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The abstract notion of "rights" extends only so far as the will of the people allows. Quote:
Thankfully, it's working. There's years of bullshit like permissiveness-as-a-"value" and other left-wing propaganda to overcome, it's not reasonable to expect positive change overnight nor for it to occur without effort. Quote:
To you & your liberal cronies perhaps. To most Americans however, it's clearly an issue. Quote:
It takes time to educate the public on the mistakes that we've made. Whether allowing it to be built in the first place could be fairly debated I suppose, the fact that it still exists today however is just one example of a national lack of good judgment among too many to count. I'm realistic, I don't expect all of those to be corrected overnight. I mean, that's a nice pipe dream & all, but it simply isn't realistic & I know that. One step at a time, that's the way progress will have to come. |
Glad that you think people who are Americans, whose only connection with the foreigners that perpetrated the attacks was a book that they obviously interpreted in vastly different ways, suddenly ceased to be Americans in your eyes on 9/12/2001.
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The Dred Scott decision and Plessy v. Ferguson are perfect examples of the will of the people being dead wrong, and eventually being corrected. |
Well, I will agree with JIMG that rights extend only so far as the people want them to... which is why we must remain ever vigilant against their erosion (which was not JIMG's point, but it is what I take from it)
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Tensions Flare Over Proposed Mosque on Staten Island - NYTimes.com
Some of this shit is ridiculous: “Wouldn’t you agree that every terrorist, past and present, has come out of a mosque?” asked one woman who stood up Wednesday night during a civic association meeting on Staten Island to address representatives of a group that wants to convert a Roman Catholic convent into a mosque in the Midland Beach neighborhood. Seriously? SERIOUSLY? |
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Lowest common denominator. A majority of Americans are uneducated or undereducated idiots. We don't see it as much here locally because of where we are, but it's true. There's a lot of stupid, bigoted people in this country. |
Anyway, in real news, the court decision to put a hold on stem cell research is certainly disappointing.
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Hugely. But unlike some people I'm not going to advocate for getting rid of the Judiciary branch because of that. |
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Yes and many don't even know it. |
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I'm just saying that I've met a lot of "bigots" that would never vote for a Republican. |
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I don't think you're using the word correctly. Particularly as it's used in the modern sense, rather than in the "obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices" more general definition. And even then I'd argue that never voting Republican doesn't make one intolerant at all. Certainly not by the dictionary definition of intolerant. And obstinance - well everyone will claim that the person that disagrees with them is being obstinant by the dictionary definition. Never voting for a Republican doesn't make you obstinate or intolerant. Nice try though Dutch. |
Haha, you had to google "bigot". Stupid people...they are EVERYWHERE!!!
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Really? This type of banter is the main reason I keep coming back here. You and Jon (and many more) manage to be very entertaining as well as thoughtful. If I want reasonable and informative dialogue I'll listen to NPR. FWIW my new pet peeve is posting "official" definitions to make a point. Language is as language does. |
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I included so that there could be no argument about my definition of the word, not because I needed to look it up. |
BREAKING NEWS EVERYBODY
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Now back to whatever mundane thing you guys were talking about... |
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My guess is that he is using the word bigot to apply to people like Louis Farrakhan and his "ilk" who would fit very nicely into your definition. |
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True - they would. I'm not about to sit here and defend the Nation of Islam. I could care less about their religion, but I'm not about to defend them on any grounds really. So I hope nobody was looking forward to seeing that. |
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I'm pretty sure I didn't mean obvious extremists. Plus, I haven't "met" Mr Farrakhan. :) I'll bet I meant regular folk like you and me. |
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Oddly enough though, since you said something nice about me earlier in the same post, I'm probably one of the more notorious here for doing the definition thing (re: "enemy"). I'll defend the technique in general though because while primary usage may be subject to the whims of public opinion, sometimes a definition is very useful when you're using a word in a way that may not be as familiar even though it is technically correct. |
Nate Silver's new senate model is up. Right now, it has the Dems at 52 seats.
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The GOP candidates in KY, CT, FL, NV and CO make it very difficult to imagine a GOP Senate next year.
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Russ Feingold is getting a run for his money here in WI but the Feingold Machine and local liberal media is starting to chew his opponent to mincemeat and I'm not sure RonJohnson is a seasoned enough candidate to fight back.
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But if it happened, especially with those people, it would almost guarantee another Dem wave election in 2012. |
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Johnson's another nutcase that's making it harder for the GOP to win, |
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I'm sort of surprised how well Angle is doing in Nevada. I know Reid is a fuck-up, but that chick is fucking looney. Florida should be one of the funnest races of all. Will be interesting to see if Crist can get enough Democrats to say "fuck it" and dump their guy who has no shot for him. |
*sighs* If true (and right now I think it is), then some of the folks stirring up the Islam-hatred have some 'splainin to do:
Cab Driver Stabbed: 'Are You Muslim?' Question Leads to Hate Crime Charge - ABC News |
Should we be suspicious of all white people now?
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We should certainly not let someone build a church anywhere near a taxicab.
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This does provide yet another use for the Leatherman.
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This adds a bit of complexity to the story.
What We Know About Michael Enright, The Alleged Slasher Of The Muslim Cabbie | TPMMuckraker What a weird turn of events for this guy, or so it seems. |
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"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." (Even after the primaries JPhillips is still stuck on the ridicule stage while at least the rest of his party has moved to the fight stage) LOL. Keep reading your liberal blogs. I will bet right now at least 3 of those seats go to repub's and besides CT think it will probably be four. How much you willing to go? Of course there will be 300 more Rand Paul smear articles by November, but guess what? He is still going to win. Paul wins easily. McMahon (deservedly because it should be Peter Schiff and not someone who contributed to Rahm Emanuel's campaign) loses big. Rubio wins even fighting against the Republicrat double ticket. Angle wins over the majority leader of this popular senate. I know very little about Colorado. |
I'd guess three wins for the GOP.
Look at all the polls. In almost every case the more mainstream candidate was polling better than the person that won. In each of these states the candidate selected in the primary was the lesser choice. I don't know why that's so personally insulting for you. |
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You pick the five "tea party" canidates (though I would say McMahon is a joke) and choose to say they are the weak ones. I guess you can try to spin it in November but most of this country is pissed off at both parties and these are the "outsiders" that will win. LOL that you are guessing 3 when your first post implied very little chance for any of them. |
Plus it isn't really personally insulting. Outside of Paul (and I don't really like his views on the Middle East) these guys aren't my cup of tea. I am more amused at the liberals putting down these candidates as easier to beat. These are the ones that are going to win big. (Obviously again with the exception of CT again where Linda McMahon is almost as bad as just letting Dodd run again)
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No, my first post implied that the choices of candidates makes it difficult to see a GOP takeover in the Senate. (Hint: You can tell because that's what it said!)
I'm also a little surprised to see you so strongly backing candidates that are spouting the GOP party line on foreign policy and in every case but Paul, supporting a Christian Conservative domestic policy. They may talk the talk on spending, but unless they're lying they really aren't anything but hard right Republicans. Which, of course, is why the more moderate candidates were polling better in the two way polls. |
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I am a fan of Rand's father, think Rand could go more radical once elected, and could care less about the other 4. Just helping soften the blow when they win in November. |
Liberals aren't putting them down as easier to beat, polling data is.
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Just to set a benchmark date for future reference (since I was curious where things stood atm anyway) ... from the latest Rasmussen Paul leads 49-40 on 8/18 (leads 51-41 with leaners included) Buck leads 46-41 on 8/12 Rubio leads 38-33-21 on 8/11 (if Meek), Crist led 37-36-20 if Greene had won Angle is tied 47-47 on 8/18 (but leads with leaners included 50-48) McMahon trails 47-40 on 8/13 (trailed 56-33 in June) |
Would much rather have Obama and the liberals end the war in the middle East, end the useless drug war, and stop spending so much than I would have the Neo-con nuts back in power that want to invade Iran and build a giant church in Pakistan. But Obama hasn't come close to any of my wishes for him so I guess I will have to see if this new set of Republicans cater more towards the Libertarians. (My guess is they won't)
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Interestingly enough I almost mentioned that same thing. Rand looks like a guy who is always just one press conference away from blowing his lead & about two press conferences away from getting himself beat. edit to add: And if his dad keeps shooting off his mouth (like the mosque flap), then the margin for error with conservative voters gets even smaller. |
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Yeah I never understood why they have those pesky primary elections where the people can show they are pissed off at the government. They should just run the candidate that can talk about how bad Obama is or how bad Bush was. Those tea partiers really have no right voting in majority numbers in any of those elections. |
Jon: I think the RCP averages give us a better picture by aggregating multiple polls.
CT- Blumenthal +8.5 KY- Paul +5.5 FL- Rubio +1.4 CO- Buck +2.8 NV- Reid +1.5 |
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You and JPhillips seem to being agreeing with JimGA about who the Republicans should run. I think I will just leave it at that, not much more needs to be said about the man who wants to end the enemy. |
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FWIW please infer no bias, political or otherwise, on my part with the ones I quoted. I had just finished reading something from Ras a little earlier & knew I could pop it up in my browser easily to get something quick. |
I'm not saying anything about who they should vote for, I'm merely pointing out that the people that were chosen poll worse than the more mainstream candidates. That's factual whether you like it or not.
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I didn't, I just thought RCP provides a clearer picture. |
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??? I supported Rubio, Angle, and McMahon in their bids for nomination, wasn't particularly disturbed about Paul as I recall, didn't follow Buck's race closely enough to have a formed a strong opinion. If I've been reading JP and SB correctly, that's not the position they're taking. |
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Cool. |
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Hmm, maybe panerd's comparison in our thoughts was meant to be limited to Rand P, and that limitation just went over my head. Hadn't thought of it that way before my previous ??? to him. That said, I'm gonna guess you mean Kentucky instead of Tennessee here? In TN, the top of the ballot this year is the governor's race & the (R) there does indeed lead 56-31. |
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Just pointing out that the R's are performing more to expectations in TN ;) |
Rand Paul is gonna win? That's so 2 weeks ago panerd. Everybody in KY is coming out against him since he's talked about the war on drugs not being an issue there in KY and cutting funding for that and stuff.
He's in serious trouble. And if Angle wins, with her absolute batshit looney ideas (and look, i really dislike Reid), that says something seriously significant about NV voters lack of intelligence. |
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How about a friendly wager? Like I mentioned above I am no fan of Rand Paul's half endorsement of the neo-con "bomb the world" approach and think he has ions to go to have the grace and class of his father. With that said no national mass media smear campaign is keeping him out of office. It is Kentucky, zero doubt he wins. Possibly in a landslide. |
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Yeah it was more about Rand Paul. The local NBC station smear campagin is in full force (why they are so concerned about the Kentucky senate is beyond me. Actually is isn't, it is so transperently obvious what their agenda is) Rand acted like a college student in college, people donate to his campaign that you wouldn't want over to your house for dinner (this never happens to anyone else), Rand actually has read the constitution. (OK I made the last one up) |
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I still think Paul is the favorite, but I'm not convinced he'll win. He's much more ideologically in tune with KY, but he's made a terrible blunder not knowing the issues that matter in KY. It's fine to be focused on national issues, but he may have killed himself with his stances on mine safety, drug enforcement and unemployment. My wife has an aunt in eastern KY that loves to say, "Don't get above your raisin'." Paul has to be careful that he doesn't appear to be disconnected to the rural voters that can make a difference in the race. |
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Yes, everyone is out to get the poor libertarians. |
So now we shouldn't pay attention to libertarians?
btw- You do know that's just the AP feed? |
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And how is that a change? |
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:D SI |
Rand Paul is really a Libertarian? Seems his stance is right in line with the Republican Party on just about everything.
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I think that's the thing with these "tea party libertarians" is that they are just normal republicans who shout "spending bad, lower taxes" louder than their counterparts. Everything else is pretty much party line...socially ultraconservative, fiscally conservative until they are in office. Boy do I wish these Americans who are sick of high government spending would've just organized with a white bible-beater in office.
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You're underestimating the portion of the upset that is connected to how the money is being spent. There's certainly some "principle of the thing" involved for many but the increased level of anger (IMO) is directly related to being slapped in the face with the realization that the spending is being directed by people you wouldn't trust to buy you the right drink from a vending machine nor bring back change. |
Maybe more for the random thought thread, but I had the "pleasure" of attending a Occupational Licensing Board hearing yesterday. I think there were about 8 lawyers, 5-6 board members, and a few other assorted suits pushing paper for several hours. And nothing happened. God knows what the taxpayer bill ended up being. I think every American should have to sit through at least one of these abortions of government waste before they're allowed to vote.
And I'm not even saying, generically, "big government is bad". But the big government that WE happen to have is far too often a ridiculous, insane waste of money, and it too often accomplishes nothing positive. And I don't know if people on the outside, listening the to ideals spouted by politicans, can possibly get that. Administrative government is no different than the military, or law enforcement industries. It's a business, looking to improve revenue, and it constantly needs to justify its existence so people can keep their jobs and make more money. That's what motivates that machine, just like any other business. |
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Because they're all a bunch of crybaby sore-losers? Toughen up. Jeez...I would have thought you of all people Jon would be all for instilling toughness and resiliency, rather than whining because you lost. And fact of the matter is - in many cases the money is being spent on the same shit that Republicans spent it on. Same programs that they started or continued for years. |
In general I think there's way too much licensing for many professions.
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Actually I'm all for removing the current crop of vermin from DC by any means necessary. Anything & everything else is secondary to that, there simply is no more urgent matter to attend to than that. |
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It's important to license some industries, but it's beyond silly to put members of one profession in charge of members of the same profession. I mean, they should just call it the occupational corruption board. Everyone has an agenda, everyone's there to make a buck, and nobody's going to discipline anyone, no matter how severe the violation, if they feel that it will negatively impact themselves professsionally. Occupational licensing is really just a easy 2nd job/networking (i.e. corruption) opportunity. |
Former RNC chairman gay. World did not explode.
Bush Campaign Chief and Former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman: I'm Gay - Politics - The Atlantic |
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He hasn't been relevant to much of anything in, what, four years? Not the most flammable of situations. It's disappointing naturally but not particularly damaging in any meaningful way. |
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I couldn't disagree with you more. The feds are far worse. At least the states have to balance their budgets. So even though a ton of the money is wasted, at least we pay for it by reduced services, instead of just printing currency. A state governor can order every state agency to cut their budgets 5% overnight, or order all government employees to stay home twice a month and not get paid. That saves a boatload. That's not an option for the federal government. There's no concept at the federal level that if you want to spend billions on some worthless program, that you have to then cut back spending somewhere else. That concept doesn't exist (under any administration, Republican or Democrat). So there's at least some hypothetical accountability at the state level. If a state agency wastes money, they're directly taking services from the taxpayers. Taxpayers notice that and get pissed. You can get a sense of government accountability - if they blow money here, you can see why/how they have to cut schools. With the feds, that connection isn't as clear, so you don't have the same motivation to be efficient. What's another few billion in debt? Some people still try to make that argument at the fed level where it makes no sense - they'll say, "We need to end the wars and spend the money on education here". It's not an either/or, they can just spend the money on both, and anything else, and just leave the mess for the future. There would be even more opposition to the wars if taxpayers could see that they were actually impacting fed services here. ("We're going to invade Iraq, but to pay for it we're going to cut your health care.") We wouldn't have invaded Iraq if that kind of accountability was a part of fed spending. |
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You've never met Jim Doyle (Governor of WI). I don't think the word 'cut' is anywhere in his vocabulary. |
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538 Projections for GOP victory: KY - 75% CT - 5% FL - 52% (with Meek at .7%) NV - 60% CO - 77% Welcome (and Welcome Back) to FiveThirtyEight - NYTimes.com |
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Notice the past tense that I used. Like I said, he was chairman of the RNC and the world did not explode. |
Hypocrisy is no less disappointing, especially IMO evil hypocrisy, when its in the past tense.
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.    All he needs is a mission accomplished banner. |
What's your point on the first pic panerd?
Obama didn't award himself the Nobel Peace Prize. He didn't campaign for it or anything. It was awarded to him...wtf was he supposed to do exactly? And I'm not sure what's up with the 2nd pic. |
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You're right... Obama endless war in Middle East good. I am sure you can probably get bi-partisan agreement on that. |
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:confused: |
So no one caught the news that all combat troops are gone from Iraq by Tuesday?
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You're right. He should win another Nobel Peace Prize for that. Maybe a third for Pakistan. |
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That would just be showing off at that point. |
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Now if we could pull the rest of the 50,000 troops and stop INCREASING the number of combat contractors that'd be fantastic. |
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Agreed |
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I read a letter recently from a very unhappy incarcerated gentleman who is promising to take up his grievences with "Rocco Bomma".
I love the fact that there's apparently a contingent of prisoners in America who believe our president;s name is "Rocco". I mean, that's just a great name for a president. |
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I agree. |
So how do you go about reserving the Lincoln Memorial for a party?
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Put Albert Pujols on the guest list. :D |
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You may not agree with him but he is only one of a few Republican's who is consistant on this issue. Either you are against big government both at home and abroad or you aren't really against big government. |
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Nah I call it integrity. IMO Dennis Kucinich joins him on the short list of Congressmen who have it. Don't agree with his economic policies but I won't write him off as "crazy" for having actual ideas and being consistant to his message. |
I always find it funny when they refer to people like Michelle Bachmann as a "tea party darling" or something.
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I'm not against big government. |
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Do you know much about the state? You have two major metro areas that are heavy Democrat and then suburbs and rural areas that are strong Republican areas. If anything, Tennessee is a moderate state that can wind up in either column depending upon voter turnout and the candidate. |
Rand Paul is running for senate in Kentucky, right? What's going on here or am i reading shit wrong.
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And I hope Traficant gets on the ballot this fall, although he'll probably lose(district was all hacked up)
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Yes, he is. And Dan Quayle's son won the Republican primary in Arizona for Congress. Was the state difference throwing you off? It did for me at first with Paul, specifically. |
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Bollea was talking about tennessee or something, I read back enough posts to figure it out what he meant. But the quote on this page made it seem like Paul was running in TN. |
Okay - I'm sure this will likely degenerate into the standard argument in this thread, but I have a serious question.
You look at someone like Joe Miller from Alaska, who thinks Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional and who wants to go "back to constitutional basics." Notwithstanding everything else, aren't these people just naive in their belief that essentially nothing has changed? It's not the same world that it was in the late 18th century. It's infinitely more complex, more interconnected. For fuck's sake...we can travel in hours what used to take months back then. Pretending that a group of guys who got together late in the 18th century could have the solution to all of the problems and challenges facing us today is like sticking your head in the sand. It's like running the ball on first down, gaining a yard, then deciding to punt the ball on second down. I think in a lot of respects that it's cowardly. It's "decision by indecision" in a sense. Refusing to make decisions, or hard choices on their own, and instead relying on some ancient piece of paper that, while soaring and epic and inspirational in its rhetoric and historical importance, can not possibly adequetly address the myriad challenges of a 21st century world. |
Not to be flip with your point, but the other side of the coin is that when you're a hammer everything looks like a nail.
That is to say, rather than it being cowardly to prefer not solve all our problems using the tools of government, perhaps it is wise not to give the government a ton of money with which it can find problems to solve. |
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I'll give you a somewhat serious answer, although I'll stipulate that it's also somewhat theoretical. That document -- which I unabashedly describe largely as a means to an end afaic -- does provide a mechanism for changes. I believe that there's a very valid argument to be made that, if the will exists to do X but X happens to be unconstitutional, then follow the amendment process & make it constitutional, thus ending the any constitutional issues. If the will to do X is lacking then there's also a valid argument to be made that X shouldn't be done. Bottom line probably ought to be that either we have a constitution that we follow or we don't. Instead what we've got now is more like a complex sequence of end runs that are intellectually defensible only by whomever personally benefits from them, or more accurately perhaps, whomever's ox isn't being gored. |
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The problems would exist anyways though. Senior citizens needing affordable healthcare isn't going to just go away. And from a strict constitutionalist standpoint I'm not even necessarily talking about money. I'm talking about things like the Commerce Clause, the FDA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. If you live in a strict constitutionalist world then you want to severly limit the useability of the Commerce Clause and all sorts of beneficial agencies and functions of government get stripped away. And the free market doesn't have, and won't create a replacement for them. To take OSHA for example, the counter-argument will be "well people won't go work for unsafe employers." Problem is that that safety can only be determined by working there and incidents occuring there, because there's no independent free-market agency that is going to ensure they meet those minimum safety standards. So people will get injured on the job. And that's just one example. Take that to another degree with food safety, or drug safety. Centralization is a necessary component of modernization. We don't live in a horse-and-buggy world where people farm there own food and know everybody in their town anymore. |
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