I assume it means the same as when BLM and leftist rioters proclaim it.  “There’s no hope in this dark world and I am so angry that vomiting platitudes is my only relief.”

Social media myopia and the echo chambers that they inhabit have warped their sense of reality to the point they’ve lost all trust in the American institution.  “I saw it on Twitter” is cool and all but twitter is not a real place folks.

School bus sized asteroid during the SOTU should suffice.

Parking in a "for take out customers only" parking space.

Yep.

He's fishing.

I always take it to mean, quit resisting and let cloward and piven tactics win.  With the hope that there is a chance that the restructuring is better, and can perhaps be bent in favor of rational governance.

The ongoing lack of political success by conservatives leads to this as a sort of mutual assured destruction position.

Sure, I'll extrapolate on that. I don't care what happens to America. It's a horrible country. I don't think even Chinese occupation would be this bad. Case in point: I bet even Xi would probably have arrested the 15 kids who beat the white kid to death. So there's definitely an element of "it literally can't get any worse". Could it in fact be worse? Yeah, our infrastructure could deteriorate even more rapidly than it already has been. Worst case: we try to fight back, the govt says this is our excuse to get rid of you violent fucks forever and we get genocided and decide to go quietly into the night because no one wants to be a whyte supreme or whatever slur makes people too scared to fight and they'd rather just die.

Best case scenario: we don't fight (because its honestly fucking stupid at this point) and everyone gets on board with fucking to save their species, to quote fight club. Within a few generations of high birthrates amongst the right demographics and the right political fables being told to these children, there exists the mass of people able and willing to make major political changes. The powers that be can't use scary words to keep them in check and they build the political machine needed to seize control of the country or parts of it as needed. Infrastructure is maintained, govt policy is changed to back up even higher birthrates (subsidizing marriage, home ownership, and childbirth) cities are repopulated by productive demographics and crime is freely eradicated without fear of being called mean words. Cities become nice, clean, safe places to live again and these neo-right bastions are the model for the rest of the country to follow. Business flocks to these areas, but are kept in check. Their money is not more important than the ingredients of this successful growth. That's gatekeeping and its important. If you sell out and allow them to run rampant with their DEI bullshit the cycle starts again. That's why the political indoctrination of youth is incredibly important. I call it indoctrination because idgaf about scary labels, its what productive societies do.

But it all starts with higher birthrates, and the formation of narratives that invoke the right as revolutionaries, not helpless cucks trying to keep embers alive, but as a rising class of a formerly oppressed and victimized underclass that the (now) old American society kicked and beat and nearly eradicated.

You have to think about these things as 50, 100, or even 200 years out though. That's a hard ask from people in a country that's barely 200 years old at this point. It reminds me of someone who asked a Chinese diplomat in the 60s what the ramifications of the French Revolution were. His response: it's too early to tell.

People used to say “starve the beast” remember that one?

You get to justify gobbling up free welfare, in the hope that it bankrupts the hated government.

There is no way on earth to turn this FUBAR country around. If it crumbles and burns maybe from the ashes something decent can be built - but that's only about a 30% chance IMHO.

It seems to mean that those who want to wan tto hasten the decline and destroy the country so they can supposedly rebuild.  Never mind that historically things always end up worse after such things. It also tends to say that those who want it will never actually be a part of it.  They want others to do it.

What does it mean to me? Personally?

To start fresh, be it a new job, new relationship, new life, without ever looking back what you left behind.


Kind of like burning a bridge.

Blood running in the streets.
Im not sure i wanna be around for it

Just spitballing here. The term can be interpreted two ways:
1. Constitutional Convention in which the union is dissolved and everyone starts over
2. Civil War (I would call the bloodbath everyone is referring to here, this)

Both would likely result in either the balkanization of North America, or a new Constitution that would likely be a model of euro-socialism.

And they all seem to think everyone will share their vision of what rebuilding would look like. Honestly I want no part in either sides version of utopia.

the funny thing is, both sides think they are at the "burn it all down" stage. Both sides think they get to rebuild things as they should be.

If it does burn down, everybody loses. Everybody.

Rebuild. Remodel.

i ETA after you quoted me.  but constitutional convention.  throw the entire fed gov away and start over.   keep the state govs.  that allows a relatively peaceful change.

i have no illusions about keeping only the stuff I like.   There is no monolithic "we" on our side.  just look at the never trumpers here, the pro abortion people here, etc.  heck we can't even agree about gun stuff here.    and no, 90% of our fellow citizens can't even comprehend the difference between state and federal.  honestly, it's not a meaningful distinction in their lives today.   but if you put Trump in the white house again, you can bet they will all be for handing the reigns of power to their local city and state governments.   and conservatives mostly want the same when obama/biden are in the whitehouse.   so it's not that big of a stretch to convince them that local autonomy is in their best interest.

Trust has been LOST.

I see statements like that made by people who are frustrated, but I do not see them running around with a box of matches and a can of gas taking criminal actions in furtherance  of the words - it is frustrated people venting because they don’t believe their input can solve the problems they observe.

If anyone actually burns shit down it will be the third world assholes that crossed the border at the point in time where the free shit stops filling their pocket, and it will be the intentional act of those responsible for bringing them here to let it burn and re-create it rising like the Phoenix from it’s ashes.  American citizens living in poverty have not been given nearly as much as the invading hordes - want proof go to Walmart see who has: A full cart. When the $ stop the shit storm of burglaries will start, nobody will be safe.

It doesn't really matter. Even if we were to start over from scratch, the culture that gave us the current political situation hasn't changed. The only real way to change a culture quickly enough to matter is genocide.

Hmmm, a lot of data mining in this thread. See who gets contacted via NY Governors office . ??

No, the destruction of certain parts of it.  (Which, as Lug and I have been trying to point out, is still a CoC violation.)  The overarching federal government and accompanying bureaucratic state. Dissipation of what was formerly Federal government power to the States.  Abandonment of the idea of an American Empire---even if that means the Chinese fill the vacuum---or alternatively, actually getting more tangible rewards in CONUS for establishing and maintaining the Pax Americana.  But pick one.

Different people will have establishment of different cultural norms, and disfavoring others, as a goal of whatever new government arises.

Where it gets hilarious is where many of the people asking for this, still want the same government services and subsidies that they had before.  Human nature, I guess.

Things I'd like to see fire used for.  Clean up slash so I can walk through logged areas. Prescribed burns for habitat. Let structure fires burn to white ash so the buildings don't sit for years. Cleaning up homeless camps and trash. Waste incineration instead of phony recycling.

I think the phrase means we're past the point of rational solutions coming from government so political apathy.

I take it as not literal, but figurative.

If someone said "burn it all down" about Congress, I wouldn't think they wanted to burn down the actual building, since that wouldn't accomplish anything. Rather I would take it to mean throwing all the bums out and putting new congressmen in their places.

It means different things to different people. You’re not going to HONESTLY/REALISTICALLY get one simple answer.

If I’m referencing my city government, and I say I want to “Burn it all down” I’m likely referring to having the citizens vote out most of the city council and the mayor, have charges levied against them for interfering in the 2019/20 elections and being general asshats, and then bring back the old police chief and prosecute him for collusion with Burn Loot Murder to permit the destruction of multiple businesses in the area. For good measure, we can impeach all the no-charging/no-convicting/no-punishing judges and DAs.

Burning it all down would mean, in that context, at that time, render the current legislative system unworkable and ruin the people who perverted it.

One of those Burn Loot Murder thugs who smashed up the downtown however, he would take the phrase “Burn it all down” very literally, since he has been given room to destroy.

- - - - -

I think you’re looking to create a situation where the next guy, in a heated exchange, can be warned/locked/banned for saying “Burn it all down” because the consensus agreed and explained to you at your request that it means to gank your political opponents and their voters.

I predict a sticky at the top of the page about the phrase “Burn it all down” ETA or words to that effect within the next six months.

I cannot truthfully answer your question on this website.

Death lots of death.  I find it hard to believe people chanting this really understand what they're saying.  Burn it all down means you've just killed your parents and destroyed your kids future. Once you flip that switch if you're lucky and God allows it a few might survive to rebuild.
What we have sucks, but if you're smart you can flourish behind the scenes. That won't be so easy when you're living in everyday chaos.

ibtl

http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/historical/Declaration_of_Independence.htm#:~:text=%2D%2DThat%20to%20secure%20these,Government%2C%20laying%20its%20foundation%20on

It’s right here before our own very eyes.  The men who literally created our government understood what to do and that it would most likely have to be done again from time to time.  

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

You can't build back better unless you tear it all down.

"It's one thing to burn down the outhouse.  It's another thing entirely to install indoor plumbing."  It's always been easier and more fun to destroy than create.

"Fixing the initial problems," in this context, is also going to call for CoC violations.  

I'll speak plainly.  A Presidential election was stolen from the incumbent and a dementia patient installed instead.  Those who did that have not only not been punished, they've been rewarded.  Nothing meaningful has been done to ensure this won't be repeated, and indeed, the incumbent is facing several show trials for behavior less criminal than that of his predecessors, and far less criminal than the corrupt behavior of the current Oval Office inhabitant.

You tell me how you can fix those initial problems under the current framework.  If you can't, then maybe that's why people are wishing that the current framework be torn down.

Personally I always read "burn it all down" as "I give up".

When MODS lock MODS. Attached File

Not very likely to be honest, but you asked for pie in the sky best case scenarios so that's mine. I think one of the factors that would contribute to that is the culture of those people would be different. They would be raised to value family above all else, that it is a gift to have many brothers and sisters, to eschew materialism, I would say its likely they'd be raised to be very religious, and that kind of mindset would be extremely useful. Not much that people won't do when they think God's the one calling the shots. Those people would be the building blocks that, because they would be fundamentally different in their upbringing, beliefs, and culture, than those who made up the previous society, would necessarily produce an altogether different society of their own.

The mindset of a person raised with 7 or 8 siblings with very little in the way of material things, but pumped into their heads from day 1 that they are freedom fighters against evil itself is going to be very different from the mindset of someone who has maybe 1 sibling, if any, and are told that the only thing of importance in this world is their happiness, which stems from material comforts. The societies that they produce are going to be just as different as the people that make them up.

I think we will still end up in the same place one day, because I believe that goodness will always win on a long enough timeline, but I would like it if we can see the roadmap now without having to stumble through all of the pain and failures that will make the path clearer for the average layperson.

Burning it down can mean simply burning down the lies that the right tells itself.

1. Individualism is good. That's a crock, a single person has never done anything of note besides Christ dying for our sins. Everything else has been collective in nature. Great leaders may do amazing things, but there are whole armies and nations behind them.

2. Economic success is the highest goal for a person. Economic success is good, but far from the highest good. The highest goods are collective in nature as well. Family, community, country. You are nothing, but together you're unbreakable. Big families make strong communities, strong communities build great nations. Great nations make happy people. Individuals benefit from the group's success.

There's many more, but that's the kind of stuff we need to get over. I don't think we will anytime soon though, and we'll continue to hurt because of it.

They don’t know what they mean. They just like the sound of it.

For some, it means getting all of the current politicians out and electing all new.

Others, it means having a constitutional congress and re-creating our government.

For others, they mean drag the politicians they don’t like out of their offices and hang them in newly constructed gallows while throwing rotten fruit.

For most, it means “I’m angrily typing words on my keyboard, hoping someone else does something.”

If I had any inkling that a new constitutional congress would do anything other than result in the compromises making our country even less free on paper, I’d love to see things be made very clear. But if you think the new 2A would be “every individual American has the completely unfettered right to purchase, sell, trade, own, possess, carry, and otherwise interact with any kind of personal weapon, including but not limited to firearms, martial weapons, marital weapons (kidding!), etc. and no law may ever be made to restrict the free exercise of this right” you’re kidding yourself. It would be compromised down to “Americans may petition their government for the privilege to firearm ownership, the restrictions to and process for are to be determined by various governmental organizations on every level”.

Ultimately, “burning it all down” wouldn’t solve anything. The new boss will be the same as the old boss. Or even worse. Everyone thinks their ideas are the right ones. But there is no right and wrong.

With current demographics and culture, burn it all down means total Democrat victory, for at least a while.  

We have to embrace the idea of struggle if we're ever going to get anywhere.  We're not going to elect someone that fixes everything for us in 1 or 2 terms.  The purity test thing is the same as giving up, in all practical terms.  We're not going to use politics to change the culture, it's going to have to be the other way around.

The shed = the US Federal government.  There is not a single thing it does efficiently or well and that ineptitude is largely by design or at least acquiescence to the decline of societal competence, especially in governance.

You may not realize it but we are on the cusp of the same question Roman citizens had in the late empire where it was no longer clear that living under Roman rule was better than living under barbarian rule.  After all, the Roman emperor was just as likely to order his legions to sack and loot your city as the barbarians did, and the Roman emperor had no problem giving citizens and their land away to the barbarians.

The analogy holds true today.  The Federal government has no problem putting the needs of its citizens behind the needs and wants of millions of illegal aliens it is actively encouraging to cross.  Why?  Is it to benefit you or me?  Is benefitting you by forcing you to take an experimental vaccine in order to be allowed to work or travel?  Is it benefitting you by forcing you public school to allow sex offending minors who identify as trans use the girls bathroom and then helping cover up sexual assaults and investigating parents who protest as potential terrorists?

Is it benefitting you when it declares one group of protestors as insurrectionists and puts the full force of the government into prosecuting them but turns a blind eye to creeping anarchy and disorder by other groups of terrorists?  And why are they doing this?  Why not treat both the same?

Unless you happen to fall into a protected class, the government is not only not on your side it’s actively working against your interests.  The only thing that can be said positively is that, like every thing it does today, it’s shitty and inefficient at even that.

I’d agree with you that whatever comes next will be worse than what we had in 1991.  I am a whole lot less certain that what comes next will be worse than 2023 unless it’s today’s Federal government deciding what comes next.  Then it is guaranteed to be worse.

To completely destroy all levels of everything and everyone is on the same playing field fighting for survival.
No more social classes, race, gender identity, left, right, etc etc.
Those that once dictated are now fighting over scraps of food with those they one dictated.
That when I’ll consider it “burned all down”

Dissolution of the current Federal government and the compact between the states?  Yes absolutely.  It is beyond repair.  The powers that be will destroy it before they allow it to be reformed anyway.

For me, it starts with dropping the pretense that the situation is salvageable.

Personally, I don't see the point in actively "burning it down." Just stop trying to put out the fire that is already burning.

LoL, nice.

We can’t even agree or politely disagree in this small collective on who the best candidate is for President.  There is zero chance of our problems being resolved peacefully.  There’s going to be a fire sooner or later, the only question is whether it’s a controlled burn or a conflagration.

The only real way to achieve it is by putting an insane amount of trust into a dictator with a shelf life.