@12. oMan: – State-level redoubts seem marginally more plausible but none of them is organized that way, nor able/willing easily to think in those terms (a new Confederacy? that’s a big leap).

Good points, which is why I suggest that it’s the area where grassroots should focus their efforts – significant ones. We have to fight on the ground we have, not on the ground we wish we had, and I don’t see other alternatives.

State legislatures may be only marginally more answerable to their constituents, but that margin may make all the difference. I can drive to my capitol or my State Rep’s house if need be, along with several hundred of my closest friends and neighbors. That’s not the case at the federal level. State’s command control over local economies – some very large – and have the ability to tax, so their inability to print money seems irrelevant unless there’s a complete economic breakdown, which is one of the things we’re trying to avoid.

Surely a complete turnover in D.C. is required, but that will initially result in stasis, at best, not a turning of the tide. As before, such a stasis will lull rank-and-file conservatives back into their leave-me-alone-and-let-me-live-my-life mode, which is where the left flourishes.

“New Confederacy” is in fact a big leap – but the leap was yours. It’s not at all what I’d suggest.

Rather, I think we should be loudly and widely discussing an Article V Convention (pls read up on it if you’re not familiar with this specific mechanism – it’s not the “free-for-all” some folks mischaracterize it to be). Get the governors and the State Legislators discussing it – on the news, online, in town meetings, etc. Even if such a convention is never held, the widespread discussion of this mechanism, alone, would raise political awareness to a significant degree – lack of awareness is the thing Socialism relies upon most heavily to achieve its ends. IMHO it’s the next logical step up from the Tea Party phenomenon.