[davidkachel]

Rod, I wish I had your optimism, but I know that all governments regardless of initial form eventually deteriorate to a state of totalitarianism, at which point revolution is the only solution. This is the one and only reason the founding fathers wanted to make doubly certain that when the time came, we would still possess the guns necessary to send the scoundrels to their final reward (though I have a strong preference for the gallows).

However that is not going to happen this time. We had our chance and let it slip away. Never before in history has a government had weapons that vastly outperform anything to which the citizens have access or could possibly hope to acquire, or has there been the technology for a system of communication and surveillance so complete that not a single trip to the bathroom or quiet comment among friends cannot be overheard and reported.

The national guard has been "nationalized", the communication system compromised, the laws written and passed to allow access to everything we think, say, do and own, freedom of speech is a thing of the past, posse comitatus has been nullified and habeus corpus suspended, massive laws that obviously took weeks to write abrogating large parts of the bill of rights nonetheless somehow magically appeared in congress literally overnight, the groundwork has been laid to seize even the comparatively harmless few weapons we are still allowed to own and the will of both the elected and the electorate to change this once free nation into a totalitarian socialist state is in place.

The founding fathers of this country warned us to be vigilant and also warned that the day we began allowing our politicians to bribe us with our own money would be the beginning of the end for liberty. Now we actually allow the politicians to go so absurdly far as to take our money by force so that they can give it to wealthy private corporations whose profits are too low for their liking; and to issue bills of credit (remember that phrase from the Constitution; you know, the part that says the government may never issue them) so that they can 'tax' us secretly and any time they like by simply issuing more bills of credit. (Go ahead; ask a thousand Americans what a bill of credit is and why the government is prohibited from issuing them. Not one in a thousand will know the answer or that bills of credit are what fill his wallet.)

The greatest irony is that the largest steps toward the loss of our freedom were taken not by the democrats who openly declare their hatred of liberty and love of socialism but by the party we trusted and elected NOT to do those things and by the greatest moron in the history of public office. And the biggest moron of all is me, because I voted for the stupid sonofabitch, TWICE!

Thanks to George Bush and Dick Cheney all the laws, materials and means to end freedom are in place. And also thanks to them, the people who WANT to end freedom are now in a position to do so.