Random thought of the day

Alan and others are sort of optimistic about the coming government collapse. Kevin is pessimistic.

The argument for optimism is basically that government is a parasite and that once the parasite dies the host (or new offspring of the host) will be able to flourish. I can see that.

I can also see that as the government nears the end those in power will rationalize almost any action to “Maintain order” or “To preserve the union” in the face of the riots. They will “just have to”. Your “goods, knowledge, and skills” may be required by others. And “whatever means necessary” will be utilized to implement “justice”.

As my brother Doug told me recently after I expressed some satisfaction about owning some productive farm land in our time of economic collapse, “We own land only as long as the law allows it.”

This is the difference between the Soviet Union and us. When the Soviet Union collapsed they already owned and controlled everything. There was nothing left for the government to take when the checks started bouncing.

I’m not saying the government will be successful in the acquisition process but both success and failure would be exercises of considerable unpleasantness.

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3 thoughts on “Random thought of the day

  1. The taking is the goal. Fabrication of the circumstances and rationalizations for the taking are simply the means to that end.

    This has happened plenty of times in the past and it’s always the same story; the population at large has a hard time grasping the fact that people attracted to positions of authority can be so vacuous, so brash, so brazen and so evil. We can’t believe what we are seeing, and so we make excuses for it or we deny the full import of what’s happening right in front of us in the light of day.

    We’re looking base, animal criminality right in the face, and we have to realize that before we can deal with it effectively.

    Meanwhile; the Republicans are taking polls, doing focus groups and talking to Beltway advisors and pundits to find out what it is they should pretend to believe in.

  2. It’s a lot easier to seize electronic assets than land. IRA, 401k, paychecks all processed by a couple big copmpanies with mandatory taxes pre-deducted.

    Corporate assets will probably be the first they try to take. Corporations are not sympathetic targets to the ignorant masses. You could seize all of Monsanto’s North American assets and hear nothing but cheering. But you can’t get the government to stop subsidizing agriculture: that’ll happen until the day they seize all the assets.

    Having land is still the best SHTF insurance. Especially in sizes that aren’t considered to be commercially valuable farmland (i.e. not in thousands of acres and held by corporations.) It would cost more to seize it than they would gain, and once they do, it’s virtually impossible to do anything with it. Apparatchiks aren’t interested in living in the boonies, that’s for the serfs. People’s Collective Farm #7 is so nye kulturny.

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