So now what?

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Do you understand that in this case there isn't much practical difference between "difficult" and "impossible"? 

[makattak]

Micro:

It's not impossible.

The problem is not only is it difficult, but there's a ticking clock.

And, with the passage of this monstosity, the ticking just got faster.

The problem is that ticking clock isn't counting time until we can't repeal Obamacare. It's counting the time until the country collapses from the weight of Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

As the ticking gets faster, we can't repeal just one. They ALL must be repealed.

So, now we have more work to do and less time to do it. To say the least it's very discouraging seeing as we've never repealed an entitlement.

We can't even repeal the farm subsidies for millionaires! (And $Billion companies).

[RevDisk]

Ditto that!

There has NEVER been an entitlement program that has been repealed in the history of the Republic.  If we somehow manage to get this repealed, it will be the first time any government "givaway" program was stopped.  To say it is going to be difficult may be the understatement of all time.

Dude.  This is America.  If we were the type of folks to be told the odds were impossible and then just gave up, we'd be Europeans.

We've built the first modern airplanes and helicopters.  We've put people on the moon and dozens of robots on Mars.   We have more satellites currently in orbit for people's morning commute music than most countries on the planet have total.  Yes, it'll be difficult.  Yes, it will seem impossible.   So what?  We're Americans, that's how we roll.  That's how we've always rolled.  If we didn't uphold our traditions, we deserve to be back-slapped by every Founding Father, every old school inventor, every old school engineer (the Apollo 13 engineers would be allowed to apply the pimp slap), etc and be shipped back to old country.

[Balog]

We might be able to do it. We might not. I never cease to be amazed at the engineering marvels the Romans produced, but even they fell eventually. All is not lost, but victory is far from certain. All we can do is try...

[MicroBalrog]

Ditto that!

There has NEVER been an entitlement program that has been repealed in the history of the Republic.  

The Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act.

It was billions upon billions of dollars in scope.

It lasted about a year, and then it was repealed.

[Inor]

Dude.  This is America.  If we were the type of folks to be told the odds were impossible and then just gave up, we'd be Europeans.

I never said anything about giving up.

Rep. Michele Bachmann had a tele-townhall yesterday.  The general sense that I got from it was extreme disappointment but yet determination.  It is just going to take some time to "lick our wounds" try to figure out a reasonable strategy to repeal it.  At one point, she mentioned the old rules of how we pass laws do not seem to apply anymore.  We have to figure out what the new rules are, then we can move forward.

But, I do appreciate the "pep talk".  Weeks like this one, I could use a little more optimism, so thanks.   

[longeyes]

The only thing we can't repeal is the basic laws of economics.  We're on a runaway train that everyone knows is heading for a bad end.

To stop the entitlement programs we've already put in place would entail "survival mode" thinking that would shock and awe our soft-hearted population.  Acknowledging our actual economic state--our massive indebtedness--would be, for most Americans, beyond traumatic.  We're not talking just "austerity," we're talking something much worse: actually Saying No to the fantasies of two, three generations.  Getting sober in an addicted polity is going to be some bad-ass form of national rehab.

It is hard to imagine reversing the momentum without huge social upheaval.  Even secession, in whatever form, would mean pulling away the checkbook on which socialism absolutely depends.

[Tallpine]

The only thing we can't repeal is the basic laws of economics.  We're on a runaway train that everyone knows is heading for a bad end.

Worse yet, we've already passed the windmill 

(and of course there is no bridge over the canyon)

[makattak]

Worse yet, we've already passed the windmill 

(and of course there is no bridge over the canyon)

That's ok, I'm working on a hoverboard for my family.

I'll still try to stop the train, though.

[AZRedhawk44]

Worse yet, we've already passed the windmill 

(and of course there is no bridge over the canyon)

You're not thinking 4th-dimensionally!

[makattak]

Worse yet, we've already passed the windmill 

(and of course there is no bridge over the canyon)

Wow, I didn't realize how apt that analogy is.

One main difference. Doc brown KNEW that if they got up to 88 miles an hour, they wouldn't go crashing into the ravine. He knew this because he'd done it before.

Those who are driving our train (country) over a cliff are SURE if we get up enough speed, we won't crash. The problem is there's 90 other wrecked trains down there, but they're sure ours won't be one of them. 

[JonnyB]

Wow, I didn't realize how apt that analogy is.

One main difference. Doc brown KNEW that if they got up to 88 miles an hour, they wouldn't go crashing into the ravine. He knew this because he'd done it before.

Those who are driving our train (country) over a cliff are SURE if we get up enough speed, we won't crash. The problem is there's 90 other wrecked trains down there, but they're sure ours won't be one of them. 

Well, du-uh. Those other 90 trains didn't have the right people driving them. Nancy, Harry and the Pres know how to do it right!

jb

[mellestad]

Any kind of belief that 'the welfare state is forever' is nothing but a psychological weapon for the leftists.

The leftists fear nothing more than an up-or-down discussion on whether you need or want an American welfare state. Oh, they hold all the cards – the media, the government, the academia – but still they are afraid, down in the core of their souls, that they will lose. It is thus why they deride  abolition as impossible, and abolitionists as crazy: because they fear nothing more than to have the abolitionists grow strong enough to give them an open fight.

They want to go back to the pre-Goldwater years, where there was no serious anti-Welfare-State thought in the American mainstream, so they're safe and secure forever and nobody ever challenges them. They want a universe in which they won in the 1930's, establishing their revolution, and they will now control the landscape forevermore.

The idea that the system is forever, or that it can't be abolished without catastrophic social disruption, is a Leftist weapon. It functions in the same way, and for the same purpose, as military leaflets dropped behind enemy lines, extolling your own forces as invincible and the enemy's cause as hopeless.

When an individual accepts that he will live and die unfree, there, upon the battlefield that is that one person's mind, the Socialists win.

The problem is, there is no will among the majority of the population for any kind of socialism abolishment movement.  Here at APS some posters realize what it would actually mean to go back to a government that had powers similar to what was originally given to the Fed.  Most people do not, even the conservatives.  They will be right with you on abolishing the new socialist evil of the day, but you will lose them as soon as they realize the loss of a ‘welfare’ state means.  America has been involved in Federal socialist programs for too much of its history to go back now.  Most people, even conservatives, have grown used to the trappings of a modern semi-socialist state.

Honestly, at this point I think the ‘true’ libertarian cause is dead, it is simply more work than most Americans are willing to try.  The only thing I can think that would work is a demonstration of what it actually looks like in practice, and attempt to show that it really is a good political philosophy.  But I don’t see that happening either…things like the Free State Project never seem to go anywhere.  I wish you could collectively get an island somewhere and show everyone how the system works in practice.

Otherwise I think your best bet is to either work for fiscal conservativism within the current system, emigrate (I don’t know where), or wait for the predicted economic collapse and try to step in then.  Although you’ll still be hampered by the lack of a track record.

If Freehold were real, I would love to live there.  But it isn’t.  http://www.amazon.com/Freehold-Michael-Z-Williamson/dp/0743471792/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_a