The Breakup of the United States

[sgreger1]

Don't get me wrong, I would kinda like to keep our constitution. While not perfect, it could be much worse. If you'll go back to the beginnings of our republic, we did start out with 13 soveriegn states and ought to, in theory, have 50 soveriegn states today. The constitution delegated to the federal government certain specific powers and duties such as making treaties and regulating interstate commerce(not meaning "prohibit" as with the PACT Act but to maintain free trade between the states).What changed the balance of power, ended state soveriegnty, and concentrated all power in D.C.? That would be the american Sulla...........Abraham Lincoln and his bloody war which preserved the union at the cost of the republic. I'm not sure that it could be said that the constitution failed...........no piece of paper has the inherent power to regulate the activities of men. It might have served as a guidepost showing us the way or as a light house warning us off the rocks but men have become ignorant of the constitution or else content to let federal judges tell us what the plain language of the constitution and bill of rights really means.

In any event, I don't think a trade war or land war between Kansas and Nebraska could be anywhere near as bad as what we have today. In the aforementioned scenario, you could flee to Missouri but there's no escaping the grasp of Mordor on the Potomic. Snusers still smarting over our recent intimate encounter with the federal government and their PACT Act shouldn't have any problem seeing where I'm coming from here.

The nation did start out as 13 soverign states, but it wasn't working which is why we createds the feds. Things were not well coordinated, especially in times of war. Troops were starving because of no centralized planning in regards to the manufacture and distribution of foods and equipment etc etc.

I think we had it right for a while, I think we need to have a MUCH larger emphasis on states rights and a limited federal government to figure out some of the "bigger picture" stuff. The problem is that the fed took it's order to "make it easier for the states by handling the big stuff" as a mandate to pass across the board rules. This concept breaks down when you have an electorate of nearly 400 million diverse citizens. Everyone wants something different, everyone wants different rules. To me it always made sense to give them just that, a different set of rules based on the territory. If you wanna be a gun wielding redneck living in the woods, than one state can cater to that and make laws accordingly. If you wanna be a gay liberal environmentalist hippy, than you can go to california and they will make the rules to suit that purpose, etc etc. This way everyone has a place in America that is to their liking (almost everyone).

The problem is, for example, when some states want gun rights and some want no guns. This leads to the feds meeting somewhere in the middle and saying that you can have guns but just barely. They want the ammunition seperate from the gun and locked away in a case in another case in a box in the basement with the door locked and an alarm system armed. These rules are stupid and do not suit either of the "gun rights" mindsets accordingly. Rules like this are why there are no longer any states that have NO guns, and likewise there are no states that have the freedom to bear whatever arms they please in whatever manner suits them, we have some luke warm crap policy amongst the many states, and a supreme court that can never make up their mind on how to interprit the VERY PLAIN ENGLISH 2nd ammendment.




I think we should have states with different rules, but not completely soverign. We need to have some kind of federal government to maintain a standing army, regulate interstate commerce (regulate as in make it easier, not harder), and deal with foreign relations etc. We can't have 50 states all handling foreign relations seperately because everyone would have a different mindset on what they want their foreign policy to be.

But with states holding more power, the money can be spent better and things like 10 year long wars in multiple countries would not happen. The states would not allow their tax dollars to go towards it or would not be obliged to volunteer troops. The fact we have the national guard and the reserves in Iraq/Afghanistan right now is pretty much the states bending over backwards for the feds. And we can't have shit like bailouts where "if you want federal money, it comes with strings attached and therefore you have to play by our rules".

[sgreger1]

Add to that, the armed might of the U.S. wasn't able to subdue Iraq..............yes, we wound up buying off the shiites. There's no way they could mount a similar effort in the continental U.S.. If you take a look at 4th gen warfare, state forces have only managed to win one of the many insurgencies, that would be Malaya but there were special circumstances at play there.

They army couldn't really win. Aside from the fact that you would have a major problem with troops not obeying orders to go raise towns that contain their friends and neighbors, they just don't have the manpower.

1. First of all, the united states is heavily armed. Even if only 10% of Americans had a firearm (and trust me, much more do), they would outnumber the army 10 to 1. There are something around a million standing army troops, but in a nation of 400 million people, 10% is a SHITLOAD of people. So they would be far too vastly outnumbered to be effective.

2. Guerilla warfare fought on home turf wins almost every time.

3. Money. If the US started shooting it's own people, it would destroy the economy and people on the opposing sides would stop paying taxes. This is not the civil war, because deploying troops nowadays is very expensive. It costs something like 1 million dollars per every 1 soldier with boots on the ground. The tanks would run out of gas since our people aren't importing all that oil (because they are instead fighting in the revolution) and the supply chain would come to a standstill. Trucks could not deliver food, factories would be short on supplies and workers, and all around it would be too hard to procure the necessary items needed to go to war.

It would last for a while, but after about a year they would be bankrupt, overpowered, and have no morale. I hope something like this never happens but if it did, they would lose.

[Jimbob_Rebel]

Greger, a lot of the guys who made the claim back in the beginning that the Articles of Confederation were not working were those like Alexander Hamilton who wanted the kind of government we have today. You ought to read what Jefferson had to say about a standing army sometime. I know we need an air force and a navy, but the army should be maintained as small as possible to provide mainly a cadre about which citizen militias could form up.

Regarding state and individual actions, while tax revolt will likely have what most of us perceive to be unacceptable consequences....................a trip to federal butt-slamming prison..............we ought to practice non-violent civil disobedience whenever the oportunity presents itself. Overall, I tend to agree with the author that action on the state level holds the most promise. Tom Woods has been talking about the Principles of '98 (1798) lately and nullification as a constitutional method to reclaim state perogatives;

[sgreger1]

Greger, a lot of the guys who made the claim back in the beginning that the Articles of Confederation were not working were those like Alexander Hamilton who wanted the kind of government we have today. You ought to read what Jefferson had to say about a standing army sometime. I know we need an air force and a navy, but the army should be maintained as small as possible to provide mainly a cadre about which citizen militias could form up.

Well that is all relative. See, if it was like it used to be, and we only used an army for defense, than yes having a more militia based army (like the national guard, trained and ready but going about their lives in non-wartime) is the best plan of action. This works EXTREMELY well for defense. They can meet up routinely to drill or make sure everyone is on the same page, and in their non-training time they can go about their lives and just all bear arms incase something goes down.

But the problem is that since that time, the nation has taken the direction of fighting primarily (actually, ENTIRELY) offensive wars. Either pre-emptive stikes or an offensive response to a threat against an ally etc etc. This means that militia based (non-standing) armies don't work well at all. To carry out prolonged, long range missions in faraway countries requires a level of organization and infrastructure that a militia based army cannot obtain.



But that leads us to the real problem, that we are always on the offensive. No one comes here and attacks the united states nowadays. We could save a lot of money, lives, and foreign problems by just scaling it back and focusing on defense. I believe that a militia/national guard based state-by-state defense force works best. The problem, again, is that we would have to stop fighting offensive wars for this plan to work, and I don't see that happening. Plus, could you imagine the fit liberals would throw if we had armed militias here stateside? Government sanctioned ones none the less?

Right now people like to say the national guard is the state militia. No it USED to be the state militia. The way it works now is when everyone goes home, that's it, they go home. They have no weapons or anything like that. They have to secure all of their rifles in the arms room and then have no access to any of their equipment or firearms untill the next drill session. This is just a part time standing army imo, not a militia. A militia is minuteman status, armed and ready to go should you be called to duty. Regular joes with some basic training who if called upon are ready to show up in formation at a predetermined meeting place fully suited and armed, locked and loaded and waiting for orders. Our defense budget could be reduced to million instead of trillions if we operated this way, and no one could ever successfully attack the US. The navy and airforce however need to be standing so we can have ballistic missile defense and air support if necessary, but even these could be severely scaled down in size.

[Jimbob_Rebel]

Before you dump a paycheck into a rifle,spare mags, slings and such, you may want to buy this;

http://www.amazon.com/Bostons-Gun-Bi...0433403&sr=8-1

[Jimbob_Rebel]

our currency.........the u.s. Dollar, is headed for toilet paper status anyway in the not-so-distant future.

*bump*

[sgreger1]

Before you dump a paycheck into a rifle,spare mags, slings and such, you may want to buy this;

http://www.amazon.com/Bostons-Gun-Bi...0433403&sr=8-1

This is really cool. I will have to get a copy of this at once. I want an e-book copy though because i'm not about to lug around a 850 page book everytime I want to go to the bathroom. Thanks for the link, my dad loves it too!

[Jimbob_Rebel]

This is really cool. I will have to get a copy of this at once. I want an e-book copy though because i'm not about to lug around a 850 page book everytime I want to go to the bathroom. Thanks for the link, my dad loves it too!

Greger, you may wish to consider getting hard copy instead. A referance book of such importance shouldn't be vulnerable to fluctuations of the power grid...........in a SHTF situation that could become quite relevant. Anyhow, I'm sure that y'all will enjoy it in whatever format.

[KCOLLINS18]

Nice M4.who made it? Got any mag pull polymer mags for it yet?

The brand is Stag Arms, instead of the polymer mag (which would be a nice item) I was looking at the 90 - 100 rounds. The only clip I have is a cheap factory mag but I should be getting another one soon.