Forrest BurtnetteAn early July Rasmussen poll  found that only 34% of Americans think the United States is on the right track. How did we arrive at such pessimism?

Consider these reasons:

After the 2007 financial meltdown, global banks are bigger and more controlling than ever.

  • Since the 1980s, the rich have been achieving dizzying levels of wealth, while incomes of the poor and middle class remain stagnant.
  • The federal debt is staggeringly high and is rising at an accelerated pace.
  • The Federal Reserve is printing money at a dangerously fast rate, essentially destroying the value of the dollar, which in part will lead to the coming big financial collapse.
  • The alphabet soup of federal government agencies negatively pervades every aspect of American’s lives.
  • The majority of laws are passed today without the legislators even reading them.
  • Small business owners are oppressively taxed and regulated.
  • Illegal immigrants are flooding across our borders and gangs are controlling areas of Arizona and California.
  • Murders and rapes are taking place all over the country – committed by illegal aliens that the Feds refuse to deport.
  • Ever since the Vietnam disaster, the American military has grown more offensive and less accountable.
  • ISIS is metastasizing thanks in part to the American military funding them and sending them weapons.
  • We are constantly spied on – the NSA in collusion with companies like Google read our emails, inspect our Facebook posts, and the police state keeps us in a state of paranoia and fear.
  • In many school districts K-12 is woefully lacking in the ability to educate young people and get them thinking critically.
  • Higher education is almost unachievable without students racking up a mountain of debt from which the big banks and federal government handsomely profit.
  • Many Christians feel persecuted by the Gods of secularism that have co-opted power and are changing the culture forcibly without consulting the more traditional segments of society.
  • Progressives aren’t happy because the federal government has yet to make this society one of perfect equality and harmony.
  • The U.S. has grown so politically correct that you can hardly discuss anything without getting bogged down in PC quicksand.
  • Major media has consolidated so much under mega-corporations that they mangle the truth and spit out biased and misleading dross.

 

Some see centralized socialism as the answer, but others want to return to the Constitution – and see power returning to the states and localities to keep the federal government in check. I’m in the second camp, because I believe that the first camp would just be adding fuel to the fire. However, lately I’m becoming more and more convinced that very little will change barring a major upheaval. We are a house divided that will not come together. Americans will remain extremely unsatisfied until a revolutionary event happens in America. Take a good long gander at the corpse that was once the auspicious American experiment. At what point are we all going to face the truth that America has entered a space that the founding Fathers warned us about? Many rants on the left and the right are just citizens describing different parts of the same putrid corpse.

So you are of the liberal persuasion and you want to focus on income inequality and an overzealous military industrial complex – it’s the same corpse you are describing as the conservative that wants to discuss bloated social programs leading this country to financial disaster. You want to discuss racism and poverty-related violence – it’s fueled by big powerful politicians’ policies that favor multi-national corporations, federal regulation, morally hazardous social programs and racial division instead of letting local people make sensible local decision for themselves – same corpse. If you want to discuss the astonishing amount of black males in prison – it’s the government’s war on drugs that puts the sellers in jail while keeping the white, affluent college students using the drugs free as birds. The victimization mindset liberals have sold the black community that has lead to crime, fatherless homes and general hopelessness – same corpse. The I.R.S targeting and harassing certain political groups, citizens’ sensitive information being hacked into and stolen on a massive scale, Hillary Clinton obstructing justice by wiping hard drives, Anthony Wiener emailing pictures of, well, his wiener, Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky – it’s all the same corpse. Agencies like the DEA throwing drug addled sex parties with prostitutes in South America– same corpse. Church attendance down in America and church-driven charity replaced by Federal government dependence programs– same corpse.

The central government’s talent to make people ignorant, make them dependent on the State, take away their guns, get them into debt, make citizens turn and fight amongst themselves…it’s all working perfectly in their mission to make people weak sheep who easily can be controlled. The U.S. government facilitated the killing of 3 million souls in Vietnam and has shattered Iraq. Do you think they will hesitate in trying to take out domestic people that want to put a cap on their expansive power? You may be just another rebel in their crosshairs if you get too out of line. The federal government and the powerful elite have consolidated power to an extent that challenging them is almost impossible. Note the “almost” in that last sentence, and realize that breaking from England and forming a government by and for the people was “almost” impossible, ending slavery was “almost” impossible, giving women the right to vote was “almost” impossible, and defeating Nazi Germany was “almost” impossible.

Bernie Sanders talks a lot about these types of things. I admire Bernie Sander’s chutzpah and audacity and I feel his anger. However, his solution, increasing centralized socialism is not the answer. Centralized socialism in a huge country will always eventually be co-opted and melded into the philosophy of conniving dictators with evil designs. Besides, even if a dictatorial power a la Stalin or Castro does not arise, Bernie Sander’s plan of making everyone poorer to quell the envy of Marxist millennials and out-of-work sociology majors is just a terrible idea.

The current American republic is a corpse of Madison and Jefferson’s vibrant America. Why do we, the remaining living cells keep talking to a corpse and expect it to listen and answer to us? We are the lifeblood of liberty yet this federal corpse is sitting on the left and right arm of the body politic, creating a tourniquet. Something revolutionary will happen, and will happen in our lifetime. Let’s bury this corpse and birth a new society that adheres to the Constitution. It could mean large-scale coordinated state nullification of federal laws, or secession of states splitting off and forming a new country, or other possibilities. There is some serious dissent bubbling and I both look forward to and fear the coming storm. The antagonism between big government socialists and constitutional conservatives is palpable. This brew of citizens totally polarized politically is starting to boil over. The sad part is, if there is a major area that secedes and forms a new country, their constitution will be extremely similar to the current American Constitution. The only difference will be that in the newly formed country, the constitution will be followed, God willing. In the newly formed country politicians like the flaccid Boehner and well-groomed Bush will be replaced by more extreme and radical politicians – and when I say extreme and radical I mean principled and conservative, in today’s upside-down brave new world.

The day we learn Bush and Clinton are the two candidates we have to choose from for the 2016 election is the day that everybody will see the grotesque, rotting corpse and smell the stench everywhere. It will be reminiscent of the 1770 Boston Massacre event  that finally galvanized patriots in that bygone era. A Clinton/Bush stranglehold on the country would be so perfectly symbolic of what is wrong with this country.

Get smart, get organized and get armed. Turn off your TVs and smart phones and go to a political meeting or rally and meet some people face to face. Get to know other concerned citizens in your community in the flesh and blood and foster relationships. Go to a city council meeting, or Board of Supervisor’s meeting. Get angry and get vocal. As Margaret Mead said, “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

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Forrest is a James Madison University graduate and has lived in Albemarle County for the last 15 years. He is married with kids and likes economics, history, politics, traveling, languages.and music among many other things.

1 COMMENT

  1. Hi Forrest!
    What is a good way to get in contact with you? I am having trouble locating an email for you.

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