It seems to me that we have been trying reform for quite a while now and it doesn't seem to work. In fact, we are sliding deeper and deeper into the abyss.
I advocate a consensual revolution.
Here I defer to one of my living role models, Harry Browne:
We no longer are proud, self-reliant Americans. Government has turned too many of us into whiners, dependents, people clamoring for favors from the state.
Fortunately, it isn't too late too change this.
But the changes have to come soon. We are fast reaching the point where government will be so insolvent from over-promising that we can no longer unravel the mess without shortchanging and hurting millions of people.
The changes have to be quick and decisive. Government doesn't keep its promises. So we can't depend on it for 5-year plans to phase out wasteful and destructive agencies- or 7-year plans to balance the budget. Like the famous Soviet 5-year plans, Congressional multi-year promises are never fulfilled.
And each reduction in government has to be complete. Reducing an agency to a small fraction of its current size leaves intact the mechanism by which it can grow again. Like a weed it has to be pulled out by the roots- not cut back.
In each case, there are only two realistic choices:
1. Get rid of the program and get rid of it quickly. 2. Or resign ouselves to living with it forever.
There is no middle ground.
-From Why Government Doesn't Work
About the Decline of the 60's Dream
About the crashing of the 60's dream-
...Actually about its absence in today's youth. My view (as a "disenchanted youth") is that it is a foregone conclusion (in society, the media, the establishment) that the dream of the 60's died, it is dead, and it will not live again. More, it will not be permitted to live again. Movies like "JFK" and "Nixon" have perpetuated a view of an Establishment that Controls Such Things, a Control it strengthened in the 30's and 40's, locked it in in the late 60's (with the convenient death of most vocal activists and experimental musicians), and cemented it into Joe Voter's brain by the time he was 15.
So, it seems to me, the disenchanted among us have (almost absentmindedly) been constructing ourselves a life (and eventually a society) that interacts with the System only when necessary, and usually in an adversarial manner. We don't count on (or expect) Government Support, and we are exquisitely aware of the potential difficulty of our future lives. We are selfish (yet politically active and aware), independent, and cynical.
In my opinion, we are preparing for The Fall (of the big Gov.), and we operate under the presumption that the Government is increasing its hold, yet losing its actual power.
A certain percentage of today's youth possess gene #81743GbyT13, or the Vietnam Syndrome Immunity Gene. This allows them to believe that some day the citizens will run this country again, and the recklessly violent and tyrannical System that engineered Vietnam, Waco, and has experimented with thousands of its own citizens will Fall.
And while people can learn that their life will not necessarily be run by an elite group of white men forever, it can be a long and arduous process.
Hopefully enough of us will get together successfully enough (and soon enough) to pull it off in our lifetime
I want to make sure everyone understands my objective here. My goal is not to rip government painfully from people's lives, leaving the unfortunate to wallow in a black hole of social services.
I do, however, find it reprehensible (intolerable, in fact) that our current system requires the use of force (coercion) to "solve our social problems." It bothers me a lot that the people setting the rules of society are: a) primarily not interested in the welfare of individuals, b) in charge of nearly half of the money in America, c) the only legal monopoly, d) the only people allowed to use force legally, e) the largest employer in the country, and f) guilty of daily attacks on personal and public liberty, in the name of solving problems.
"This country is the best in the world, so that makes the atrocities tolerable, in some twisted, brainwashed way, right?"
Wrong. An atrocity is an atrocity by any name. Our government should quite simply not be committing human rights violations, ever. If something it is doing has the unsavory side effect of directly harming others, it should stop doing that thing.
The (social or physical) machinery that creates the harm should be dismantled. The easiest and most sensible way to do that? Take the gun out of the process. That way, no one gets hurt. (Note: By "the gun", I mean the government's use of force to achieve certain goals. As the title states, but many have not understood, this is not an anti-gun rant.)
Guns don't belong in the processes of feeding people (in the U.S.), or helping pregnant girls, single moms, black people, kids, or anyone else. Those processes belong in the realm of society, as its own, free entity.
Please note that I am not speaking here of military defense, or of the policing of direct harm. These functions, along with a much-improved court system, are necessary functions required by government to provide for our basic safety and freedom.
Ultimately, I think many here would agree that a society that solved its problems without using force on each other would be a better ideal than one that resigned itself to the use of brute force to get things accomplished. Everyone knows it's better to talk things out than to fight.
But as long as the sheep among us continue to provide their ever-more-hesitant support to the TWO EVILS and their ilk, the current structure of things will never change. Joe Voter has made that abundantly clear.
I have given up on the Two-Party system entirely, if for no other reason than their united stand on the failed and destructive Drug War. I now seek to engage the task of developing a new formulation for society, and, with support, acting to provide private, non-force-based replacement infrastructure to our country, to provide in advance for the necessary and inevitable end of "the old way."