative vs. liberal, instead of individualism vs. collectivism.
My voting strategy is not set in concrete though; November 2012 is a long way out in terms of politics, and much can change between now and then. A few debates can open up the eyes of the public. That's one of the reason's I would love to see the Libertarians enter the arena. All their candidate has to do is demonstrate how each of the other is just two different flavors of the same brand.
I don't need to have a candidate that will pull a complete 180, but I will still need a candidate that will at least turn us
away from the direction we are going. One of the requirements of this is a candidate who has a strict adherence to the Constitution. He/She does not have to win every battle when it comes to this, but needs to put up a fight -
and fight it for the
proper reasons. If we don't go this route then we're pissing in the wind, so to speak. This election is the GOP's to win, unless they go about business as usual.
