Plus, you incumbent doesnt spend the last year of his tenure trying to get elected instead of doing the job they were hired to do

How about starting by all of us getting together to keep traffic fines from escalating and being inforced by the people who get the money. Keep fine and confiscated money from getting to the cities and police people and DEA. How about all fines go to something that helps us all, like medical research or something like that unrelated to the government.

My grandfather, late in his life, developed a policy of always voting against the incumbent. His theory was that the new guy MAY BE a crook, but you already knew for sure that the incumbent was!

BUT, so many people use the government today to get freebie goodies that I think the country is indeed doomed. We must think about preserving ourselves and like minded people. We should attempt to live together, trade only with each other, and do it quietly in plain sight and stay out of the bulldozers of obama and his henchmen

I say we should hide in plain sight as much as possible. We can trade with people who are like minded. We can even pay people with money or goods of our own choosing. And we can do it quietly and let the socialist minded countrymen take down the economy. At least we would survive and be a base for the recovery. Dont look for things at the seashore during high tide. Wait for the water to go out.

I think that changes among the populace will only take place when our society collapses, such as it did in Atlas Shrugged. Look at Venezuela today- they still put up with the totally failed socialist ideas and that idiot leader Maduro. Its incredible to me, and I suspect it will have to get that way here too before people see the light.

Vote OUT every incumbent at each election to at least speed up the possibility of change in response to changes in the populace. No more lifers in government.

My way to show that I dont trust government is to vote OUT every incumbent at every election. At least it prevents these people like Harry Reid for ruling for years and years.

I wish Texas would leave the UNION, but it wont be allowed to. I live in Nevada, and I would vote for leaving the UNION. We need competition among governments to keep them in line. A federal government that controls everything just makes government worse.

I have been wondering about this since the early 90's. Even then it seemed that any critical mass that would effect major change would depend on how hungry people are.

And then it would be a chaotic knife edge affair to get a positive result to rise out of the ashes. One wonders if "A Canticle for Leibowitz" isn't absolutely visionary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Canti...

The question is how to do it without just lying down in front of the tank and being quietly crushed. Most people will defend their personal rights by defying laws which violate them. Also, people today have little respect for escalating laws as they are defined more and more a part of the criminal element. For me, I have very little respect for our government and its laws at this point. Its all about the chances of getting caught and the penalties.

Welcome to the Land of the No Sayers. Unfortunately, those in power don't hear the no, and those who do, don't act boldly enough to make a difference. But, we are here and we aren't going away. Hopefully, we might become an infection in the body politic which will start a trend back toward freedom.

Having been an Objectivist for over 50 years the present doesn't bother me as its self destructive structure is the consequence of bad ideas and I now am concerned only with changing those ideas. But people don't change their ideas casually, witness the christians in the Gulch. The problem is first the analytic/synthetic dichotomy which says you cannot have a moral truth from a factual statement hence all moral statements are arbitrary and Hume;s claim that if I cant see it, it is not knowable. My task is the restoration of empirical confidence in the validity of the senses as the basis of all conceptual knowledge.
Ayn Rand did this beautifully in her epistemology and I merely want to tidy up the science. The result is the glass slipper phenomena, there is only one philosophy which fits the facts of science: Objectivism. No matter how many religions or philosophies try to explain reality only one can fit, one derived from reality itself. So be of good cheer, its only another 10-15 years before the science starts driving the philosophy to rationality and then politically. So if you are younger than me, you will get the benefits. Just hope I keep skiing until my 80's.

I have been wondering that for a long time now. The Government and its agencies just keep getting stronger. Standing up against them now would be difficult. The IRS alone can destroy the average person. I think it would have to be large masses of people doing something and I just don't think enough people are paying attention.

The newly-forming Tea Party tried that by showing up in Washington D.C. right after Presidebt O'Pinocchio doubled down on Bush's RINO bail-out with a libtard crony capitalism stimulus package.
Result? Nancy Pelosi scoffed the grass roots the Tea Party claimed to represent as to be AstroTurf. Then the Tea Party politiely picked up after themselves and returned to their day jobs.
After that 100% Demorats shoved Obamacare down the throats of 60% Americans who did not want it if my memory serves me correctly.
By the way, if you are fundamentally Christian, do not even think about selling wedding cakes.

Here's a link, for those of you who are interested. But my point being that enough property owners (impacted directly by property taxes) did stand up for themselves through the "initiative" process and it worked. It just had to reach the point of "standing up." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Califor...

That this question even has to be asked is
heart-breaking, not to mention embarrassing,
for America!!

Proposition 13, in California, in about 1977, was the result of all property owners being impacted to the point of mass response to limit, by law, property tax rates. When "we," on a mass basis, have those loss of freedoms impact us directly; when that last tax becomes the last straw; when a government (local or otherwise), initiates force by coming to the door and you have to choose to comply or respond with force; when "that is outrageous" becomes a daily mantra by the masses, then "we" might be provoked stand up for ourselves. It has been said that politics and legislation won't concern you until it impacts you directly and that is true. The reason that "gun control" is such a hot topic is because that threat impacts each and every gun owner (regardless of reason for owning a gun) directly. The Tea Party was a response to the pressure felt by individuals. Unless and until a significant majority is impacted enough for them to say "enough," things will continue down the road to doom.

Hi Melissa A. As Mike Marotta said, this is a very contextual answer for each person. But I've had a few progressive epiphanies over the past few years (and achievements) that make me extremely positive and enthusiastic to say that NOW is the best time to say "enough." Actually, it was yesterday...but that's my ambitious impatience talking.
The ability and freedom for each of us to become a capitalist and create our own "gulch" (or path to one) is more simple and accessible than ever before. For as long as this video is available on YouTube, here's my story and invitation. Watch it while you can, and proclaim your own decision to say "enough" today, before you procrastinate another day. Brett
http://buildingabrandonline.com/engin...

Welcome to the Gulch, Melissa. You asked an open question. No general answer can exist. For myself, I stood up in 1965 when I read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and I never stood down. What you really are asking is another question, entirely.

We would all like to enjoy massive societal change, a radical renaissance right out of Atlas Shrugged, playing out in less than 12 years, and accelerating in our daily lives, to be climaxed with global laissez faire, a renaissance of reason, and a new industrial age of individualism.

On the one hand, don't hold your breath… On the other hand, it is happening right now. You know that as the government becomes more desperate, they increase their campaigns of lies, and no one believes them, so they lie more. It is happening right now in the headlines you read and watch. But just like Romulus Augustulus, they are going to maintain their fictions right up to the bitter end… and even so, in point of fact, if you had asked a curate of Gaul in 600 AD about the Roman Empire, he would have said, "Same as always." Reality, of course, would have been different from his perceptions.

On that same note, the so-called "Dark Ages" saw expanding trade and the extension of learning in new areas. It just was not transmitted everywhere at once, but only accreted locally in many places.

So, too, now. I live in Texas. If we were an independent nation, we would be the 15th largest economy in the world. It is not perfect, but it is interesting. I live in Austin, nominally a people's republic dominated by a progressive Democrat Party. That said, back in 2008, Brave New Books hosted the largest Ron Paul Meet-up in America. Those trends continue… The Libertarian Party is weak, but libertarianism is strong. That speaks volumes.