GREATER DEPRESSION Pt. 2

Catalysts that can make your neighbors into a mob were listed previously, hunger, thirst, funds are real motivators. Before we degenerate into that there are a couple of antagonisms already brewing among our citizens: Gun control, taxes and increasing government interference in our everyday lives. Recent Tea parties and calls for secession are forerunners of actual revolts.

Casey makes the point that the establishment is well prepared to deal with such acts. ". . . . riots will be headed off by the police, who are far more numerous, militarized, and better equipped than ever before, and by the military itself. You may think the cops and the military (and today most cops are ex military) would never turn on their fellow citizens, but you'd be wrong. Cops and soldiers are far more loyal to their colleagues and their organizations than they are to either some constitution or, absolutely, the mob that's throwing bricks and bottles at them."

Gun Control

The issue of possessing weapons is where reasonable men

can easily disagree An oft stated axiom is that if you have a firearm to defend yourself, you must be prepared to use it

otherwise an intruder can take it away from you and use it on you. So there you have it. Are we really willing to take a life or lives to defend and preserve our lives and property. Each must decide this issue weighing he practical against the moral.

Living in safe self determining America, most of us have not had to face up to this dilemma.

So far as gun control laws, most are blatantly unconstitutional

regardless of what modern court opinions say. Taking away the people's guns are among the first steps in establishing autocratic ( fascism, communism& socialism) rule. Outright slavery is always next.

Tax Revolt

. . . "a portion of the productive people in the country feel genuinely resentful at having to subsidize the losers and ne'er-do-wells. What are they going to do? I think they have only two alternatives. Tax evasion, which is both hard and increasingly risky, since the IRS will be hiring plenty of freshly unemployed financial workers, And expatriation.

State and municipal governments all over the country are operating with rising outlays and radically declining incomes and so are running large deficits that add to their already massive debt. Since they can't print dollars, they'll raise taxes further, as New York and California have recently done. Most people don't have any philosophical objection to taxes; they accept them, considering them part of the human condition, like disease or death. That's unfortunate, of course, in that taxation is neither moral nor necessary. But such fine points of philosophy absolutely never enter the public debate. What will be debated is the level of taxation. The last time we had widespread agitation on taxes was during the last serious recession, in the late '70s. The result was things like Prop 13 (which capped property taxes in California for some homeowners) and the Reagan tax reforms.

Every level of government is more desperate for money than ever. Your taxes are going through the roof, and you're going to see lots of new ones. Don't expect any support from Boobus americanus. About half don't earn enough to pay income tax. Most are net tax beneficiaries. And low taxes have somehow become associated with the late disastrous crackup boom and the corrupt Bush regime. So a popular tax revolt looks like a real long shot."

However it doesn't take a majority to cause action;

3% of the people can make a difference and 20%

can cause change--let's hope for real change.

With Love and Kindness,

THE HATMAN