Leviathan
It is amazing that the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave has allowed government to become such an oppressive State. It is far removed from what I knew growing up and it is even further away from what the Founders intended. Will the productive citizens of this country continue to be plundered by the political and parasite classes or will they eventually say “Enough!”
There is no easy answer to this question. It is possible that the drift toward totalitarianism continues until it is too late to do anything about it. History provides few, if any, examples of countries reclaiming lost freedoms institutionally. Economic collapse or civil wars sometimes produce reversals, although they often accelerate the process.
Sadly, there appears to be little principled opposition to our slide down the road to serfdom. Neither political party is interested in returning us to an earlier period, although both will try to capitalize on the decline to gain advantage at the expense of the other. Nor are there any institutions which seem capable or willing to reverse the trend. The Supreme Court works for the government, despite their alleged independence and loyalty to the Constitution. Arguably, Supreme Court justices past and present could be charged with treason based on their radical interpretations of “penumbras” and other gimmickry used to vitiate the original intentions of the Constitution.
The Tea Party recognized the problem and generated support for the Constitution. How effective they can be against country-club Republicanism is moot. How pure they remain if elected is another issue. Most politicians go to Washington with reasonably good intentions but are quickly absorbed and converted by the corrupt political class.
Practically, there appears no institutional means to reverse the decline toward totalitarianism. Remarkable men, seemingly very scarce these days, have been unable to reverse the course. Ronald Reagan merely slowed the pace of decline. Whatever gains he made were quickly reversed and the declining trend reverted to its former or even a steeper slope downward.
Meaningful and permanent change probably depends on unprecedented trauma — an economic collapse or a civil war. Sometimes these events effect positive change, but too often they accelerate the rate of decline and produce totalitarianism faster than it would otherwise occur.
Dr. Robert R. Owens puts our situation into perspective:
When will enough be enough? When will citizens rise in their righteous anger and demand not a New Deal, not a Great Society, a New Frontier or a Fundamentally Transformed America but instead their original deal. The one we wrested from the hands of the tyrant King George. The one we’ve fought to establish and defend from Yorktown to Kandahar and the right of a people to be free to live as they desire, to work for their own benefit and choose their own destiny. Free from the smothering governmental control which has been the lot of most people in most places since the beginning of time. When will the yoke of tyranny become too heavy to be borne? What will be the spark that lights the torches and brings the incensed villagers to the gate of the castle demanding, “Bring the monster out!” so that a stake can be driven through the heart of tyranny and freedom can return to the land?
As I have written elsewhere, I am not optimistic about any solution until some unprecedented event occurs. If such an event occurs, it puts what remains of our form of government at risk. There is no easy or safe solution to our problem.
HappyinHowell: 
Mr Misno: 
Marsha: 
Brian Wilson: 
Steve: 
Larry Crouse: 
Brian Wilson: 
Monty Pelerin: 
Bob Snyder: 
Syrin: 
I dare say that before we even get to the possibility of some sort of ‘civil war’ we’ll be in a world war. That is, after all, what the last cycle (early 20th century) produced. We’re two years away from the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI. Ironic? Nope…just planned socio-economic ‘change’. Remember folks…Obama did state that ‘change is going to come to America’. He didn’t quite specify – EVER – what that ‘change’ would entail…
God, gold and guns folks…
Unfortunately I share your pessimism, and got into a fairly heated discussion about this very topic in the doctors’ lounge at work yesterday. I am still dumb founded at how very bright minds can still look at the figures and come up with the very illogical conclusion that everything will “be fine”. Economic reality doesn’t get put on hiatus because people OD’d on hopium. Meanwhile, our populace is no longer taught about the founding principles that made this nation great. They are no longer taught about the Constitution. They are more likely to have a class about proper condom usage or fisting rather than one about the Constitution. American Karaoke and iPhones are the new opium of the masses. We are collectively economically illiterate. There is no understanding of the free market. The little “understanding” we DO have is actually false as the media and academia have falsely demonized capitalism ignoring the wealth it generated and all of the amazing goods it created that bettered the world. The only version of economics taught in college involve Keynes and not Friedman, Hayek, Mises etc.
When one looks at the history of nations that have collapsed, one notices that the transition is usually not slow. There is typically some triggering event that leads to a series of events in a domino matter resulting in collapse virtually over night. We saw it in the Czech Republic, the former Soviet Union, Zimbabwe, Argentina, etc etc etc. The same will happen in Europe, and at some point here when people realize that over night our US dollar became absolutely worthless. As you accurately concluded: “There is no easy or safe solution to our problem.”