So What's the Answer?

I had an interesting lunch with a coworker today, an Obama enthusiast. We've traded barbs and had some extended discussions over our differences in political outlook in the past, and he acknowledges that some of my positions are, even to his worldview, not wrong.

He's an open-minded kinda guy.

So he asked me, "How do we fix it?"

I've been thinking about it ever since. And tonight when I got home and checked the blog and the comments, I ran across this:

Kevin, if there is an honest history written of these times, it will agree with your premise that the gubmint school system was the essential mechanism by which the American people were tamed, neutered, and fitted with their slave collars.

Each of us has a sacred obligation not only to resist the coming Night, but to teach the ones behind us the difference between Night and Day.

See this quote from Fjordman here:

I've gradually come to the conclusion that the system cannot be fixed, and perhaps shouldn't be fixed. Not only does it have too many enemies, it also has too many internal contradictions. If we define the "system" as mass immigration from alien cultures, globalism, Multiculturalism and suppression of free speech in the name of "tolerance," then this is going to collapse.

It's inevitable.

The goal of Western survivalists — and that's what we are — should not be to "fix the system," but to be mentally and physically prepared for its collapse, and to develop coherent answers to what went wrong and prepare to implement the necessary remedies when the time comes. We need to seize the window of opportunity, and in order to do so, we need to define clearly what we want to achieve.

Let's roll. - Cabinboy

So, what's the answer? What went wrong? Assuming we get the chance, how do we correct the problems for Constitutional Republic of the U.S. V2.0?

I told my colleague the same thing that Fijordman said, the system cannot be fixed. Two hundred-plus years of entropy have eroded the mechanism past the point of repair. The basic design was outstanding, but nothing is ever perfect.

Unfortunately it started off with an inherent flaw, the acceptance of chattel slavery. Granted, the whole thing was a no-go without that compromise, but we're still suffering the after-effects 219 years later. And, as pragmatic as the Founders were about human nature, I still think they underestimated human corruptibility and the human will to power. Back when I first saw Joss Whedon's film Serenity, these lines struck me perhaps the hardest:

Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They will swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that.

It faintly echos Robert A. Heinlein from my favorite novel, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress:

Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws - always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up.

In fact, I just had an argument discussion with a commenter on that very topic a couple of days ago. And I admit that to some extent I'm on the "stop people from doing as they please" side when I think they're bats*!t crazy. Sorry. Guilty as charged. But at least I don't think we can make people better.

But we have to design around entropy.

Back when I wrote Game Over, Man, I quoted Mike from the now-defunct Feces Flinging Monkey on the topic of our legal system:

Personally, I think that the (unfortunate) bottom line is that the future of our freedom ultimately rests with the court's willingness to periodically reexamine the law. Lawmakers, and law enforcers, will always push the limits, and they will always win occasional gains. If the court is unwilling to revisit these issues over time and correct the damage done, then it's "game over" no matter what we do. This makes it a little easier for me to accept changes in the law where the cost is low and the benefits are significant. If I can't count on an occasional review, then the game is already lost.

I then went on to point out to him that no such review really exists. Judges who wish to (in Alex Kozinski's words) "Constitutionalize their personal preferences" go ahead and do so, leaving honest and honorable judges below or on the same judicial level stuck with bad precedent. And if higher courts refuse to review (and they can), or worse, refuse to overturn (and they have), then cancer sets in, and cutting out that cancer later is painful and difficult, as we may be about to learn once again.

Second, as I noted in When Your Only Tool is a Hammer, and again Saturday in Pressing the "Reset" Button, Part II, the job description of legislator is "lawmaker". It's what they do. Rev. Donald Sensing put it quite graphically a while back:

A long time ago Steven Den Beste observed in an essay, "The job of bureaucrats is to regulate, and left to themselves, they will regulate everything they can." Celebrated author Robert Heinlein wrote, "In any advanced society, 'civil servant' is a euphemism for 'civil master.'" Both quotes are not exact, but they're pretty close. And they're both exactly right. Big government is itself apolitical. It cares not whose party is in power. It simply continues to grow. Its nourishment is that the people's money. Its excrement is more and more regulations and laws. Like the Terminator, "that's what it does, that's all it does."

So for me, Priority Number One is limiting the number of laws, decrees, edicts, ordinances, precepts, proscriptions, regulations, and rules. Priority Number Two is periodic review of all existing laws, decrees, edicts, ordinances, precepts, proscriptions, regulations, and rules. ALL of 'em. That ought to keep the legislatures and courts busy enough to at least help with Priority Number One.

Honestly, that's as far as I've gotten. So what are YOUR ideas?