Other Options

I had a brief email exchange with Brandon and the question, "when do we fight?" came up when dealing with the "boiling the frog" infringements upon the rights of citizens by the government.

The answer is "I don't know" and I wish I did.  But the continual encroachment of Government may not turn into another revolution.  I truly believe You Always Have Other Options (Y.A.H.O.O.) and as such a future choice between living in Orwell's dystopia or a restored mythical Libertarian Republic is a false dichotomy.

The socialist slide of the US does not have to end up turning into the UK or Red China.  I have no doubts that is what the oppositions really wants, total government control from cradle to grave and the ability to crush dissent through rationing of goods and services before having to resort to naked force.  But I think that the opposition is willing to settle for a "second best" option.  The prags have teeth that the opposition respects because the threepers have the image of a barely checked seething mob ready for a showdown.  But without the prags the fighting would already be on.

Many Scandinavian countries are every bit as socialist as the UK without having the ineffective nanny cams and oppressive Orwellian big brother to go with it.  Switzerland is also highly socialized.  But what do both Scandinavia and Switzerland have in common?  Citizens who own guns and a relatively free market. 

Do I want the US to follow either model of EuroSocialism?  No.  I would much rather have the government out of the business of redistributing poverty.  But I think that the opposition is willing to settle on turning the US into one big Sweden instead of forcing the hand of citizens into open insurrection.

So the tampering with of the (relatively) free market worries me more than the gun issue.  If the market turns into a command economy the Yugoslavia option looks more likely than the Sweden option.  Civil war is a dirty, nasty thing.  Not like the nice clean wars we are used to where the Air Force bombs then the Army and Marines move in to occupy, and we lose less than a thousand servicemen a year.  I know that there are those who will fight if a naked power grab for guns happens, and there are many in the Army who are experts at finding AK's in Iraq who will not be able to find a single firearm in a three block radius when ordered to confiscate guns from Smalltown, USA.

I guess I should explain Yugoslavia briefly.  A brutal dictator united people of differing religious, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds under a cult of personality.  Then he died and the ethnic cleansing began.  Imagine the people of Iowa refusing by force of arms to give up freely their property to the citizens of Chicago, and the people of Chicago trying to take that corn by force.  A fragmented nation caused by the breakdown of a common social identity leading to civil war.  Could it happen in the US?  I hope not, but if the economy stalled someone in .gov might be stupid enough to say "just take the food, the farmers should be grateful someone even wants it." and then life would suck for everybody.  Thankfully our current cult of personality leader is even more polarizing than W was.

If the powers that be continue to screw with the economy it may lead to the collapse that requires the confiscation of guns for "security reasons."  If that happens it is better to die on your feet than die on your knees.  I wish I could accurately predict the future, but if I COULD tell people when to fight it would already time to be fighting.