I've actually been meaning to put this up for a while, but had the reference packed away in a box somewhere which I just found. So I'm finally writing about it.

Last year I visited another Gringo couple who live in Costa Rica. The man, whose name is Dick, is also interested in Life, the Universe, and Everything, so eventually we got around to talking about what might happen in the US. His take on the situation is that people in different states are going to get so irritated with the Federal Government that they will secede from the union, and that once this starts happening, different regions will probably form some new countries.

To tell you the truth, I hadn't considered that. I told him that I thought that people in the US were so united by a common society, vision, and mindset that there was no way that this could ever happen. I might have been possible 100 years ago, but not in this day and age. So, Dick asked me what I thought might happen. I told him that I thought that it was much more likely that there would be a totalitarian government. My main reasoning is based not just on the unity of US citizens, but also because the government in the US functions so well.


I told Dick about a book called The Diary of Georgi Dimitrov 1933-1949, edited by Ivo Banac, wherein a toast made by Stalin in 1937 is quoted:

"I would like to say a few words, perhaps not festive ones. The Russian tsars did a great deal that was bad. They robbed and enslaved the people. They waged wars and seized territories in the interests of landowners. But they did one thing that was good - they amassed an enormous state...whoever attempts to destroy that state...is an enemy, a sworn enemy of the state...And we will destroy each and every such enemy, even if he is an Old Bolshevik; we will destroy all of his kin, his family. We will mercilessly destroy anyone who, by his deeds or his thoughts - yes his thoughts - threatens the unity of this socialist state. To the complete destruction of all enemies, themselves and their kin!"

We had some pleasant discussion about this, as I tried to draw an analogy to the situation in the US; but finally we agreed to disagree. Dick is older than I am, and has lived in the US for longer than I have; so I hope he is right and I am wrong. By this time you are probably asking yourself, "What does this discussion have to do with Linux and FOSS?" Just this: the centralization of power and control typified by a totalitarian government is exactly the same type of situation which Linux is helping to break down in the field of software, so my personal hope is that this trend will jump over to the political arena as well. I would hate to see someone really intelligent, with less than good motives and aspirations, grab control of the government in the US before democracy could take hold there again.

Besides finding the above reference in a box of books, I was also prompted to put this up by this quote from an article by Justin Raimondo:

The Imperial City is in a worse turmoil than Fallujah,
besieged as it is by the guardians of our republican (small-'r') form of government,
who are determined to re-take it and may yet succeed. Because, you see, the
system reacts like any healthy organism when subjected to an attack: it creates
antibodies, which target the intruders and seek to expel them from the body
politic. That is what we are witnessing: a general reaction to the attempted
hijacking of the American government by a cabal of neo-Jacobins
(also known as neoconservatives).
From the strength of the system's immune response, it looks like the patient,
however ailing, is in a lot better shape than I, for one, imagined.

If America is the New Rome, then this particular Nero won't be allowed to fiddle
while the place burns. If the Boy Emperor is taken down, it won't be by his
own Praetorians, but by a phalanx of special prosecutors.

God, I love this friggin' country!

So I'm happy that some people, like Justin Raimondo, have hope that the people in the US will regain some kind of control over their government. As he says, "...not even the President [of the US] is immune from the rule of law". Most of the people I talk with (outside the US) were really beginning to wonder. Now if they could just start having democratic elections in the US again, perhaps enabled by the use of FOSS voting software, the situation would be even more hopeful.