When We Wake Up November 7th... Nothing Will Have Changed

My
latest frustration began with a post on Facebook and the soliloquy
that followed (name changed to protect a friendship):

Jim: Voting
is the illusion of influence in exchange for the loss of freedom.

John:
So, what would be the alternative to voting for what a person feels
will improve the situation in their arena?

Jim:
Traditional thought that assumes a large parliamentary democracy
is the only alternative, one that has failed, would necessitate
a revolution of some kind with a view to beginning again, which
ultimately would fail again due to the dynamic of the tyranny of
the majority. To wit, no document or contract can (over the longer
term) stop the majority from becoming the dictator in a large democracy.
But there are alternatives. "Democracy is by definition a collectivist
system. It"s socialism through the backdoor. The basic idea
behind it is that it is desirable and right that all important decisions
about the physical, social and economic organization of society
are taken by the collective, the people. And the people authorize
their representatives in parliament - in other words, the State
- to take these decisions for them. In other words, in a democracy
the whole fabric of society is geared towards the State. Clearly
then it is misleading to claim that democracy is, somehow, the inevitable
climax of the political evolution of mankind. That"s just propaganda
to disguise that democracy represents a very specific political
orientation, for which there are indeed plenty of reasonable alternatives."
Take a look at Beyond
Democracy by Karel Beckman and Frank Karsten. It
is available as a book or an e-book at amazon.com.

John:
That being said, there is no "reasonable" alternative
(with any hope of success) to voting for a candidate that a person
feels will improve the current situation.

Jim:
If there were such a candidate, perhaps, assuming the nation was
not too far gone, which it is. That aside, the core beliefs
and policies of both mainstream candidates are remarkably similar.
A good read on this can be found here.

John: Sorry
Jim, but there is NO comparison between Obama and "anyone else"!

Jim:
With due respect, that offers nothing except an opinion backed by
no facts, evidencing you have fallen for the false distinctions
based on the sound bytes of Fox. Feel free to come back when you
have something of substance to offer, something that illustrates
significant policy differences between the two major party candidates
and then we can discuss.

John:
With due respect... "there is NO comparison between Obama and
"anyone else"!

Jim: This
is the problem with the so-called "debate." Most are too
lazy or too disinterested to spend any time in basic research and
this reflects the quality of their responses.

John: Three-and-a-half
years of Obama is about all of the "basic research" I
need. Suggest you might want to take in the movie 2016... which
I believe is VERY CLOSE to identifying Obama's "Core Beliefs".

Jim: I rest
my case. America is going to, once again, get what it so richly
deserves.

And we will
know what America gets when we wake up November 7, 2012. There will
be celebration and there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

And it will
all be for nothing.

Because nothing
material will change, regardless who is elected. On the economy,
foreign policy and civil liberties, you could put the differences
between Obama and Romney in a thimble and have plenty of room to
spare. Their positions on the most critical issues in America
are not materially different but equally devastating.

The
Economy

The U.S. is
flat broke, to put it generously. Even using the government's
own numbers, it is apparent that without massive cuts to Defense,
Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, economic
survival is impossible. Even if we eliminated government, all
of it, tax revenues do not even cover the cost of entitlement programs,
defense and interest on the federal debt. If you don't believe
it (and even if you do) watch this:

Neither Obama
nor Romney acknowledge this stark reality. Obama"s budget is,
in a word, disastrous. Even increasing tax revenues by a third
over the next four years and donning rose-colored glasses of government,
his budget will result in an annual deficit of $650 billion in 2016.
Applying the 100% "miss" on his estimated 2012 budget,
Obama's plan will continue to add more than a trillion dollars
to the deficit each year, which is totally unsustainable and will
lead to a crash of the bond market. This in turn will lead to the
monetization of more debt by the Fed, leading to the absolute and
total destruction of the dollar, leading to The End.

Yes, there's more...»