Thirty days. Four weeks and two days. A day short of one month from inauguration day, and already there is talk of revolution...and not just among right wing, obscure bloggers. Glenn Beck is firmly convinced that we are headed for a deep depression followed by revolution, and today, from the trading floor in Chicago, rousing cheers for the idea of a new "tea party" -- throwing derivative securities into Lake Michigan. The video is from a most unlikely source, CNBC, so I can't post it, but you can view it here.
I have to be honest. I find the idea of a second American Revolution somewhat appealing. When I think about all of the bad laws, entitlement programs, incomprehensible tax code and crooked politicians that we need to get rid of to return this country to some semblance of what it was intended to be, it just seems easier to bring the whole thing crashing down and start over. In my heart of hearts, I do not believe it's possible to reverse the course we are on any other way. Even with Reagan at the helm there was negligible progress. The Republican welfare reform of the Clinton years was just eradicated with a single stroke of Obama's pen. With each successive administration the problems grow larger, never smaller. The debt has ballooned to unfathomable levels, and we face the very real possibility of doubling it over the next four years. Where is the breaking point? When do we stand up and say, "NO MORE!"
I think it's close. Closer than it has ever been in history. My daughter and I recently took a beginner's handgun class. The class was taught by a wonderful woman with a list of sharpshooter credentials that was amazing. She told us that she used to teach the class a couple of times a month, maybe once a week, but, since the last election, she is teaching it almost every night of the week, and is booked for more than two months in advance. I read stories regularly about how much gun sales are up, and the media is trying to convince us that it's all people who already owned guns and are buying more, fearing new constraints on our Second Amendment rights. If that's the case, why are there so many people enrolled in a beginner's handgun class? How terrible is it that, in the United States of America, the greatest nation on earth, millions of citizens fear the loss of their rights - or worse - enough to buy and learn to use handguns? The cover story is the fear that guns will be regulated or taxed, and thus much harder to obtain, so we have to get them now. Deep down, I believe most of these people have thought, at least in passing, about the possibility of needing to defend their families in the event of anarchy.
On blogs and forums, commenters advise each other to stock up on survival supplies and ammunition, to be prepared for whatever may come. The fear is palpable. These are not people who would ever, under ordinary circumstances, contemplate violence. They are music producers and investors and housewives and computer programmers who have been paying attention and do not like the change they sense on the horizon. Case in point - just now, while writing this, I received an email from my old hairdresser. The message?
When the citizens of the freest nation in existence feel like that about their government, something has gone badly wrong. And it's becoming increasingly difficult to imagine righting it through peaceful means.
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