...and I think too many people have crossed it. It's one thing to be pro-free market, civil liberties, limited government, etc., but when I read comments where posters proudly say they're anti-state, then I'm starting to worry about the well being of these radical people. The Government does serve a purpose, and yes, that does include the Federal Government. Many people here support the Articles of Confederation over the US Constitution, which scares me as well...for one, Ron Paul only advocates returning to the US Constitution and not 1786. Also, I don't favor having 50 independent states coming together to respond militarily to an attack without having a commander-in-chief. I suppose many of you fear a President with Congressional approval than 50 state governors running around with their heads on fire trying to fight a war. Have you people even seen some of these state governors?? One of them is Palin..the other 49 aren't improvements..
The days of City-States are over. Face it, besides LA's gangs, no local government in America is either willing or able to do necessary duties granted to the Federal Government under the Constitution like raising an army. Some of you actually believe 50 states could come together in a streamlined fashion and fight a war effectively. You think Iraq has been mishandled?? Think how it'd be with 50 different commanders in chief with their own separate set of advisors. You'd have states like California and New York tucking their tails and running the first sight the War wasn't going well. We'd have half the states leaving their brothers and sisters high and dry fighting a war with only half of the United States' states. Is that complaint what some of you call "collectivism"?? So the Founding Fathers of the Constitution were disciples of Karl Marx? Get fucking real.
Not only that, but having no Federal Government would mean no supreme court. What you would do is kill any interstate trades as fraud would be rampant. California's business laws would be separate from Rhode Island's, and if a conflict arose from an eBay trade gone bad, where the hell is your recourse without Federal Courts?? How would we enforce treaties??
I might be a wrongly misled "statist", but apparently some of you know something Ben Franklin, James Madison, and George Washington didn't. I understand the Federal Government has gone above and beyond the Constitution, but to say we need the Articles of Confederation is just fucking stupid. We'd need to reform it within two years and replace it with something else entirely. You all honestly think we have a collection of even half the reasonable thinkers we had during the Founding Fathers Era to draft a document better than the current one we have??
It all depends on what you believe Libertarianism is. It is a term that has become more and more broad in scope and application. The Libertarian party doesn't even fully promote Libertarianism.
In general it is the belief in Personal Liberty above all else. Many people feel that the State's only true power is the power to remove liberty and freedom. It does NOT have the power to grant it because true liberty is something that no one can give you. You are born with it as a moral truth. All Governments throughout history have enabled the oppression of one section of the population over another. Liberty should exist regardless of who wins, whether they are rich or poor, what they believe in, or what race they are. But that is not what the state does. It inherently gives power to those who seek it.
Some believe that our "Democracy" enables 51% of the people to rule over the other 49%. The truth is that all 100% of the people are ruled by the fraction of people who rule. Those in power are highly invested in its growth and survival. And in order to maintain that power the State has increasingly made sure that the People are dependent on its survival.
So the simple answer is that it is nearly impossible for it to be changed, even if Ron Paul was elected President. Unwinding a society that already depends on the Government is a task that is even more daunting that trying to get someone of true values and principles elected. The president simply doesn't have the power that people think he does. It is the SYSTEM that is corrupt. It is the STATE that controls.
Granted, the founders KNEW this might happen and they tried their best to develop a system that could be controlled by the checks and balances of the branches and the limitations of the Constitution. But those chains have been slowly broken and the physical Government (elected officials) don't have the courage or desire to stand up to the shadow Government that controls it. Throughout history even the President is kept in the dark of what some of the black opp projects are that are funded by Congress. The Military Industrial Complex is so vast and so compartmentalized that administrations come and go with little to no knowledge of what they are doing.
The founders set out to create the smallest government the world has ever known, so that they People would have the power and could serve as the watchdog over their leaders. But it accomplished the exact opposite which is the largest Government in the history of the world. Over and over again we keep hoping a savior will come along and restore our Liberty. People have been fighting the growth of the Government since it was first conceived! Well funded people. Well respected people. Highly educated people. And it has NEVER worked on slowly down its growth and power. And with its growth our core liberty that supposedly CAN NOT be "granted" to us by anyone is suddenly under complete control. Suddenly we are really only "free" if we go along with the STATE.
Many people remember promises from Reagan who campaigned on limited government and fiscal responsibility. The result was that Reagan himself never followed "Reaganomics" and the Government more than doubled in size. We heard promises from Bush as he talks about limited government and non-interventionism. We know what the result of that was. Oh sure, there is one excuse after another... but NO EXCUSE can be used to give up Liberty.
The founders were very intelligent and did the best they could but ultimately the SYSTEM they created failed because they didn't take into account the lengths that those in power would go to maintain power.
Does this mean we could create a better system? I don't know. Maybe not. But don't for one minute think that we don't have men in THIS ERA that aren't just as informed and educated as our founding fathers were. The problem is that the great independent thinkers of the world rarely seek power. So they aren't running our country. Furthermore, there is an incentive for the SYSTEM (or STATE) to protect itself from those who wish to dismantle or reduce it. I'm not just talking about the Federal Government. You can see this even at a local level. We've seen this at conventions throughout the country. You can see this in local organization and committees. Those in power preserve their power.
I'm not an anarchist but I can see their point of view. I'm probably somewhere in the middle and as we all search for a solution to our ultimate common goal of protecting and restoring our Liberty, it is the SOLUTION that which we differ.
Some feel that if we can just infiltrate the SYSTEM and turn it around, then it will work. Even to that end, we differ on the method of attack. Do we turn around the GOP or join a Third Party (with its own infrastructure also holding onto power) or start our own party. And if we were to decide to infiltrate the GOP, then what? Do you become committeemen first, or try to take over the rules committees at Conventions, or both? Could a majority even be reached?
Do we instead try to just re-educate the tens of millions of people that have been brainwashed by the "STATE" through its agents (the Media) and its own membership?
Do we try to just get millions of people to disconnect from the STATE thereby slowly rendering it irrelevant and in time diminishing its power over us? This is like the old saying of "if everyone in the country decided not to pay their taxes, what could they do?" Ok, sure it works in theory but how about in practice?
I don't have the answers but I am on a path of truth (hence my alias). I'm trying to explore as many angles as I can and really grasp the big picture of what we are all up against. And I'm not just talking about the surface. There are so many layers that go beneath what we see.
On the surface people just focus on Democrats vs Republicans. It is a superficial battle that is used as a distraction. Many people here have ventured deeper into the forces at play behind those that are behind it.
One layer down and you may see lobbyists, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, the Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex, Big Tobacco, etc. that coerce and manipulate our Government and policies to their benefit.
One layer further you may uncover the international bankers and the FED.
If you keep digging you may find things like the CFR, Bilderberg, and powerful families like the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Morgans, Carnegies, & Warburgs that have been in the business of growing their power for decades and in some cases for hundreds of years.
From there you may find offshoot theories tied to organizations like the Illuminati.
The key is separate faction from fiction. Truth from Paranoia. And we MUST realize that just because one piece may be false, you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is SOME truth in all of these levels.
But the more information you find as you attempt to find enlightenment, you will discover that it usually comes down to the TOOLS that all of these powers use to implement their agendas. And that is the STATE.
THAT is why many people are against the State.
As for me personally... I'm still in search of the true answer. All proposed solutions seem overwhelmingly daunting. And some solutions may not solve the problem even if we somehow pulled it off.
I hope that we can find a common ground and come together. I don't know if we can truly accomplish this in our lifetime but I'm willing to decide my life to helping us move in the direction of Liberty. But we can't find a real solution until everyone understand and agrees on what the problem is... and so far we can't agree on that.
Get a clue as to what I am attacking you for, is probably a good place for you to start the alleviation of your ignorance. 
