Most Americans are confident that their nation will remain
fundamentally unchanged forever and in part it is due to the once stable
functioning government. However, as world leaders, political scholars,
and economists have noted, America’s government has been, for all
intents and purposes, brought to a standstill due to repugican denial
they lost two presidential elections. There is a faction in this country
made up of wealthy oligarchs, religious fanatics, and wingnut
extremists who have intimated in various ways their only raison d’être
is to destroy America from within and transform it into a mirror image
of a stone-age nation like Afghanistan under Taliban rule. The war for
America has been in the planning stages for two decades, but when
American voters elected (twice) an African American man as President the
insurgency began enacting their plan to destroy the federal government
and by extension the country itself.
The groups lusting to destroy America and transform it into a
libertarian theocracy certainly know that their goal could never reach
fruition if they announced they were actively seeking to eliminate the
functioning government, so they use catch phrases such as the Koch
brothers’ infamous “transforming America” to fit their lawless vision of
a nation without rules and regulations. Their staunch ally, Grover
Norquist has been forthcoming that his goal is to “
shrink government down to a size he can drown in a bathtub,”
but his goal, like the Koch brothers, is a nation steeped in anarchy
where peasants are at the mercy of a few wealthy industrialists.
Although the Kochs and Norquist wield inordinate power and influence
over a major political cabal, they are not elected representatives and
depend on dark money and loyalty oaths to control repugicans at the
state and federal level to enact their anti-government agendas. Now they
have a powerful ally in the U.S. Senate who controls repugicans in the
House and Senate and last Sunday he let it slip that his ultimate goal
is destroying America.
It is fairly well-known that Rafael “Ted” Cruz is running the repugican cabal due to being anointed the evangelical wingnut
messiah, and that he publicly announced the recent government shutdown
and debt crisis was only the first battle in a longer war. Cruz has been
unapologetic that his destructive strategy is part of a plan to achieve
his future policy goals that he readily admits are more than defunding
the Affordable Care Act he claims is responsible for the nation’s
sluggish economy. However, when he spoke to Faux News’ host Sean Handjob
on Sunday, he revealed that in his “
multi-stage extended battle” he discovered “
a model that I think is the model going forward to,” among other things, “
abolish the IRS.”
Cruz’s remark was a stunning revelation that his goal is defunding
the entire United States government that will serve to hasten the Koch
brothers’ agenda of a nation void of laws, regulatory agencies’
enforcement, education, Social Security, healthcare, and national
defense. Abolishing the I.R.S. will also invalidate the U.S.
Constitution’s
Article I, Section 8, Clause 1
that gives the federal government of the United States its power of
taxation to fund the nation’s government. Without revenue to fund the
government, America as it exists now would become a lawless, uneducated,
and dangerous fascist state controlled by the wealthy and policed by
religious extremists imposing the bible as the de facto law of the land.
If the power of taxation is eliminated, the government may be able to
function for a couple of years at best, but it would mean selling off
all federal assets and raiding Social Security’s $2.8 trillion reserves
just to fund this nation’s national defense and nothing more. All
regulatory and consumer protection agencies would be eliminated,
education funding would cease to exist, and domestic programs would come
to a screeching halt. In fact, with no revenue, the entire federal
government would disappear and with it all the benefits the people
depend on whether it is safe food, safe medicine, disaster relief, clean
water, infrastructure, and security the people are guaranteed in the
U.S. Constitution. Actually, without a government, the Constitution
itself will be obsolete and it would open the floodgates of regional
morality laws under the purview of whichever religious group had the
largest armory to enforce their edicts and transform America into
Afghanistan under Taliban rule.
Without funding to operate, the US Congress, the executive branch,
and judicial branch would be deemed unnecessary in a government-less
state, and society would break down into little fiefdoms controlled by
the wealthy and whoever they appoint to keep peasants in line. It is the
ideal sought after by libertarians and 10th Amendment advocates who
believe all power originates in individual states, but for Southern
states wallowing in poverty and disrepair it will usher in anarchy and
privatization that libertarians regard as a lifestyle improvement over
living in a nation with a federal government. Wealthier states with
natural resources and agricultural products to sell on the foreign
market might maintain a semblance of order for a while, but the quality
of life for the average American would be reduced to subsistence living
without consumer, environmental, worker, healthcare, or law enforcement
protections a functioning government ensures.
The only people who would survive in a nation without a government
would be the extremely rich who could sequester themselves away in gated
compounds patrolled by armed guards to keep out the starving peasants.
In fact, the majority of Americans would fall into dire poverty because
with no federal government there would be no minimum wage or workplace
protections that will leave workers at the mercy of the rich who may
give them work for food; if they were lucky.
The Founding Fathers were well aware that America could not survive
without revenue to fund the government, but government survival is not
the long term goal of the Koch brothers, Rafael Cruz, and Grover
Norquist. The Koch brothers particularly welcome a nation without a
federal government because they would be unshackled from any regulatory
enforcement and give them the freedom to conduct their business
unrestricted and untaxed with absolute power to install the dictator of
their choosing to keep the peasantry in line.
America has never faced the existential threat posed by the Koch
brothers and their acolytes in Congress and state legislatures, and it
is likely there has never been a concerted effort to destroy the
government that America faces today. It is true that Cruz does not have
the people behind him like he thinks, but with the Koch brothers’ dirty
money and repugican-controlled states restricting the right to vote,
Cruz’s lack of popular support is not a guarantee his “
multi-stage extended battle to abolish the IRS”
will fail. If nothing else, Cruz has revealed that, like the Koch
brothers and Grover Norquist, his goal is destroying the government by
defunding it and it cements his place in America’s libertarian axis of
evil that makes him a legitimate enemy of the state and the people who
own it.
Today is Election Day 
Trees help at-risk species keep cool
In
a fairly recent criminal case in Tennessee, an Assistant District
Attorney General asked the judge to make the defense attorneys stop
calling her "the Government," even though she actually represented the
government, which was charged with prosecuting the defendant. That's the
way trials work. The DA claimed that the term was derogatory and
prejudicial. She suggested an alternative title of "General R______."
The defense attorney, appropriately named Drew Justice, issued a
response to the request. He opened with a free speech claim, but then it
got better, as the defense came up with acceptable terms for their
side. First, the defendant should be referred to with his full name.
