What kind of country do Republicans really want?

[procon]

I'm depressed.

I skimmed through the headlines again this morning, reading the latest shockingly unbelievable stories about what some greedy, self centered, shortsighted Republican, Tea Partier, or quasi libertarian plans to do to this country, and today I realized I'm totally overwhelmed. What kind of future do these people really want?

The continued rightwing assault on this country and our society -- literally everything as I understand it -- is under attack by an avaricious army of corporations, billionaires, sociopaths, and slobbering cretins. If Republicans successfully strip away all our protections, the safety systems, laws and regulations that were designed to provide a basic standard for our entire civilization, what we will become?

Republicans are gleefully conspiring with lobbyists to auction off everything in the public sector, leaving a weak and frightened populace to pay them for the privilege of merely breathing in their brave new world. In an oligarchy where only the super rich are worthy, can a 21st century feudal system even sustain itself?

[B Calm]

1. They want the best government Koch money can buy.

[el_bryanto]

2. Well - people at the top in all countries, even ones we think of as very poor

generally do very well. I imagine that the very wealthy assume that those who are worthy will continue to prosper, while those who aren't wealthy will be pushed more and more into third world status. Eventually it will be cheaper to reopen the factories here, because the worker protections will be gone and the union movement crushed.

Then there are true believers who believe that once you actually do all the things they recommend, human ingenuity will take off and people will solve all the problems they can't right now (because government is in the way).

Bryant

[RKP5637]

3. They would like to kill off most of the population. Really, strip away their facade, lift the

curtain, and that is really what they are about.

[tularetom]

4. Come and see the violence inherent in the system

Once the dum dums figure out who it really is that's been screwing them all these years, it's likely to get ugly.

Even inside their fortified enclaves, they'll be a bit nervous.

[procon]

7. I despair that would ever come to pass.

The improbability of a popular revolt is evident in how low our once vaunted 4th estate has declined. Without the fearless support of well publicized journalistic exposes and the barnstorming politicians that motivated the historic grassroots movements of the oppressed, the great social upheavals of the past never would have occurred.

Today, just as in the bad old, good days of yesterday, success was predicated on the staggering, unchecked inequality and greed of runamuck capitalism. We no longer have that vanguard of crusading newspaper editors and a press corps willing to serve as the public champions who urged the common man to rise up en mass and challenge the status quo to overthrow their wealthy overlords.

The rich oligarchs learned their lessons well. They've simply bought up the press and paid off the politicians, and the struggling populace will rarely hear a disparaging word against their monied oppressors.

[deutsey]

5. When they say they want to take our country back

they mean they want to take it back to at least the Gilded Age...some even would like to go back to the real "good ol' days" before the Enlightenment.

[kydo]

6. One like Honduras, Bolivia or Saudi Arabia

Only they'd make Christianity the law.

[procon]

13. Yes, scary how easy that's happening.

We've all seen religion's insatiable quest for power in the innumerable laws that Republicans have passed to inflict their Bronze Age fantasy on every aspect of our secular nation.

[CanonRay]

8. What do they want? Take a close look at Honduras

that's about what we'll look like when the GOP is done.

[Special Prosciuto]

9. Something like this

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. Something like Franco's Spain, Batista's Cuba, or Somoza's Nicaragua./NT

[procon]

12. As a child, my family lived in Spain in the late 50s.

There are several official looking photos of us posing with Franco at various events, and even one with me decked out like a little fairytale princess sitting on his knee. I recall nothing of those galas.

[n2doc]

11. A country where the rich pay nothing and get everything

The poor get to serve in Imperialist wars to secure resources and provide entertainment/distractions. Education is only for the rich and well connected. A country where the rich can do whatever they want, own whatever they want, and treat their workers as serfs. And they want people to worship them as "job creators". Forever.

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.”
― George Orwell, 1984

[salin]

14. Sort of a modern feudalism