I told you Obama wasn't really born. He is the undead, and Eric holds the secret!
Eric, you don't have the capacity to read the Bible well at all. You certainly don't apply it with any real intelligence. You're not only unprepared for the next twenty years, you are unimproved by the anything in the last thirty.
You're trapped on a receding island with a diminishing community of like mindless idiots.
No wonder you're looking for the apocalypse. History is ending for you.
Feodor. Whoever you are. You are ignorant. But only because you're new to this blog and haven't bothered to read much of what I've already written.
As to the pic...
I recall seeing signs online 4 years ago that read, "Bush, Satan, 2004"
Turnabout is fair play.
And for the record. History will never end. The WORLD will never end. But an end to this present, LAST, age most certainly will. And yes, I do look forward to it. And yes I do believe Christ's return is immanent, likely within my lifetime, assuming I live another 20 years.
Furthermore. You don't know anything about me or my ability to ferret out what the Bible is really saying, but what you've read here. Recently. Dig deeper.
Check out my previous blog 'Pocket Full of Mumbles.' There's a link at the bottom of the Archives list to your right. Dan, myself, and others have been having the same biblical discussion for going on 3 years.
Do a little research first, and THEN suggest I don't know how to interpret the Bible. I'll entertain your accusation at that time.
Haven't seen much in the way of good Biblical understanding by you. Maybe you should study a little harder as if you are truly concerned about knowing, before you disparage anyone else.
1) Eric hasn't the capacity to read the Bible well.
2) Eric doesn't apply what it has to say with any real intelligence.
3) Eric is unimproved by "anything in the last thirty" years.
4) Eric is trapped on a receding island and surrounded by a diminishing community of mindless idiots.
5) Eric is looking for the apocalypse.
6) History is ending for Eric.
All this from someone who doesn't know me from Adam's house cat. I'd call that assessment 'ignorant' but I already did-- however I quantified it.
What does Feodor know? Does he have a blog? Does he write anywhere? His profile shows that he's only had this particular [read into that whatever you will] profile for less than a month.
So what do we know about Fredo...
1) His politics are Liberal.
2) His faith is Liberal.
3) He's an Obama supporter.
4) He feels secure enough in his anonymity to hypocritically make pronouncements of folks he doesn't know [make of that what you will, but it's unlikely he's someone we know masquerading as someone we don't. Just as everyone has one handwriting style so too do most folk have one written 'voice', and Fredo appears to be someone new].
5) He has no grasp of context and little of nuance. In other words, he has little ability to follow a thread and read a comment in context of previous comments within the same thread.
6) He makes rash insults against his host based on a single picture without bothering to ascertain the purpose of the photo, AND, he makes those insults knowing nothing of what his host has stood for and against these last 3+ years as a blogger.
7) The possibility that Christ could come within the next 20 years is beyond his faith, and his understanding of scripture. Rather, that someone would say such a thing is reason to mock that someone, calling the notion 'fantasies' and the pervue of 'snake oil' salesmen.
8) Which leads one to wonder just what Fredo himself believes.
9) Does he believe in the immanency of Christ's return? Does he believe in Christ's return at all? Does he believe what Christ showed John on the Isle of Patmos? Does he believe that end-time prophecy has any real present-world relevance?
10) He enjoys being an annoyance both here and at other blogs, ALTHOUGH, he did say somewhere that the debate here was more interesting. [Why he feels so remains to be understood]
11) He's impetuous, as evidenced by no.s 4 & 6, and impetuousness lends to blunder.
12) He demonstrates a sense of self-induced intellectual superiority over everyone else here, which translates to hubris toward me, at least, since he doesn't know me or my writing.
What else? Anyone?
Moving on...
Is Obama 'Satan'? Obviously not. Is the pic funny? I think it is. It's at least as funny as ER's mythical 'God in the Box' debate tactic. It's at least as comical as Dan's slavish utilization of Liberal shibboleths like 'War Crimes Charges.' It's at least as hilarious the few Bible 'scholars' within our circle of bloggers who can't see the theological trees for the ideological forest.
Is Obama Satan? No. But he is
1) A liar
2) A Bigot
3) A Murderer
4) A Marxist
5) A LIAR. [can't overemphasize that enough]
If Obama wins, America may very well never recover. How can I say this? Name one government entitlement program that, once enacted, was repealed. Welfare still exists. Social Security still exists. Medicare/aid still exists. Government education still exists.
Obama believes, quote, "the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you. But it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf."
And this from a supposed constitutional lawyer! The Constitution certainly DOES state what the federal government MUST do on our behalf...
"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
The Constitution goes on to delineate specifics the deeper in you get, but the preamble tells a very large tale of things the federal government MUST do for us.
Barack doesn't believe in the Constitution as a guiding force for good in this nation-- in fact he shows contempt for it.
"If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples so that, uh, I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order and -- and as long as I could pay for it I'd be okay. But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. As radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it has been interpreted -- and Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you. But it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn't shifted, and one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused, uh, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. And, uh, in some ways we still suffer from that."
"Redistributive Change." THAT'S not in the Constitution. Barack would pervert and destroy the Constitution if given the chance because he sees the Constitution as fundamentally flawed. Can he even take the oath of office without being both a liar and a traitor to the Constitution?
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
I say he cannot.
Nikita Kruschev once said,
"Historians are the most powerful and dangerous members of any society. They must be watched carefully-- They can spoil everything."
And this is true. The cold war was dead in the hearts of most Americans long before the Soviet Union fell. No one feared the end of the world by nuclear holocaust. And only now that Iran is feverishly working toward acquiring nukes is anyone even remotely afraid-- the line between those who do fear and those who do not is drawn by American partisan politics; and its sycophants line up dutifully, depending. But everyone has forgotten history... 'Historians are the most powerful and dangerous members of any society'.
But we do not learn.
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history." --George Wilhelm Hegel.
"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." --George Santayana
Obama is a flawed intellect. Freedom cannot afford such a man in the highest political office in the world.
And I reckon saying as much makes me a racist.
On a lighter note, I AM trapped on a receding island and surrounded by a diminishing community of mindless idiots. I'm just thankful I'm not the only one so trapped. I do at least have some with which I can intelligently converse. Sadly such men and women are a rare breed... there are far more Fredo's than Mark's, Marshall's, Tugboat Captain's, Moms, or Craig's.
I recall seeing signs online 4 years ago that read, "Bush, Satan, 2004"
Turnabout is fair play.
ER is right. Two wrongs don't make a right. "He did it first" does not make it right.
nuff said.
Is Obama Satan? No. But he is
1) A liar
We all have misrepresented the truth at times. Many people in the previous posts made false, slanderous statements. Several folk repeatedly bore false witness right here on your blog this weekend. I have seen no rebuke of them for their false witness (or mistaken allegations, if we want to be very generous).
So, the point is, we all have misrepresented the truth. Obama is certainly included in that pack as are Dan and Eric. What of it?
Is he running for office based on lies? You've presented no evidence for this case. Has he twisted the truth at times while running for office? Probably so. As has McCain. What of it?
Continuing, Eric claimed Obama is:
2) A Bigot
Says you. I'd suggest evidence would show you to be wrong. In the real world, Obama works right alongside joyfully with folk of all sorts of colors and backgrounds and genders.
This would be an example of Eric stating a lie, pure and simple. Therefore, obviously we can't vote for Eric.
Continuing, Eric claimed Obama is:
3) A Murderer
Another blatant lie by Eric. Come on, brother, shame on you. This just isn't true and it's a ridiculous charge.
Continuing, Eric claimed Obama is:
4) A Marxist
Another blatant lie.
Come now, brother Eric. We are one nation, one body of people. You can disagree with Obama without making up blatant falsehoods about him. You know what the Bible says about bearing false witness and yet here you are doing it over and over and over again. You are better than this. Your God is bigger than this. Your savior rejects this sort of behavior in his body of believers.
Disagree with Obama if you wish. Say that, "I think his policies will bankrupt our nation because they cost too much..." you can make that case if you want (I'd disagree, but you could make it) without stating falsehoods. Say that you find Obama's unwillingness to outlaw abortion a moral wrong. You can state that without lying.
But in your statements above, Eric, you are going off the deep end, seemingly in a orgy of hatred and a willingness to destroy a man at whatever costs. Truth be damned.
A conversation of clowns on an island is fun - for a while - but hardly intelligent.
Going straight to the core, Eric, of your comments and as a way to point out that you and yours do not pay attention to words carefully enough and thus start out on rotten foundations that lead exponentially away from the truth:
We the people. I am surprised, Eric, that you feel this designation refers to any government, much less the "federal government." Your carelessness misses the importance of the preamble, which in fact, may be used to support a conservative, “less government” position.
The framers, an ad hoc committee of the Congress of the Confederation and eventually the full Congress, chose WE THE PEOPLE with enormous intention. The question they were answering was: who authorizes a nation and its government? Especially if a King or Queen do not. And it was too late in the Enlightenment day to say that, in a practical sense, God does. (They certainly asked God's blessing, but would not confuse the actions they took for God's will. This was the attitude from Washington through Lincoln until the religious right turned the language around and started asking us to see what they did as evidence of God's will.)
And the elected leaders most definitely did not want to be seen as standing in the place of a King or Queen. They did not want to replace a monarchy with the despotism of an oligarchy, which is exactly what you make of them when you say that WE THE PEOPLE is the federal government.
The framers understood that the American people sent them to Congress to work on better economic cooperation between states but they threw up their hands at trying to make the Articles of Confederation work. So, as they contemplated a future as a new nation, they drafted something to present to the people as a new beginning. And they believed that any beginning, any foundation of a nation is ordained and established not by a sovereign, not by God, not by a representative body, but by the people of what would be the nation.
Therefore, Eric… it was their best understanding of The People (in their case the franchised citizenry) who form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to OURSELVES and OUR posterity.
This is NOT what federal government must do for us. This is what we continue to choose to do for ourselves and have to continue to do so because we are the only agents by which a nation is ordained. That is what democracy means.
A representative democracy is a form of government. That is what you mean by “federal government.” And the form changes over time as WE THE PEOPLE change the way WE want to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
The Constitution that was approved gave us this flexibility precisely by stating that we the people are in charge.
• Roe v. Wade has ultimately been upheld by the people.
• The right to privately own guns has been upheld by the people.
Either can change, but only as a movement by a democracy.
The executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judiciary have all changed over time because, ultimately, the people have given direct or tacit approval to changes.
We the people were given that power by the people who ordained this nation.
So, you get off on the wrong foot. And it just gets wronger from there.
Again, bad reading, bad thinking, right there in the comments above my own.
I am new to blogs, I admit. But I confess that blogs do not educate anyone on anything. They provoke but do not provide. So tell me why I should ever have a long history of seeing only myself and my kind on a website?
Christ may come. Christ may not anytime soon. I don’t know God’s plan. But the gospel, and the holy gift of thoughtful minds through the centuries, and the best of brave and bold Christian thinking today, all tell me to act as if the kingdom is near and so to care for the least and care not for accumulations that are a burden and lead to an apathetic, compassionless unhappiness.
This is the gospel’s call, always, to the hearing: to act now and not foist it on someone else. Or, in words I’ve heard recently, we are the ones we have been waiting for.
"We The People" ...that is who government is. Of the people, by the people, for the people. It is WE THE PEOPLE who tell the apparatus of government-- run by 'We the People' --what it can and cannot do.
If this is the quality of your argument... I'm wasting my time.
Not foist it on someone else? Isn't that what the Democrats and a good many Republicans have done with Social Security?
It's time to reign in government, and deny liars, thieves, and murderers like Obama a seat in this nations most prestigious chair. Just listening to this man's laundry list of things he's going to do FOR the people, by doing things TO the people is frightening. This man is a world-class bum, and liar.
13) He demonstrates a perverse willingness to present graphic depictions of himself engaged in sexual activity with whatever man, woman, animal or hand is so unfortunate as to be a partner. Most disturbing.
The sound of clowns talking is coming from across the water:
• “but the preamble tells a very large tale of things the federal government MUST do for us.”
• "We The People" ...that is who government is”
• “It is WE THE PEOPLE who tell the apparatus of government-- run by 'We the People' --what it can and cannot do.”
So… we are telling government, which is us, what it, which is us, must do for us, which is the people? And we are telling ourselves what we can and cannot do?
I thought Dan was the practitioner of circular reasoning.
According to your logic, then, if we elect the bright one, we are foisting on ourselves the responsibility to care for ourselves via the President who is part of the government, which is ourselves. How dare we!
I guess We the People is everyone who is not dancing and chirping around a dark fire on an island somewhere.
*First national jobs program: 100,000 men in white coats with big nets on the streets!*
Sounds like a fascist government to me ER. Is that really what you want. A bunch of Brown Shirts patrolling the streets of America and rounding up (Khmer Rouge-like) everyone who doesn't fit Obama's vision of Marxist America? Do you want Obama determining what is and is not acceptable speech, a la the Fairness Doctrine?
Perhaps you should don your own pair of jackboots and brown shirt when you head to the polls next Tuesday.
Ulysses wanders away from the mental commitment metaphor too easily. In ER's farce, the program is an act of love, really, caring for the mentally ill who have broken over having Obama as President.
Fascists cart away to kill not cure.
The kernel of truth under the metaphor is how, at those times in history when we partially fulfill our best natures, we get scared of our ability to do good. The grip of the myth of privilege pulls some of us in the club toward madness rather than surrender.
Obama supports abortion, even defends letting the survivors die upon entering, illegally, the world from which men like Obama sought to bar them. Blood is upon his hands, which makes him just as much a murderer as the man who administered the procedure.
"Spread the Wealth", "Redistribution of Wealth", "the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties." Obama sounds like a marxist, and his policies certainly lend to such an interpretation.
Liar! His numbers and percentages do not add up. You can't give 95% of Americans a tax cut if some 30%+ don't even PAY taxes. You can't one week say only those making 250K will be taxed, then the next week say $200K, then $150K. The man is proposing a Trillion dollars in new spending! And I'm expected to believe 95% of Americans will get a tax cut? The man is either a fool or a liar, and neither bodes well for this country.
It is madness to support a man who so blithely insists that America needs socialist changes when the evidence against socialism is piled high in bad teeth, poor health care, and bodies. Lots and lots of bodies.
60% support Roe v. Wade and the Supreme Court has upheld.
80% support progressive taxes as does all Supreme Court precedent.
Those who may not pay income taxes still pay FICA, sales tax, etc. Obama's proposals cover four years or more of total budget considerations which includes the ending of spending how many billions a week in Iraq?
Eric demonizes Americans and their institutions but freely utilizes the internet to do so (and taxes pay for his use of this freedom and the protection of his use).
I seriously doubt 60% support Roe. Just based on the bad law that brought it about would leave some appalled. Show a poll at least.
Dan's offering of a Gallup poll was disturbing enough, but it didn't come close to 80% in favor of progressive taxation.
But here's the thing. A poll could indicate 100% in favor of either and it wouldn't make it right. That's because neither is right by any stretch of the imagination.
Regarding progressive taxation, there was a time when it was considered shameful that one should be known to be on the public dole. Nowadays, it seems that attitude has changed. How very sad for our nation that this attitude has developed. It is envy and jealousy that brings it about, as well as a distorted notion of what the government, particularly the federal government, is for. It is the result of political opportunism by those who make their bones using class warfare (the Dems) to procure votes by those willing to blame others for their lot in life. It's far easier to believe that others have succeeded through evil means than to look in the mirror and confront the real problem. One thing that can be said for the left is that they recognize this sorry aspect of human nature and play it for all it's worth.
60% support Roe v. Wade and the Supreme Court has upheld.
80% support progressive taxes as does all Supreme Court precedent.
Where do you get your numbers, Feodor?
I never had a chance to vote on Roe v: Wade. I never had a chance to vote on the people who decided Roe v: Wade. I never even had a chance to vote on the people who decided the people who decided Roe v: Wade.
Same with Social Security, Medicare, Medicade, etc, etc, etc.
Are you sure enough that 60% of Americans support Roe v: Wade to support putting it to a national referendum on next week's ballot?
I would support that.
But then again, my opinion about Abortion differs slightly from the rest of my friends here.
You see, without Roe v: Wade, Al Gore would have won the Presidency in 2000, there would never have been a President George W. Bush, and Iraq War, a "Tax cut for The Rich", and we would all be living in a terrorist attack-ridden Environmentally Friendly, Great Depression 2.0 Democrat Utopia by now.
You see, Conservatives do not abort their children, and if the other side wants to self-eliminate, that's fine with me. (There's nothing I can do to stop them anyway.)
But while we are talking about this, let me get this straight...
Are you saying that the Supreme Court can never be wrong about something, and that once they have ruled on an issue, it should never be revisited?
A poll could indicate 100% in favor of either and it wouldn't make it right. That's because neither is right by any stretch of the imagination.
I agree wholeheartedly that agreement on a Thing does not make it right. In the case of progressive taxation, I believe it to be right because it is the morally responsible choice to make because to do otherwise would be unjust. As I have argued already.
I understand that you don't think either are right. Others disagree with you. In this Republic, if you wish to change things, you'd have to get more people to agree with you. That's all I'm saying.
Thomas Jefferson, April 6th in 1816: "To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association -- the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."
Thomas Jefferson, first inaugural address, March 4th, 1801: "A wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
Thomas Jefferson: "Congress has not unlimited power to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."
But then, according to recent/past statements, Obama doesn't appreciate the Constitution, NOR what Thomas Jefferson had to say on taxation and what governments role truly is.
In the case of progressive taxation, I believe it to be right because it is the morally responsible choice to make because to do otherwise would be unjust. As I have argued already.
Dan, how in the world do you come to the conclusion that it could possibly be the morally responsible choice to take a higher percentage of one person's income than another's when both people are citizens of the same country, and that to do otherwise would be unjust?
Do you even realize that that does not make any sense?
It would actually be more moral and just to tax the poor at a higher percentage than the rich, since the poor are a bigger drag on the Economy, and a bigger burden to society.
But beyond that, what gives you the right to thrust your own sense of morality upon the rest of us?
Progressive Taxation of Income is from the Communist Manifesto, not the U.S. Constitution. It cripples the creation of wealth, punishes achievement, and when coupled with Welfare handouts, creates dependency and helplessness.
And as to government's role, it does not include the role Obama's believes the Supreme Court had an opportunity to do, and failed, in taking power for itself that the Constitution does not allow.
Said Obama:
"As radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It [the Supreme Court under justice Warren] didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution,"
Obama wants to "spread the wealth". The Constitution doesn't allow for it-- Jefferson said as much. And allow me to remind you all of what Jefferson had to say about taxation... especially in regard to 'redistribution of wealth'.
"To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association -- the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."
--Thomas Jefferson, April 6th in 1816
"A wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
--Thomas Jefferson, first inaugural address, March 4th, 1801
"Congress has not unlimited power to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."
--Thomas Jefferson
What did John Adams have to say?
"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free."
--John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787
What did James Madison have to say?
"With respect to the two words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."
--James Madison in a letter to James Robertson
In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 for relief of French refugees who fled from insurrection in San Domingo to Baltimore and Philadelphia, James Madison stood on the floor of the House to object saying, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."
--James Madison, 4 Annals of Congress 179, 1794
"[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government."
--James Madison
For a Constitutional Lawyer and professor, Barack Obama is ignorant of what the founders had to say about the Constitution they crafted and adopted. That, or he knows and just doesn't like it-- which makes him all more unfit to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
He is disqualified from taking the oath of office for, if he really feels the Constitution represents a charter of "negative rights", he makes himself a liar the moment he utters the words. Furthermore, the moment he begins to work toward deconstructing the Constitution to make it easier for the Court to remake America in Marx's ideological image, he becomes a traitor.
how in the world do you come to the conclusion that it could possibly be the morally responsible choice to take a higher percentage of one person's income than another's when both people are citizens of the same country, and that to do otherwise would be unjust?
Do you even realize that that does not make any sense?
I would disagree. I believe Jefferson would disagree. I believe most reasonable Americans disagree. I think it makes perfect sense.
Now answer this:
How in the world do you come to the conclusion that it could possibly be the morally responsible choice to take more from one person than you would from another? (ie, why would we not just charge everyone $10,000 period in tax dollars)? That would be totally equal, why would we not do that?
Your answer (I'm sure) would be, "because that's not fair! Charging the person who makes $10,000, $10,000 in taxes would be wholly criminal! It's simply not just to charge a flat rate like that!"
And I would agree.
I would suggest that most people would agree with me in that to charge the lower income person the same percentage is similarly unjust.
Do you even realize that makes no sense - to suggest that they be charged the same rate? The $10k household charged 10% would be disproportionately affected, inasmuch as they would already be struggling to survive at that income level. Whereas the person who makes $100k would not be similarly affected by losing 10%.
I don't see how one could not see the injustice and immorality in that suggestion.
"Are you saying that the Supreme Court can never be wrong about something, and that once they have ruled on an issue, it should never be revisited?"
Good question TugboatCapt. Was the Supreme Court right on Kelo vs New London?
To steal another man's property for the sole purpose of giving it to another man who will pay more in tax revenue to the local government?
And guess what? The property New London stole sits vacant today... NO revenue.
Sounds like a Marxist society to me. What kind of judges will Obama put on the Supreme Court? THAT is the most chilling prospect of this election. What kind of judge will a president who views the Constitution as fundamentally flawed appoint?
"Do you even realize that makes no sense - to suggest that they be charged the same rate? The $10k household charged 10% would be disproportionately affected, inasmuch as they would already be struggling to survive at that income level. Whereas the person who makes $100k would not be similarly affected by losing 10%.
"I don't see how one could not see the injustice and immorality in that suggestion."
And yet God demands a mere 10% of everyone irrespective of their income. Is God now unjust?
Will the woman who only makes 10k a year suffer for paying a mere 10% a year in taxes that she'll get back in her return?
What was it the Psalmist said?
"I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." Psalm 37:25
Is the woman making but 10k a year righteous? Is God righteous for demanding she pay 10% of her annual 10k salary in tithes? If she's righteous she's paying 20%!!! 10 to God, and 10 the thieves in government. But government will give much of it back once a year, and if she's righteous she'll never be forsaken, and her children will not have to beg for food....'
...Except under an Obama administration. Her children will still beg. And so will a whole lot of other children.
Try to stick to the scenario that I actually presented, Dan.
Although, I do appreciate you exposing your true reason for supporting Progressive Taxation...
The $10k household charged 10% would be disproportionately affected, inasmuch as they would already be struggling to survive at that income level. Whereas the person who makes $100k would not be similarly affected by losing 10%.
Dan believes that the purpose of Taxation is to distribute misery equally.
For the record, Dan, the 100k household would be affected EXACTLY the same way that the 10k household would by having to pay 10% of their income in taxes.
They would both have to pay 10%.
If you do not believe that this would be a fair and just system, then you, and all who would agree with you have put yourself in the position of deciding what someone else needs, or deserves, and I will remind you again that you really need to go mind your own business.
Progressive Taxation is immoral and unjust, and I don't care if you agree with that statement or not.
"Senator Obama has stated very clearly what kinds of Supreme Court justices he wants-- those with "the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old."
"Like so many things that Obama says, it may sound nice if you don't stop and think-- and chilling if you do stop and think. Do we really want judges who decide cases based on who you are, rather than on the facts and the law?
"If the case involves a white man versus a black woman, should the judge decide that case differently than if both litigants are of the same race or sex?
"The kind of criteria that Barack Obama promotes could have gotten three young men at Duke University sent to prison for a crime that neither they nor anybody else committed.
"Didn't we spend decades in America, and centuries in Western civilization, trying to get away from the idea that who you are determines what your legal rights are?"
Dan believes the purpose of progressive taxation is to shift the burden of helping the unfortunate to someone other than himself. He prefers to live simply but knows to do so is really selfish as it relieves him of the stress and sweat and risk of creating the wealth that would allow him to truly give to others. He thinks that he is holy to give the last two pennies in his pocket as if Jesus was praising the old woman at the temple for being poor. He thinks he gets Heavenly brownie points by forcing others to give more. He thinks that forcing others to give more is just, rather than busting his own ass to provide more himself.
AS I said earlier, a flat tax across the board is indeed just, fair, moral, etc. Should we decide to excuse the absolute lower income class is another matter. But across the board is the only fair point at which we should start to decide such things. I've no doubt that most on the right have little problem forgiving the truly needy of that obligation, but to come close to fair or just or moral must include everyone taking part first, and then proceeding from there. If we excuse families with total incomes under, say, 40K or 30K, that's all the progressiveness that's needed.
Here's what folks like Dan don't consider:
Everyone must understand that we each have obligations. It's a fact of life and to consider one's self a member of society, it's an absolute. One of these obligations is to do one's part for the nation. So if a flat tax was instituted and the rate was at, say, 10%, then each citizen must arrange their lifestyles based on their incomes minus ten percent. If it means one must share a one-room apartment with two other guys and sleep on the floor, that's how it is. We know that poverty in this country is damn near wealthy in some other countries. The amount of possessions owned by the average "poor" person not only shows how not-bad they've got it, but it also shows they are not practicing the self-denial that will allow for truly changing their station in life. A difficult life to be sure. I've had a taste myself and it's no picnic. But if I didn't deny myself during that period, my personal hell would have lasted a lot longer.
Do you even realize that makes no sense - to suggest that they be charged the same rate? The $10k household charged 10% would be disproportionately affected, inasmuch as they would already be struggling to survive at that income level. Whereas the person who makes $100k would not be similarly affected by losing 10%.
I don't see how one could not see the injustice and immorality in that suggestion.
What, specifically, are the just rates to tax someone who makes $10K a year, and one who makes $100K a year?
Say, 10% and 91%, respectively?
That would leave both of them $9,000. The outcome would be equal. Would that be fair and just, from your twisted point of view?
As I wrote in the prior conversation, here, there are only three obvious points where taxation could be considered fair:
1) Equal amounts taxed, in an absolute sense: each person pays X dollars.
2) Equal amounts taxed and equal amounts left, proportionally: each person pays X percent, keeping (100-X) percent.
3) Equal amounts left, in an absolute sense: each person keeps X dollars.
(A fourth approach would be to tax according to usage, as in tolls for bridges and roads, but that's somewhat comparable to a private entity charging a fee for its service.)
There is no natural stopping point between #2 and #3.
What is to stop you from suggesting that the most fair taxation is the one that leaves both the rich man and the poor man with $9,000? Nothing: once you have moved from taxing the same absolute amount or the same proportional rate, you have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in terms of principles to explain why you would stop before making the outcomes absolutely equal, so that the amount that is left is identical.
If you're not an outright Marxist, Dan, you have no reasonable principles to which you could appeal to distinguish yourself from those who are.
Progressive Taxation is immoral and unjust, and I don't care if you agree with that statement or not.
If you disagree, then you are wrong.
Then why is a flat fee - one that would be the same for everyone - not just? $10k from everyone. That would be the MOST EQUAL solution. Let's just change it to that. No tax forms to worry about, no IRS, just the first $10,000 taken from your paycheck.
Equal payment for everyone. All praise be to equality!
Y'all are not addressing this because it undermines your argument.
Any fool who thinks that 10% has the same effect on a $10,000 household as a $100,000 household is just that: a fool.
There is no natural stopping point between #2 and #3.
Ummm, yes, there is. Progressive taxation of the sort that Jefferson and the majority of patriotic Americans prefer as the most wise, equitable and just system.
You all have lost out on this debate because your position is a morally bankrupt one.
Are you saying that Jefferson was a Marxist for wanting the majority of tax dollars to come from the wealthiest?
You all just ignore points when they undermine your view.
I've done enough casting of pearls to this crowd on this point.
Peace brothers, from a fellow citizen and Christian, like it or not.
It doesn't undermine my argument because it is not what we are arguing, you stupid, blithering sap-sucking moron. (Since we are apparently going to start calling each other names, now.)
You argue like a kindergartener, Dan.
10% is 10%, whether it is 10% of $100, or 10% of $100,000,000,000,000.00. One tenth.
You don't think that it hurts a Millionare to have to cough up $100,000 every year?
And let me also point out that people who earn big money like that are not simply piling up piles of money, they re-invest it into whatever made thm the money in the first place, and it goes to pay the salaries of the people below them on the ladder.
And if you don't realize that, then you are a poopy-head.
If Dan decides to return to this thread and this issue, perhaps he could actually answer my question: What, specifically, are the just rates to tax someone who makes $10K a year, and one who makes $100K a year?
And maybe, since he denies my claim that there is no natural stopping point between proportional taxation and taxing with the intent to leave the same absolute amount -- his empty response being, "Ummm, yes, there is," -- perhaps he could actually explain what that stopping point is.
I find it more than coincidental that Dan tends to bow out of conversations about the time that his positions are nailed for the garbage that they are.
First, Dan disparages those who believe in taxing the same percentage for all tax brackets:
Any fool who thinks that 10% has the same effect on a $10,000 household as a $100,000 household is just that: a fool.
How is the effect different? The most obvious answer is that the two households are left with different net incomes, of $9,000 and $90,000. There's an obvious remedy to that, isn't there?
The obvious remedy is to tax people so that the outcome is the same: tax everyone so that each person is left with the same amount. Does Dan oppose such taxation? He doesn't say, nor does he say what rates he supports, much less the actual principles for why he would draw a line here but not there.
No, he's been too busy indulging in the most flagrant hypocrisy, writing, "You all just ignore points when they undermine your view."
His position suggests that there's a lot of things he doesn't seem to grasp.
First, he doesn't seem to understand that, if you lessen the natural consequences of generating wealth or not generating wealth, you remove disincentives to remain poor and incentives to become rich, dampening the very motivations that drive any economy.
More than the practical effects of punitive taxation, there are the moral principles. He doesn't seem to understand that, if a person acquires his wealth by providing goods or services that others want, at prices to which others agree, and does so without fraud, theft, or violence, that person has earned his wealth and deserves to keep and enjoy the fruit of his labors.
His belief that even proportionally lower taxes is a matter of justice and therefore a right and entitlement of the poor, alongside numerous social programs, must logically lead to a belief that society is inherently unjust and oppressive: the only way to conclude that money is owed to those who did not earn it is to believe that "the System" is, in whole or in part, responsible for denying them what is rightfully theirs.
(Because outcomes will always differ from one person to the other, Dan and his Jacobin kind will always have the opportunity to see the different outcomes as the product of injustice, to be remedied by the further ratcheting of the socialist controls over people's lives that he so clearly craves, ravenously.)
Most fundamentally, Dan doesn't have a real respect for property, certainly nothing comparable to the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, to say nothing of the other, more reserved Founding Fathers. Along with his inability to deal with Jefferson quotes he doesn't like except to address them in the most glib manner possible -- "I don't think he is saying what you think he is saying." -- his contempt of private property rights makes his invocation of Jefferson's name all the more galling.
I will close by reiterating another point that I made in the earlier thread: we can certainly discuss whether we should support giving tax rebates to the poor, but we should do so as an act of charity, not justice.
The poor may well need our assistance -- and I prefer providing that aid privately if it's possible, and through local governments if it isn't -- but what a person needs and what he deserves are not always the same thing.
As sinners we all need grace, but we don't deserve grace. If we did, the offer of forgiveness would become an entitlement, a reflection of our own self-righteousness rather than God's love.
Assuming that a poor man isn't poor because he's the victim of an actual crime -- e.g., theft, for which he would truly deserve restitution -- he doesn't deserve more money, goods, and services than he earned.
We may well still have an obligation to feed him and clothe him, but that's an obligation based on the duty of CHARITY, not justice.
Micah teaches that the Lord requires us "to do justly, and to love mercy," but that doesn't mean the two commands are interchangeable.
Justice and mercy are two separate concepts, that can be reconciled -- as, most notably, on the cross -- but often aren't. To act as if they are identical, or to confuse one for the other, is a gross mistake that leads to innumerable problems.
Or, to understand what justice means and to slander Western civilization as inherently and thoroughly unjust so as to argue that every dime of government assistance for the poor is an act of justice rather than charity, is an act of treason against this civilization, and a display of ingratitude for the freedom and prosperity that is has secured, with no plausible criterion by which we can determine that the Left's program of systematic restitution can be brought to an end.
In short, the idea that the mere existence of poverty -- or even mere inequality in economic conditions -- is inherently unjust, is a philosophical starting point for endless revolutions to bring about one tyrannical "reform" after another, each one more despotic the last.
Harris poll: support for Roe v. Wade is at 56%, the highest it has been since 1998. It is also up 7% since last year.
Gallup poll: Federal income tax is least fair of all taxes? 20%
Tugboat apparently reads paragraphs like most of you read the Bible: without connecting.
Here is what I wrote, Tug:
"The executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judiciary have all changed over time because, ultimately, the people have given direct or tacit approval to changes."
When a clear mandate exists among the American people, things change, we change.
And it may very well be that in the next 20 years, Roe v. Wade will get major reconsideration. In fact, it should. The decision was made on increasingly old science in a particular epoch of cultural life.
Our social capacity to handle unwanted infants may be challenged to grow and meet a re-evaluation of our values. But these changes will always be compared to the right to privacy, the bedrock of Roe v. Wade.
And if you guys want to damage right to privacy via Roe, you'd better look out because someone with an agenda against fundamentalist hate mongering will most definitely find something to pin on you.
Feodor, some might think that the right to privacy isn't so delicate that we must condone even murder to protect that right.
And, I must say it's an odd thing to see someone appeal to polls to justify a Supreme Court decision. If the decision was so obviously rooted in the text of the Constitution and the writings of its creators, wouldn't it be easier just to point out which article or amendment enshrines a right to privacy, extending even to abortion? Wouldn't it be easier to cite the specific Federalist Paper that discusses the right to have an abortion?
Or do you appeal to polls because you know actual legal arguments for Roe are so very, very weak?
And, if you do want to argue that the ideas behind Roe are so wildly popular, why keep the issue out of reach from those branches of government that are most directly affected by popular opinion? Why not try to pass a law or even a Constitutional amendment making explicit the rights that the Supreme Court perceived in the emanations of penumbra?
Or do you want to keep abortion out of the hands of Congress because you know the American people would actually support a regime that is a bit more restrictive than one that permits all abortion on-demand?
Feodor-- you haven't shown any ability to read the Bible and "connect" yourself. None. Therefore any charges you make toward the rest of us regarding our "supposed" inabilities mean nothing.
The ability to open one's mouth, or makes one's fingers fly across the keyboard and leave in their wake, "you don't know what you're talking about" is wonderful-- It shows you have some ability to string together a cogent thought. But it doesn't make you credible, knowledgeable, or even authoritative. When you make snide statements like that, we simply ignore you because, sadly, you don't know what you're talking about.
Don't delude yourselves. Eric is not defending Biblical Truth. You're angry and you want blood. The sign you post is a joke for you only as a defense to the underground anger and resentment you feel. You belong in the group Nixon mobilized: those who felt left out in high school and never got over it.
As for polls, my point is to simply indicate where the American people stand. Because, as We The People determine major shifts at any time in any direction, interpretive change happens by bulk after decades of discussion so any shift in constitutional understanding is founded on a prevailing claim by We The People.
So it was for taxes and remains so. So it was for integrated education and remains so (you guys want a referendum on a return to separate but equal, too?) So it was for the Voting Rights Act (1965) and the Civil Rights Acts (1960, 1964, 1968 - three of them because of intense resistance, much of it Biblically based by adults who read the Bible much like yourselves).
So it is for Roe v. Wade so far.
Congress does, in fact, keep working on how to legislate an understanding of constitutional law on right to privacy. It just hasn't fallen your way.
States, too, but some have found themselves on the wrong side of the constitution. But it's not for lack of trying.
Your wishes just don't seem to move any branch of government as far as you want.
Don't blame me for policy, law, or for writing strings of cogent thought that pierce that facade of righteousness and disturb the crumbling pillars of hate and anger and the dust of blind rage swirling on the floor of your soul.
I'm reminded of what Thomas Sowell wrote about "articulate" people, in The Vision of The Anointed. He criticized the so-called "thinking people" whose sweeping assumptions dominate media, academia, and much of the religious community.
"Many of these 'thinking people' could more accurately be characterized as articulate people, as people whose verbal nimbleness can elude both evidence and logic. This can be a fatal talent, when it supplies the crucial insulation from reality behind many historic catastrophes."
Let me be clear that I believe honest, reasonable, rational people can disagree quite a bit on government policy: rational politics requires tradeoffs among competing principles, and different people can have different priorities, to say nothing of good-faith disagreements on how to govern according to those priorities.
I hope that Dan, Erudite Redneck, and (it seems) Feodor aren't representative of the political left. I suspect that they are, in part because the Left's agenda -- which is radical and collectivist, in service to an all-encompassing political religion -- cannot be plausibly framed as the moderate reform they pretend that it is.
Either way, I can think of no better description of people like Dan, than to say that they employ "verbal nimbleness" to elude both evidence and logic.
It's just as a good thing that Dan isn't one-tenth as nimble as he think he thinks he is.
Looking through the pierced facade of dust that's crumbling from the pillars that stand on the floor of my own soul, I must say, Feodor: that's a pretty detailed metaphor. That doesn't make the metaphor coherent, much less does that mean it conforms to reality, but your rambling should be acknowledged, if not praised.
More substantively, I must also say that what you write here is troubling:
As for polls, my point is to simply indicate where the American people stand. Because, as We The People determine major shifts at any time in any direction, interpretive change happens by bulk after decades of discussion so any shift in constitutional understanding is founded on a prevailing claim by We The People.
The term is thrown about far too much as a pejorative, but I think that, as a description, the term applies: this position you espouse here is positively fascist.
It is an appeal to the general will that Rousseau theorized, and which was employed so consistently by Mussolini.
You claim any reinterpretation of the Constitution, on the part of the judiciary, is "founded on a prevailing claim by We The People," and that gives the court a blank check to rewrite the law in any way they see fit, with a mythical and mystical appeal to the will of the People as their justification.
That justification is mystical, because there is no real mechanism that causes the will of the People to guide the decisions of judges, much less to do so reliably. The reality is that, if judges aren't expected to rule according to what the law actually says, they're given the power to rule by their own whims.
This position is lethal to a true representative government, and beyond that, it's arrogant because the U.S. Constitution already has a mechanism for change built-in.
IT'S CALLED THE AMENDMENT PROCESS, OUTLINED IN ARTICLE V.
Your contempt for that process is proof of a radicalism that should be denounced as absolute anathema to the principles of limited government and truly representative government on which this nation was founded.
It's not that I think you're opposed to letting people argue for explicit constitutional amendments, Feodor: it's that you support an alternative, implicit mechanism for changing the Constitution.
You wrote, "as We The People determine major shifts at any time in any direction, interpretive change happens by bulk after decades of discussion so any shift in constitutional understanding is founded on a prevailing claim by We The People."
You see the Constitution changing, not only by amendment, but by "interpretive change" and in shifts in "constitutional understanding," enacted by judges who -- in some mythical, mystical process -- ground their decisions on a Rousseauian general will.
You shouldn't be applauded for not wanting to outlaw the extremely difficult amendment process as the only recourse the electorate has to overturning judicial activism: you should be denounced for supporting and enabling that activism in the first place.
Amendments ARE interpretive shifts ratified by the people:
13th Amendment: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
15th Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
20th Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account
26th Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age. Congress shall have the power to enforce this law through appropriate legislation
16th Amendment: The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
18th Amendment: the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
21st Amendment: The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
AND THE LAST ONE, GET THIS, IS PUT IN WHILE BANNING THE MURDER OF INNOCENT CHILDREN CANNOT?!
27th Amendment: No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.
I am angry that a man who calls himself Christian, supports abortion rights, disagrees with the ban on partial birth, and voted against protecting the lives of children who survive the abortion procedure. That makes me VERY angry.
It makes me angry that Christians can't seem to take the Bible for what it says, where it says it. The bible wasn't written for Bible scholars, it was written for average every-day people. there is no need to parse the epistles until they're thoroughly neutered. The Bible means what it says, where it says it, in context of the nuances of the original language. A man's "conversation" in the language of King James is his daily outward walk in life. 'Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination' is clear! Homosexuality is an abomination. Is this law abolished because of Christ's death and resurrection? No. Is eating shellfish wrong? It is if you want to be healthy and be pleasing to God..
"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."
--1 Corinthians 3:16-17
No, eating swine is no longer a sin to bar one from heaven, but it will destroy your body by bringing on illness and disease. Those dietary laws are not made null and void... the quality of those foods were not changed when Christ rose from the dead. Swine is still unclean. Lobster, shrimp, crab, oysters, clams, mussels, etc... all unclean. Catfish... unclean. Tuna... unclean.
Let the bible say what it says. Let's not spiritualize or allegorize or simply do away with whole portions because its convenient.
Last thought... Is the Law abolished because of Christ's death and resurrection?
"I was just thinking how articulate you are for a black man."
What does that mean? Seriously. What are you saying here? What difference does it make what color Bubba's skin is? Or Barack's for that matter? I don't approve of Bubba because I believe he might be white, nor do I disapprove of Obama because he's black.
Why would you say a thing like that? Is Biden your hero?
Eric is now so shaking with anger, sarcasm has become too subtle a device for him to see.
To wit: Bubba seeks to call those he disagrees with as merely articulate rather than thoughtful. It is the defense of the unprepared. Just like Biden's white man gut check with new black leadership; also old black leadership's gut check with new black leadership for that matter.
As to your religiosity, Eric, you must be relieved, then, with the laying on of hands to protect Palin from witchcraft. Since you seem so rooted to isolated, seventeenth century colonial living.
Bubba seeks to call those he disagrees with as merely articulate rather than thoughtful. It is the defense of the unprepared. Just like Biden's white man gut check with new black leadership; also old black leadership's gut check with new black leadership for that matter.
My comment had nothing to do with race, and I resent your race-baiting moron. More than that, I made clear that mere disagreement with me is not enough to prompt me to invoke what Dr. Sowell wrote about those he describes as merely articulate.
It's not a matter of being "unprepared" on my part: you do seem to be articulate in Sowell's sense, using "verbal nimbleness" to elude both evidence and logic.
You suggest, probably correctly, that a constitutional amendment to prohibit abortion -- even one with an exception regarding rape, incest, and the life of the mother -- isn't popular enough to be amended. But my point is, such an amendment wouldn't even be necessary if it weren't for the judicial activism you applaud. Without that judicial activism, which argued quite implausibly that abortion is a constitutional right, the issue of abortion would be addressed where it should be: in the legislature, at the local, state, and federal level. Change could be incremental and local and would be easier to implement by either side.
You also write, oddly, that "Amendments ARE interpretive shifts ratified by the people."
This statement is nonsense.
Amending the Constitution, for instance, to prohibit the sale of alcohol (the 18th Amendment) isn't a "interpretive shift." It doesn't change any interpretations of the text as it previously existed; IT CHANGES THE TEXT ITSELF.
When an "interpretive shift" occurs, the interpretation changes while the text remains static. An amendment is an entirely different event, because the text is actually changed.
When you write nonsense like that about the amendment process, I'm completely validated in my belief that you write well but think very, very poorly.
Briefly, the word "moron" should have been deleted from my previous comment. I don't take kindly to race-baiting, and I tried to make my comment more civil than it initially was, but I overlooked removing that one word.
"When an "interpretive shift" occurs, the interpretation changes while the text remains static. An amendment is an entirely different event, because the text is actually changed."
Nonsense will result when you do not read whole sentences. I said:
"Amendments are interpretive shifts RATIFIED BY THE PEOPLE."
It is this second part that gives an interpretive shift the status of constitutional law.
When the 18th Amendment was ratified, it became constitutional law, a part of the whole body of constitutional text, thereby changing it.
When the 21st Amendment was ratified, this cultural shift became constitutional law and abolished the 18th, changing the whole body of constitutional text yet again.
Thus, when an interpretive shift is... ratified by the people... an amendment changes the text of the constitution.
Interpretive shift and amendment can be the same event.
The 22nd is an interpretive shift that does not change the text but adds to it. There was no constitutional prohibition on how many terms a President could serve. But times changed, FDR kept getting the votes, Congress did not want to lose so much power to any one person, so, in an interpretive shift heretofore unthought, the constitution was changed.
Nonsense is when you do not read whole sentences and don't think out loud for yourself the implications of what is being said.
The fourth amendment is under going the pressure of interpretive inspection. It may well shift in the coming decades.
It seems to me that your argument is that Roe v. Wade is an interpretive shift that has not been ratified by the people.
When it is ratified, or when the abolition of abortion is ratified, the constitution will yet again absorb interpretive shift by a majority of citizens over an extended period of time where generations agree.
Such is democracy in these United States. If you can't stand it, look for that island to buy.
I am simply saying that it is the defense of anxiety to accuse the opposition of too much articulation, whomever the opposition may be.
Reagan was a silver-tongued devil-but that is no reason not to debate and oppose his way of legitimizing speech that despises government (while he was leading the government!)
Feodor, my complaint is not that you're too articulate, it's that you're not sufficiently rational.
If your eloquent writing was used to illuminate rational thought, I'd have no problem. Instead, it's being used to conceal idiocy, and that is problematic.
It's not that you're articulate: it's that you're merely articulate.
Feodor, my criticism of your point isn't invalidated in the least by that last phrase in the sentence I quoted. I agree that amendments are ratified by the people, but it is still not the case that amendments are "interpretive shifts ratified by the people."
To take one example, you cite the 22nd Amendment, but it's not as if the people originally thought that the Constitution placed no term limits on the President, then reinterpreted to document to conclude that the Constitution already limited the President to two terms, only then to codify that new interpretation by ratifying the amendment. Instead, they knew that term limits wasn't a remotely plausible interpretation of the document as it existed and then acted to write it in.
If they thought the Constitution already limited Presidents to two terms, the 22nd Amendment would have been seen as redundant.
Instead, their ratifying the amendment indicates the exact opposite, that they didn't see the interpretation of the existing document as fluid, as malleable enough to find term limits that didn't previously exist.
The term "interpretive shift" implies a "reading in" of new material or a "reading out" of old material. But amendments do not involve changes in interpretation, but rather changes in the text itself.
What you write later in the comment suggests either that you don't really believe what you write, or that you have no room to tell others how they don't think through the implications of their positions.
It seems to me that your argument is that Roe v. Wade is an interpretive shift that has not been ratified by the people.
When it is ratified, or when the abolition of abortion is ratified, the constitution will yet again absorb interpretive shift by a majority of citizens over an extended period of time where generations agree.
"When" Roe is ratified?
You're right to point out that efforts to abolish abortion by constitutional amendment aren't getting much traction, because there is not yet a sufficient groundswell of support.
But you fail to notice the flipside of that fact.
Despite what you claim to be broad support for Roe, there ISN'T a movement to codify the conclusion of Roe as a constitutional amendment.
Why would there be? Those who support Roe take the position that the Constitution already protects a right to abortion, and any attempt to ratify an amendment to enshrine a right to abortion would give the appearance that the right isn't already enshrined, after all.
You're imagining a course of events that don't actually occur, that judicial activism occurs first and is then affirmed by the People who ratify an amendment that says the same thing.
That didn't happen with Presidential term limits (or any other issue ratified by amendment): it is not as if the courts first discovered or imagined presidential term limits, and then the People ratified an amendment making explicit what the courts said was already there implicitly.
And, that isn't happening with abortion: nobody who agrees with Roe v. Wade is actually pushing for an amendment to codify that ruling, because they don't think they need to.
Judicial activism might be overturned by an amendment, but it isn't affirmed by an amendment: and an effort to overturn a judicial ruling by a constitutional amendment doesn't imply that the two are complementary events to affirm the same cultural or interpretive shift.
Abortion rights are protected on a finding of "right to privacy" by the Supreme Court.
Right to privacy is not a constitutional right per se, but rests on implicit rights to privacy against government intrusion found in other rights guarantees.
So, the constitutional umbrella is not secure. An amendment added some notion of "privacy" to the bill of rights is possible (like an Equal Rights Amendment is possible).
Tell me where I went wrong.
To me a new interpretation puts meaning where that meaning was not before. Not necessarily changing or reversing previous meaning. "New" meaning not previously existing rather than replacing something "old".
There need not have been an "old" understanding. There simply could have been silence.
So all amendments amount to new interpretations. And one of them was reversed in a matter of just a few years. A re-interpretation, if you will.
I don't see you applying your logic to prohibition. Why not? Eloquence without substance?
98% of US law is not, strictly speaking, constitutional. Very little of it is judicial activism. Your labeling of Roe v. Wade is mindless use of partisan language. It is US law.
Perhaps it should be overturned as inadequate to the rights of the fetus.
This discussion is painful, difficult and involves potentially competing legal interests and certainly involves competing moral reasoning.
I'd like to overturn 3 strikes and your out. That is law that has no conscience for differing circumstances.
I'd like to overturn the inhumane difference between mandated sentencing for crack users as opposed to cocaine users. It's racist in effect.
98% of US law is not strictly constitutional law and is constantly evolving, shifting, being rethought, interpreting and re-interpreted.
Feodor, I would appreciate it if you would stop referring to me as "Bubbs." It doesn't save you any keystrokes, and your use of the term implies a closeness that you do not have and a friendship that I do not extend to you.
You note that it's possible to propose and support a constitutional amendment to make clear the right to an abortion: I don't disagree, but no one's actually working for such an amendment, and that illustrates that there isn't the tight coupling you suggest, between judicial rulings and subsequent amendments to affirm those rulings.
About abortion in particular, even if a right to privacy can be (somehow) implied in the Constitution, it still doesn't follow that that right enshrines what is almost inarguably the deliberate murder of innocent human life.
And it's not the case that Roe proposed a new interpretation where there was once silence: it overturned existing laws, in some cases very old laws prohibiting abortion, proof positive that the subject of abortion's legality had long since crossed the minds of the electorate and the legislators who represent them. The only obvious case where new-replaces-silence is when old principles are applied to new technologies -- e.g., first-amendment guarantees for the telephone, television, or the Internet -- but that case doesn't apply here. Instead of applying an old principle to new circumstances, the courts imposed new principles on long-standing circumstances.
I'm not sure I'd agree that "98%" of US law is technically unconstitutional, particularly because the Constitution affords much greater flexibility to the states than it does the federal government, but I agree that far too many federal laws cannot be justified by a persuasive appeal to Article I, Section 8.
But because this is the case, doesn't mean that it's always the case and that we must simply accept it as such:
"This is part of American life."
It wasn't always, and it need not be permanent, and I find it strange that someone whose political philosophy apparently entails a broad belief in revolution, accepts the status quo as immutable in this one area.
But if you think that most laws aren't constitutional, if you think we must simply accept that as a given, and if, in fact, you embrace a gross assault on the rule of law, you should be honest about it.
Don't hide under this notion of constantly changing interpretations, no doubt of a "living" document: be up-front about your desire to abolish the document since you think it no longer has or should have any authority to constrain the government.
Be honest about your judicial monarchism. Be open about your treasonous opposition to the Constitution.
Less than 30 amendments? I had no idea! Man, I'm glad that you've decided to frequent this blog, because I had no idea that "real estate law, corporate law, tax law, family law, copyright law, etc." were unconstitutional.
The Constitution limits the federal government to the expressed enumerated powers that are given to it, so the only way those sorts of laws could be constitutionally permissible would be for the document to give Congress the enumerated power to enforce copyright law...
("The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries...")
...and, for everything else, to reserve those powers to the state and local governments...
("The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.")
...and, to coordinate issues that extend beyond one state, to give the Congress the enumerated power of addressing things like commerce between the states...
("The Congress shall have Power... To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes...")
...and, to cover marriage and family law, maybe some sort of provision that each state will give full faith and credit to legal documents from other states.
("Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.")
But since such provisions CANNOT POSSIBLY be contained in a document as sparse as the Constitution, we have to throw up our hands and concede that the vast majority of laws -- even those laws that the Founders helped draft for their own state governments, and in the first Congress -- are unconstitional.
I believe the most common use of the word "constitutional" does not mean, "what is strictly contained in the Constitution," but what is PERMITTED in the Constitution.
Specific federal laws regarding patents and copyrights aren't in the Constitution, but since Article I Section 8 enumerates such laws as an expressed power of Congress, those laws are, indeed, constitutional.
It now seems that you were employing an eccentric definition to make a complete non sequitur.
Good for you for wasting my time, and for proving Dr. Sowell correct.
This use of polling is not to indicate what is right, it is to indicate where the majority of Americans are on an issue.
Why is this important? Because in a democracy, the majority determines direction within limits.
Those who find themselves in the minority for a time hate polling and say "just because so much percentage is for that does not make it right."
The point missed is that they are losing the argument.
Progressive tax is our reality. It's not going anywhere soon.
Privately owned guns for uses other than hunting are a reality. It's not going anywhere soon, though I am not sure a majority of Americans believe in it.
Bubba heightens the argument by moving the pleas of the minority onto the different ground (so named by Republican strategists) called "judicial activism." This is a fog of nomenclature to confuse people.
He reminds of people who used to say that you cannot legislate morality (old guard Republicans before the wingy conservatives). They hated the Democrats for passing housing, health, and welfare legislation.
Either generation of wingy conservatives forget that all of law has its being because society wants to, needs to, live as morally well as possible in order to get along and go forward making of life the best that we can.
For my part, I don't care for polls because they are often poorly worded questions that don't elicit an accurate sense of what the general feeling is of the nation as a whole. "Should we torture prisoners?" Most people would say "no". But the question is way too general. What do they mean by "torture"? How do they define it? Who is being tortured and why? Another question might be, "Should we continue to give to the poor?" Most people would likely say, "yes". But how much? In what manner, directly or through taxation and welfare programs?
There's also the problem of how many are polled. In Dan's recent offering regarding progressive taxation, there were only slightly more than 1000 people polled (If I read it correctly). Then we are to believe that it is an accurate picture of the attitudes of how many million Americans? I don't care about what statistics experts claim about polling, even 2000 people polled would be better than a mere 1000, but 10,000 or 100,000 even more so. If they don't have the time or resources to poll that many, don't waste my time presenting or quoting polls.
Even more troubling is, who are these people being polled? Once in a while we might get something like, registered vs. likely voters, but even then, are these likely voters liberal or conservative or something else? And how do we know for sure?
The worst aspect is when one looks to polls to justify their position despite all the problematic points above. And there are some who are actually persuaded because of polls. Or they give up the fight in the belief that they are wasting their time if the numbers against seem large enough. We see this at election time, when some decide not to vote because polls suggest their guy has no chance. I know many who despite still voting for McCain, believe Obama's a lock. But there are those who will not vote for the same reason. And why? Because a polling of 1000 people, who may all be Democrats anyway, suggest Obama will win by a huge margin.
So it's not that a given poll disagrees with my position that provokes my distaste for them, it's that they are rife with problems that in my view taint their credibilty and usefulness.
If polling, which by now is build on a whole industry of academic thought, comparisons of history, and margins of error, turn out to reflect exactly what happens on Tuesday, your point will suffer, and fail
"...If polling...turn out to reflect exactly what happens on Tuesday..."
Like that's ever happened. But it wouldn't anyway. Guessing who wins on Tuesday isn't the type of poll to which I was referring. Nor was it the type of poll the Dan brought up which led to my comment. What was it you said about short term memory?
Eric, you don't have the capacity to read the Bible well at all. You certainly don't apply it with any real intelligence. You're not only unprepared for the next twenty years, you are unimproved by the anything in the last thirty.
You're trapped on a receding island with a diminishing community of like mindless idiots.
No wonder you're looking for the apocalypse. History is ending for you.
As to the pic...
I recall seeing signs online 4 years ago that read, "Bush, Satan, 2004"
Turnabout is fair play.
And for the record. History will never end. The WORLD will never end. But an end to this present, LAST, age most certainly will. And yes, I do look forward to it. And yes I do believe Christ's return is immanent, likely within my lifetime, assuming I live another 20 years.
Furthermore. You don't know anything about me or my ability to ferret out what the Bible is really saying, but what you've read here. Recently. Dig deeper.
Check out my previous blog 'Pocket Full of Mumbles.' There's a link at the bottom of the Archives list to your right. Dan, myself, and others have been having the same biblical discussion for going on 3 years.
Do a little research first, and THEN suggest I don't know how to interpret the Bible. I'll entertain your accusation at that time.
Fantasies of teenage video gamers and snake oil salesmen.
"Turnabout is fair play." That'd be "an eye for an eye" in The Message, right?
I don't care who you are, that's funny.
Haven't seen much in the way of good Biblical understanding by you. Maybe you should study a little harder as if you are truly concerned about knowing, before you disparage anyone else.
2) Eric doesn't apply what it has to say with any real intelligence.
3) Eric is unimproved by "anything in the last thirty" years.
4) Eric is trapped on a receding island and surrounded by a diminishing community of mindless idiots.
5) Eric is looking for the apocalypse.
6) History is ending for Eric.
All this from someone who doesn't know me from Adam's house cat. I'd call that assessment 'ignorant' but I already did-- however I quantified it.
What does Feodor know? Does he have a blog? Does he write anywhere? His profile shows that he's only had this particular [read into that whatever you will] profile for less than a month.
So what do we know about Fredo...
1) His politics are Liberal.
2) His faith is Liberal.
3) He's an Obama supporter.
4) He feels secure enough in his anonymity to hypocritically make pronouncements of folks he doesn't know [make of that what you will, but it's unlikely he's someone we know masquerading as someone we don't. Just as everyone has one handwriting style so too do most folk have one written 'voice', and Fredo appears to be someone new].
5) He has no grasp of context and little of nuance. In other words, he has little ability to follow a thread and read a comment in context of previous comments within the same thread.
6) He makes rash insults against his host based on a single picture without bothering to ascertain the purpose of the photo, AND, he makes those insults knowing nothing of what his host has stood for and against these last 3+ years as a blogger.
7) The possibility that Christ could come within the next 20 years is beyond his faith, and his understanding of scripture. Rather, that someone would say such a thing is reason to mock that someone, calling the notion 'fantasies' and the pervue of 'snake oil' salesmen.
8) Which leads one to wonder just what Fredo himself believes.
9) Does he believe in the immanency of Christ's return? Does he believe in Christ's return at all? Does he believe what Christ showed John on the Isle of Patmos? Does he believe that end-time prophecy has any real present-world relevance?
10) He enjoys being an annoyance both here and at other blogs, ALTHOUGH, he did say somewhere that the debate here was more interesting. [Why he feels so remains to be understood]
11) He's impetuous, as evidenced by no.s 4 & 6, and impetuousness lends to blunder.
12) He demonstrates a sense of self-induced intellectual superiority over everyone else here, which translates to hubris toward me, at least, since he doesn't know me or my writing.
What else? Anyone?
Moving on...
Is Obama 'Satan'? Obviously not. Is the pic funny? I think it is. It's at least as funny as ER's mythical 'God in the Box' debate tactic. It's at least as comical as Dan's slavish utilization of Liberal shibboleths like 'War Crimes Charges.' It's at least as hilarious the few Bible 'scholars' within our circle of bloggers who can't see the theological trees for the ideological forest.
Is Obama Satan? No. But he is
1) A liar
2) A Bigot
3) A Murderer
4) A Marxist
5) A LIAR. [can't overemphasize that enough]
If Obama wins, America may very well never recover. How can I say this? Name one government entitlement program that, once enacted, was repealed. Welfare still exists. Social Security still exists. Medicare/aid still exists. Government education still exists.
Obama believes, quote, "the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you. But it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf."
And this from a supposed constitutional lawyer! The Constitution certainly DOES state what the federal government MUST do on our behalf...
"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
The Constitution goes on to delineate specifics the deeper in you get, but the preamble tells a very large tale of things the federal government MUST do for us.
Barack doesn't believe in the Constitution as a guiding force for good in this nation-- in fact he shows contempt for it.
"If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples so that, uh, I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order and -- and as long as I could pay for it I'd be okay. But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. As radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it has been interpreted -- and Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you. But it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn't shifted, and one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused, uh, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. And, uh, in some ways we still suffer from that."
"Redistributive Change." THAT'S not in the Constitution. Barack would pervert and destroy the Constitution if given the chance because he sees the Constitution as fundamentally flawed. Can he even take the oath of office without being both a liar and a traitor to the Constitution?
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
I say he cannot.
Nikita Kruschev once said,
"Historians are the most powerful and dangerous members of any society. They must be watched carefully-- They can spoil everything."
And this is true. The cold war was dead in the hearts of most Americans long before the Soviet Union fell. No one feared the end of the world by nuclear holocaust. And only now that Iran is feverishly working toward acquiring nukes is anyone even remotely afraid-- the line between those who do fear and those who do not is drawn by American partisan politics; and its sycophants line up dutifully, depending. But everyone has forgotten history... 'Historians are the most powerful and dangerous members of any society'.
But we do not learn.
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."
--George Wilhelm Hegel.
"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
--George Santayana
Obama is a flawed intellect. Freedom cannot afford such a man in the highest political office in the world.
And I reckon saying as much makes me a racist.
On a lighter note, I AM trapped on a receding island and surrounded by a diminishing community of mindless idiots. I'm just thankful I'm not the only one so trapped. I do at least have some with which I can intelligently converse. Sadly such men and women are a rare breed... there are far more Fredo's than Mark's, Marshall's, Tugboat Captain's, Moms, or Craig's.
Turnabout is fair play.
ER is right. Two wrongs don't make a right. "He did it first" does not make it right.
nuff said.
Is Obama Satan? No. But he is
1) A liar
We all have misrepresented the truth at times. Many people in the previous posts made false, slanderous statements. Several folk repeatedly bore false witness right here on your blog this weekend. I have seen no rebuke of them for their false witness (or mistaken allegations, if we want to be very generous).
So, the point is, we all have misrepresented the truth. Obama is certainly included in that pack as are Dan and Eric. What of it?
Is he running for office based on lies? You've presented no evidence for this case. Has he twisted the truth at times while running for office? Probably so. As has McCain. What of it?
Continuing, Eric claimed Obama is:
2) A Bigot
Says you. I'd suggest evidence would show you to be wrong. In the real world, Obama works right alongside joyfully with folk of all sorts of colors and backgrounds and genders.
This would be an example of Eric stating a lie, pure and simple. Therefore, obviously we can't vote for Eric.
Continuing, Eric claimed Obama is:
3) A Murderer
Another blatant lie by Eric. Come on, brother, shame on you. This just isn't true and it's a ridiculous charge.
Continuing, Eric claimed Obama is:
4) A Marxist
Another blatant lie.
Come now, brother Eric. We are one nation, one body of people. You can disagree with Obama without making up blatant falsehoods about him. You know what the Bible says about bearing false witness and yet here you are doing it over and over and over again. You are better than this. Your God is bigger than this. Your savior rejects this sort of behavior in his body of believers.
Disagree with Obama if you wish. Say that, "I think his policies will bankrupt our nation because they cost too much..." you can make that case if you want (I'd disagree, but you could make it) without stating falsehoods. Say that you find Obama's unwillingness to outlaw abortion a moral wrong. You can state that without lying.
But in your statements above, Eric, you are going off the deep end, seemingly in a orgy of hatred and a willingness to destroy a man at whatever costs. Truth be damned.
Come now, you are better than this.
Going straight to the core, Eric, of your comments and as a way to point out that you and yours do not pay attention to words carefully enough and thus start out on rotten foundations that lead exponentially away from the truth:
We the people. I am surprised, Eric, that you feel this designation refers to any government, much less the "federal government." Your carelessness misses the importance of the preamble, which in fact, may be used to support a conservative, “less government” position.
The framers, an ad hoc committee of the Congress of the Confederation and eventually the full Congress, chose WE THE PEOPLE with enormous intention. The question they were answering was: who authorizes a nation and its government? Especially if a King or Queen do not. And it was too late in the Enlightenment day to say that, in a practical sense, God does. (They certainly asked God's blessing, but would not confuse the actions they took for God's will. This was the attitude from Washington through Lincoln until the religious right turned the language around and started asking us to see what they did as evidence of God's will.)
And the elected leaders most definitely did not want to be seen as standing in the place of a King or Queen. They did not want to replace a monarchy with the despotism of an oligarchy, which is exactly what you make of them when you say that WE THE PEOPLE is the federal government.
The framers understood that the American people sent them to Congress to work on better economic cooperation between states but they threw up their hands at trying to make the Articles of Confederation work. So, as they contemplated a future as a new nation, they drafted something to present to the people as a new beginning. And they believed that any beginning, any foundation of a nation is ordained and established not by a sovereign, not by God, not by a representative body, but by the people of what would be the nation.
Therefore, Eric… it was their best understanding of The People (in their case the franchised citizenry) who form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to OURSELVES and OUR posterity.
This is NOT what federal government must do for us. This is what we continue to choose to do for ourselves and have to continue to do so because we are the only agents by which a nation is ordained. That is what democracy means.
A representative democracy is a form of government. That is what you mean by “federal government.” And the form changes over time as WE THE PEOPLE change the way WE want to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
The Constitution that was approved gave us this flexibility precisely by stating that we the people are in charge.
• Roe v. Wade has ultimately been upheld by the people.
• The right to privately own guns has been upheld by the people.
Either can change, but only as a movement by a democracy.
The executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judiciary have all changed over time because, ultimately, the people have given direct or tacit approval to changes.
We the people were given that power by the people who ordained this nation.
So, you get off on the wrong foot. And it just gets wronger from there.
Again, bad reading, bad thinking, right there in the comments above my own.
I am new to blogs, I admit. But I confess that blogs do not educate anyone on anything. They provoke but do not provide. So tell me why I should ever have a long history of seeing only myself and my kind on a website?
Christ may come. Christ may not anytime soon. I don’t know God’s plan. But the gospel, and the holy gift of thoughtful minds through the centuries, and the best of brave and bold Christian thinking today, all tell me to act as if the kingdom is near and so to care for the least and care not for accumulations that are a burden and lead to an apathetic, compassionless unhappiness.
This is the gospel’s call, always, to the hearing: to act now and not foist it on someone else. Or, in words I’ve heard recently, we are the ones we have been waiting for.
Foisting it on someone else is indeed what Barry O and his supporters mean to do.
More later.
"We The People" ...that is who government is. Of the people, by the people, for the people. It is WE THE PEOPLE who tell the apparatus of government-- run by 'We the People' --what it can and cannot do.
If this is the quality of your argument... I'm wasting my time.
Learn to think, Fredo. It does a body good.
It's time to reign in government, and deny liars, thieves, and murderers like Obama a seat in this nations most prestigious chair. Just listening to this man's laundry list of things he's going to do FOR the people, by doing things TO the people is frightening. This man is a world-class bum, and liar.
13) He demonstrates a perverse willingness to present graphic depictions of himself engaged in sexual activity with whatever man, woman, animal or hand is so unfortunate as to be a partner. Most disturbing.
• “but the preamble tells a very large tale of things the federal government MUST do for us.”
• "We The People" ...that is who government is”
• “It is WE THE PEOPLE who tell the apparatus of government-- run by 'We the People' --what it can and cannot do.”
So… we are telling government, which is us, what it, which is us, must do for us, which is the people? And we are telling ourselves what we can and cannot do?
I thought Dan was the practitioner of circular reasoning.
According to your logic, then, if we elect the bright one, we are foisting on ourselves the responsibility to care for ourselves via the President who is part of the government, which is ourselves. How dare we!
I guess We the People is everyone who is not dancing and chirping around a dark fire on an island somewhere.
tautology
Look it up; you'll have fun, I promise.
Murderer my ass.
Marxist my ass.
Liar? George W. Bush, chief among them.
Dude, you can't change the definition of words in the dictionary to suit yourself.
Can't WAIT for the election. Can't WAIT for more of the lunatic fringe to come out of the shadows.
You pathetic whiners haven't yet gotten over Clinton's election. Obama is gonna push just a whole bunch of y'all plumb over the edge.
First national jobs program: 100,000 men in white coats with big nets on the streets!
Sounds like a fascist government to me ER. Is that really what you want. A bunch of Brown Shirts patrolling the streets of America and rounding up (Khmer Rouge-like) everyone who doesn't fit Obama's vision of Marxist America? Do you want Obama determining what is and is not acceptable speech, a la the Fairness Doctrine?
Perhaps you should don your own pair of jackboots and brown shirt when you head to the polls next Tuesday.
Fascists cart away to kill not cure.
The kernel of truth under the metaphor is how, at those times in history when we partially fulfill our best natures, we get scared of our ability to do good. The grip of the myth of privilege pulls some of us in the club toward madness rather than surrender.
"Spread the Wealth", "Redistribution of Wealth", "the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties." Obama sounds like a marxist, and his policies certainly lend to such an interpretation.
Liar! His numbers and percentages do not add up. You can't give 95% of Americans a tax cut if some 30%+ don't even PAY taxes. You can't one week say only those making 250K will be taxed, then the next week say $200K, then $150K. The man is proposing a Trillion dollars in new spending! And I'm expected to believe 95% of Americans will get a tax cut? The man is either a fool or a liar, and neither bodes well for this country.
[songsish]
60% support Roe v. Wade and the Supreme Court has upheld.
80% support progressive taxes as does all Supreme Court precedent.
Those who may not pay income taxes still pay FICA, sales tax, etc. Obama's proposals cover four years or more of total budget considerations which includes the ending of spending how many billions a week in Iraq?
Eric demonizes Americans and their institutions but freely utilizes the internet to do so (and taxes pay for his use of this freedom and the protection of his use).
Dan's offering of a Gallup poll was disturbing enough, but it didn't come close to 80% in favor of progressive taxation.
But here's the thing. A poll could indicate 100% in favor of either and it wouldn't make it right. That's because neither is right by any stretch of the imagination.
Regarding progressive taxation, there was a time when it was considered shameful that one should be known to be on the public dole. Nowadays, it seems that attitude has changed. How very sad for our nation that this attitude has developed. It is envy and jealousy that brings it about, as well as a distorted notion of what the government, particularly the federal government, is for. It is the result of political opportunism by those who make their bones using class warfare (the Dems) to procure votes by those willing to blame others for their lot in life. It's far easier to believe that others have succeeded through evil means than to look in the mirror and confront the real problem. One thing that can be said for the left is that they recognize this sorry aspect of human nature and play it for all it's worth.
80% support progressive taxes as does all Supreme Court precedent.
Where do you get your numbers, Feodor?
I never had a chance to vote on Roe v: Wade. I never had a chance to vote on the people who decided Roe v: Wade. I never even had a chance to vote on the people who decided the people who decided Roe v: Wade.
Same with Social Security, Medicare, Medicade, etc, etc, etc.
Are you sure enough that 60% of Americans support Roe v: Wade to support putting it to a national referendum on next week's ballot?
I would support that.
But then again, my opinion about Abortion differs slightly from the rest of my friends here.
You see, without Roe v: Wade, Al Gore would have won the Presidency in 2000, there would never have been a President George W. Bush, and Iraq War, a "Tax cut for The Rich", and we would all be living in a terrorist attack-ridden Environmentally Friendly, Great Depression 2.0 Democrat Utopia by now.
You see, Conservatives do not abort their children, and if the other side wants to self-eliminate, that's fine with me. (There's nothing I can do to stop them anyway.)
But while we are talking about this, let me get this straight...
Are you saying that the Supreme Court can never be wrong about something, and that once they have ruled on an issue, it should never be revisited?
I agree wholeheartedly that agreement on a Thing does not make it right. In the case of progressive taxation, I believe it to be right because it is the morally responsible choice to make because to do otherwise would be unjust. As I have argued already.
I understand that you don't think either are right. Others disagree with you. In this Republic, if you wish to change things, you'd have to get more people to agree with you. That's all I'm saying.
Thomas Jefferson, first inaugural address, March 4th, 1801: "A wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
Thomas Jefferson: "Congress has not unlimited power to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."
Dan, how in the world do you come to the conclusion that it could possibly be the morally responsible choice to take a higher percentage of one person's income than another's when both people are citizens of the same country, and that to do otherwise would be unjust?
Do you even realize that that does not make any sense?
It would actually be more moral and just to tax the poor at a higher percentage than the rich, since the poor are a bigger drag on the Economy, and a bigger burden to society.
But beyond that, what gives you the right to thrust your own sense of morality upon the rest of us?
Progressive Taxation of Income is from the Communist Manifesto, not the U.S. Constitution. It cripples the creation of wealth, punishes achievement, and when coupled with Welfare handouts, creates dependency and helplessness.
Nothing could be more IMMORAL or UNJUST.
Said Obama:
"As radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It [the Supreme Court under justice Warren] didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution,"
Obama wants to "spread the wealth". The Constitution doesn't allow for it-- Jefferson said as much. And allow me to remind you all of what Jefferson had to say about taxation... especially in regard to 'redistribution of wealth'.
"To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association -- the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."
--Thomas Jefferson, April 6th in 1816
"A wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
--Thomas Jefferson, first inaugural address, March 4th, 1801
"Congress has not unlimited power to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."
--Thomas Jefferson
What did John Adams have to say?
"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free."
--John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787
What did James Madison have to say?
"With respect to the two words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."
--James Madison in a letter to James Robertson
In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 for relief of French refugees who fled from insurrection in San Domingo to Baltimore and Philadelphia, James Madison stood on the floor of the House to object saying, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."
--James Madison, 4 Annals of Congress 179, 1794
"[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government."
--James Madison
For a Constitutional Lawyer and professor, Barack Obama is ignorant of what the founders had to say about the Constitution they crafted and adopted. That, or he knows and just doesn't like it-- which makes him all more unfit to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
He is disqualified from taking the oath of office for, if he really feels the Constitution represents a charter of "negative rights", he makes himself a liar the moment he utters the words. Furthermore, the moment he begins to work toward deconstructing the Constitution to make it easier for the Court to remake America in Marx's ideological image, he becomes a traitor.
Do you even realize that that does not make any sense?
I would disagree. I believe Jefferson would disagree. I believe most reasonable Americans disagree. I think it makes perfect sense.
Now answer this:
How in the world do you come to the conclusion that it could possibly be the morally responsible choice to take more from one person than you would from another? (ie, why would we not just charge everyone $10,000 period in tax dollars)? That would be totally equal, why would we not do that?
Your answer (I'm sure) would be, "because that's not fair! Charging the person who makes $10,000, $10,000 in taxes would be wholly criminal! It's simply not just to charge a flat rate like that!"
And I would agree.
I would suggest that most people would agree with me in that to charge the lower income person the same percentage is similarly unjust.
Do you even realize that makes no sense - to suggest that they be charged the same rate? The $10k household charged 10% would be disproportionately affected, inasmuch as they would already be struggling to survive at that income level. Whereas the person who makes $100k would not be similarly affected by losing 10%.
I don't see how one could not see the injustice and immorality in that suggestion.
Good question TugboatCapt. Was the Supreme Court right on Kelo vs New London?
To steal another man's property for the sole purpose of giving it to another man who will pay more in tax revenue to the local government?
And guess what? The property New London stole sits vacant today... NO revenue.
Sounds like a Marxist society to me. What kind of judges will Obama put on the Supreme Court? THAT is the most chilling prospect of this election. What kind of judge will a president who views the Constitution as fundamentally flawed appoint?
Surely not strict constructionists.
Dan! Have you bothered to read the Jefferson quotes I offered here!?
How can you say Jefferson would disagree when he clearly contradicts what you just said?
"I don't see how one could not see the injustice and immorality in that suggestion."
And yet God demands a mere 10% of everyone irrespective of their income. Is God now unjust?
Will the woman who only makes 10k a year suffer for paying a mere 10% a year in taxes that she'll get back in her return?
What was it the Psalmist said?
"I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." Psalm 37:25
Is the woman making but 10k a year righteous? Is God righteous for demanding she pay 10% of her annual 10k salary in tithes? If she's righteous she's paying 20%!!! 10 to God, and 10 the thieves in government. But government will give much of it back once a year, and if she's righteous she'll never be forsaken, and her children will not have to beg for food....'
...Except under an Obama administration. Her children will still beg. And so will a whole lot of other children.
Try to stick to the scenario that I actually presented, Dan.
Although, I do appreciate you exposing your true reason for supporting Progressive Taxation...
The $10k household charged 10% would be disproportionately affected, inasmuch as they would already be struggling to survive at that income level. Whereas the person who makes $100k would not be similarly affected by losing 10%.
Dan believes that the purpose of Taxation is to distribute misery equally.
They would both have to pay 10%.
If you do not believe that this would be a fair and just system, then you, and all who would agree with you have put yourself in the position of deciding what someone else needs, or deserves, and I will remind you again that you really need to go mind your own business.
Progressive Taxation is immoral and unjust, and I don't care if you agree with that statement or not.
If you disagree, then you are wrong.
Thomas Sowell has a piece at Townhall.com, 'Obama and the Law'
An excerpt:
"Senator Obama has stated very clearly what kinds of Supreme Court justices he wants-- those with "the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old."
"Like so many things that Obama says, it may sound nice if you don't stop and think-- and chilling if you do stop and think. Do we really want judges who decide cases based on who you are, rather than on the facts and the law?
"If the case involves a white man versus a black woman, should the judge decide that case differently than if both litigants are of the same race or sex?
"The kind of criteria that Barack Obama promotes could have gotten three young men at Duke University sent to prison for a crime that neither they nor anybody else committed.
"Didn't we spend decades in America, and centuries in Western civilization, trying to get away from the idea that who you are determines what your legal rights are?"
-----
Obama is dangerous to justice in America.
AS I said earlier, a flat tax across the board is indeed just, fair, moral, etc. Should we decide to excuse the absolute lower income class is another matter. But across the board is the only fair point at which we should start to decide such things. I've no doubt that most on the right have little problem forgiving the truly needy of that obligation, but to come close to fair or just or moral must include everyone taking part first, and then proceeding from there. If we excuse families with total incomes under, say, 40K or 30K, that's all the progressiveness that's needed.
Here's what folks like Dan don't consider:
Everyone must understand that we each have obligations. It's a fact of life and to consider one's self a member of society, it's an absolute. One of these obligations is to do one's part for the nation. So if a flat tax was instituted and the rate was at, say, 10%, then each citizen must arrange their lifestyles based on their incomes minus ten percent. If it means one must share a one-room apartment with two other guys and sleep on the floor, that's how it is. We know that poverty in this country is damn near wealthy in some other countries. The amount of possessions owned by the average "poor" person not only shows how not-bad they've got it, but it also shows they are not practicing the self-denial that will allow for truly changing their station in life. A difficult life to be sure. I've had a taste myself and it's no picnic. But if I didn't deny myself during that period, my personal hell would have lasted a lot longer.
Do you even realize that makes no sense - to suggest that they be charged the same rate? The $10k household charged 10% would be disproportionately affected, inasmuch as they would already be struggling to survive at that income level. Whereas the person who makes $100k would not be similarly affected by losing 10%.
I don't see how one could not see the injustice and immorality in that suggestion.
What, specifically, are the just rates to tax someone who makes $10K a year, and one who makes $100K a year?
Say, 10% and 91%, respectively?
That would leave both of them $9,000. The outcome would be equal. Would that be fair and just, from your twisted point of view?
As I wrote in the prior conversation, here, there are only three obvious points where taxation could be considered fair:
1) Equal amounts taxed, in an absolute sense: each person pays X dollars.
2) Equal amounts taxed and equal amounts left, proportionally: each person pays X percent, keeping (100-X) percent.
3) Equal amounts left, in an absolute sense: each person keeps X dollars.
(A fourth approach would be to tax according to usage, as in tolls for bridges and roads, but that's somewhat comparable to a private entity charging a fee for its service.)
There is no natural stopping point between #2 and #3.
What is to stop you from suggesting that the most fair taxation is the one that leaves both the rich man and the poor man with $9,000? Nothing: once you have moved from taxing the same absolute amount or the same proportional rate, you have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in terms of principles to explain why you would stop before making the outcomes absolutely equal, so that the amount that is left is identical.
If you're not an outright Marxist, Dan, you have no reasonable principles to which you could appeal to distinguish yourself from those who are.
How can you say Jefferson would disagree when he clearly contradicts what you just said?
Yes, I read them. Did you?
I don't think he is saying what you think he is saying.
Progressive Taxation is immoral and unjust, and I don't care if you agree with that statement or not.
If you disagree, then you are wrong.
Then why is a flat fee - one that would be the same for everyone - not just? $10k from everyone. That would be the MOST EQUAL solution. Let's just change it to that. No tax forms to worry about, no IRS, just the first $10,000 taken from your paycheck.
Equal payment for everyone. All praise be to equality!
Y'all are not addressing this because it undermines your argument.
Any fool who thinks that 10% has the same effect on a $10,000 household as a $100,000 household is just that: a fool.
There is no natural stopping point between #2 and #3.
Ummm, yes, there is. Progressive taxation of the sort that Jefferson and the majority of patriotic Americans prefer as the most wise, equitable and just system.
You all have lost out on this debate because your position is a morally bankrupt one.
Are you saying that Jefferson was a Marxist for wanting the majority of tax dollars to come from the wealthiest?
You all just ignore points when they undermine your view.
I've done enough casting of pearls to this crowd on this point.
Peace brothers, from a fellow citizen and Christian, like it or not.
You argue like a kindergartener, Dan.
10% is 10%, whether it is 10% of $100, or 10% of $100,000,000,000,000.00. One tenth.
You don't think that it hurts a Millionare to have to cough up $100,000 every year?
And let me also point out that people who earn big money like that are not simply piling up piles of money, they re-invest it into whatever made thm the money in the first place, and it goes to pay the salaries of the people below them on the ladder.
And if you don't realize that, then you are a poopy-head.
(Just so we all stay on the same level, here.)
HA-haaa! I won! I won! I won! I won! HAA-Ha-ha-ha-ha!
And maybe, since he denies my claim that there is no natural stopping point between proportional taxation and taxing with the intent to leave the same absolute amount -- his empty response being, "Ummm, yes, there is," -- perhaps he could actually explain what that stopping point is.
I find it more than coincidental that Dan tends to bow out of conversations about the time that his positions are nailed for the garbage that they are.
First, Dan disparages those who believe in taxing the same percentage for all tax brackets:
Any fool who thinks that 10% has the same effect on a $10,000 household as a $100,000 household is just that: a fool.
How is the effect different? The most obvious answer is that the two households are left with different net incomes, of $9,000 and $90,000. There's an obvious remedy to that, isn't there?
The obvious remedy is to tax people so that the outcome is the same: tax everyone so that each person is left with the same amount. Does Dan oppose such taxation? He doesn't say, nor does he say what rates he supports, much less the actual principles for why he would draw a line here but not there.
No, he's been too busy indulging in the most flagrant hypocrisy, writing, "You all just ignore points when they undermine your view."
His position suggests that there's a lot of things he doesn't seem to grasp.
First, he doesn't seem to understand that, if you lessen the natural consequences of generating wealth or not generating wealth, you remove disincentives to remain poor and incentives to become rich, dampening the very motivations that drive any economy.
More than the practical effects of punitive taxation, there are the moral principles. He doesn't seem to understand that, if a person acquires his wealth by providing goods or services that others want, at prices to which others agree, and does so without fraud, theft, or violence, that person has earned his wealth and deserves to keep and enjoy the fruit of his labors.
His belief that even proportionally lower taxes is a matter of justice and therefore a right and entitlement of the poor, alongside numerous social programs, must logically lead to a belief that society is inherently unjust and oppressive: the only way to conclude that money is owed to those who did not earn it is to believe that "the System" is, in whole or in part, responsible for denying them what is rightfully theirs.
(Because outcomes will always differ from one person to the other, Dan and his Jacobin kind will always have the opportunity to see the different outcomes as the product of injustice, to be remedied by the further ratcheting of the socialist controls over people's lives that he so clearly craves, ravenously.)
Most fundamentally, Dan doesn't have a real respect for property, certainly nothing comparable to the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, to say nothing of the other, more reserved Founding Fathers. Along with his inability to deal with Jefferson quotes he doesn't like except to address them in the most glib manner possible -- "I don't think he is saying what you think he is saying." -- his contempt of private property rights makes his invocation of Jefferson's name all the more galling.
I will close by reiterating another point that I made in the earlier thread: we can certainly discuss whether we should support giving tax rebates to the poor, but we should do so as an act of charity, not justice.
The poor may well need our assistance -- and I prefer providing that aid privately if it's possible, and through local governments if it isn't -- but what a person needs and what he deserves are not always the same thing.
As sinners we all need grace, but we don't deserve grace. If we did, the offer of forgiveness would become an entitlement, a reflection of our own self-righteousness rather than God's love.
Assuming that a poor man isn't poor because he's the victim of an actual crime -- e.g., theft, for which he would truly deserve restitution -- he doesn't deserve more money, goods, and services than he earned.
We may well still have an obligation to feed him and clothe him, but that's an obligation based on the duty of CHARITY, not justice.
Micah teaches that the Lord requires us "to do justly, and to love mercy," but that doesn't mean the two commands are interchangeable.
Justice and mercy are two separate concepts, that can be reconciled -- as, most notably, on the cross -- but often aren't. To act as if they are identical, or to confuse one for the other, is a gross mistake that leads to innumerable problems.
Or, to understand what justice means and to slander Western civilization as inherently and thoroughly unjust so as to argue that every dime of government assistance for the poor is an act of justice rather than charity, is an act of treason against this civilization, and a display of ingratitude for the freedom and prosperity that is has secured, with no plausible criterion by which we can determine that the Left's program of systematic restitution can be brought to an end.
In short, the idea that the mere existence of poverty -- or even mere inequality in economic conditions -- is inherently unjust, is a philosophical starting point for endless revolutions to bring about one tyrannical "reform" after another, each one more despotic the last.
Harris poll: support for Roe v. Wade is at 56%, the highest it has been since 1998. It is also up 7% since last year.
Gallup poll: Federal income tax is least fair of all taxes? 20%
Tugboat apparently reads paragraphs like most of you read the Bible: without connecting.
Here is what I wrote, Tug:
"The executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judiciary have all changed over time because, ultimately, the people have given direct or tacit approval to changes."
When a clear mandate exists among the American people, things change, we change.
And it may very well be that in the next 20 years, Roe v. Wade will get major reconsideration. In fact, it should. The decision was made on increasingly old science in a particular epoch of cultural life.
Our social capacity to handle unwanted infants may be challenged to grow and meet a re-evaluation of our values. But these changes will always be compared to the right to privacy, the bedrock of Roe v. Wade.
And if you guys want to damage right to privacy via Roe, you'd better look out because someone with an agenda against fundamentalist hate mongering will most definitely find something to pin on you.
And, I must say it's an odd thing to see someone appeal to polls to justify a Supreme Court decision. If the decision was so obviously rooted in the text of the Constitution and the writings of its creators, wouldn't it be easier just to point out which article or amendment enshrines a right to privacy, extending even to abortion? Wouldn't it be easier to cite the specific Federalist Paper that discusses the right to have an abortion?
Or do you appeal to polls because you know actual legal arguments for Roe are so very, very weak?
And, if you do want to argue that the ideas behind Roe are so wildly popular, why keep the issue out of reach from those branches of government that are most directly affected by popular opinion? Why not try to pass a law or even a Constitutional amendment making explicit the rights that the Supreme Court perceived in the emanations of penumbra?
Or do you want to keep abortion out of the hands of Congress because you know the American people would actually support a regime that is a bit more restrictive than one that permits all abortion on-demand?
The ability to open one's mouth, or makes one's fingers fly across the keyboard and leave in their wake, "you don't know what you're talking about" is wonderful-- It shows you have some ability to string together a cogent thought. But it doesn't make you credible, knowledgeable, or even authoritative. When you make snide statements like that, we simply ignore you because, sadly, you don't know what you're talking about.
As for polls, my point is to simply indicate where the American people stand. Because, as We The People determine major shifts at any time in any direction, interpretive change happens by bulk after decades of discussion so any shift in constitutional understanding is founded on a prevailing claim by We The People.
So it was for taxes and remains so. So it was for integrated education and remains so (you guys want a referendum on a return to separate but equal, too?) So it was for the Voting Rights Act (1965) and the Civil Rights Acts (1960, 1964, 1968 - three of them because of intense resistance, much of it Biblically based by adults who read the Bible much like yourselves).
So it is for Roe v. Wade so far.
Congress does, in fact, keep working on how to legislate an understanding of constitutional law on right to privacy. It just hasn't fallen your way.
States, too, but some have found themselves on the wrong side of the constitution. But it's not for lack of trying.
Your wishes just don't seem to move any branch of government as far as you want.
Don't blame me for policy, law, or for writing strings of cogent thought that pierce that facade of righteousness and disturb the crumbling pillars of hate and anger and the dust of blind rage swirling on the floor of your soul.
"Many of these 'thinking people' could more accurately be characterized as articulate people, as people whose verbal nimbleness can elude both evidence and logic. This can be a fatal talent, when it supplies the crucial insulation from reality behind many historic catastrophes."
Let me be clear that I believe honest, reasonable, rational people can disagree quite a bit on government policy: rational politics requires tradeoffs among competing principles, and different people can have different priorities, to say nothing of good-faith disagreements on how to govern according to those priorities.
I hope that Dan, Erudite Redneck, and (it seems) Feodor aren't representative of the political left. I suspect that they are, in part because the Left's agenda -- which is radical and collectivist, in service to an all-encompassing political religion -- cannot be plausibly framed as the moderate reform they pretend that it is.
Either way, I can think of no better description of people like Dan, than to say that they employ "verbal nimbleness" to elude both evidence and logic.
It's just as a good thing that Dan isn't one-tenth as nimble as he think he thinks he is.
He's a psychiatrist too!!!
You don't know what you're talking about.
I was just thinking how articulate you are for a black man.
More substantively, I must also say that what you write here is troubling:
As for polls, my point is to simply indicate where the American people stand. Because, as We The People determine major shifts at any time in any direction, interpretive change happens by bulk after decades of discussion so any shift in constitutional understanding is founded on a prevailing claim by We The People.
The term is thrown about far too much as a pejorative, but I think that, as a description, the term applies: this position you espouse here is positively fascist.
It is an appeal to the general will that Rousseau theorized, and which was employed so consistently by Mussolini.
You claim any reinterpretation of the Constitution, on the part of the judiciary, is "founded on a prevailing claim by We The People," and that gives the court a blank check to rewrite the law in any way they see fit, with a mythical and mystical appeal to the will of the People as their justification.
That justification is mystical, because there is no real mechanism that causes the will of the People to guide the decisions of judges, much less to do so reliably. The reality is that, if judges aren't expected to rule according to what the law actually says, they're given the power to rule by their own whims.
This position is lethal to a true representative government, and beyond that, it's arrogant because the U.S. Constitution already has a mechanism for change built-in.
IT'S CALLED THE AMENDMENT PROCESS, OUTLINED IN ARTICLE V.
Your contempt for that process is proof of a radicalism that should be denounced as absolute anathema to the principles of limited government and truly representative government on which this nation was founded.
Again, go right ahead. Try. I've heard of referenda for just such a thing. People have tried.
It hasn't happened.
When the mechanisms you describe fail to materialize your wishes, it means you need to see yourself in the minority.
And thereby, you know your challenge. Have I stopped your mouth?
IT HASN'T HAPPENED.
It may; as I said, Roe v. Wade will get a reevaluation in the next 20 years. It should.
Your job is to work for it, like prohibition.
You wrote, "as We The People determine major shifts at any time in any direction, interpretive change happens by bulk after decades of discussion so any shift in constitutional understanding is founded on a prevailing claim by We The People."
You see the Constitution changing, not only by amendment, but by "interpretive change" and in shifts in "constitutional understanding," enacted by judges who -- in some mythical, mystical process -- ground their decisions on a Rousseauian general will.
You shouldn't be applauded for not wanting to outlaw the extremely difficult amendment process as the only recourse the electorate has to overturning judicial activism: you should be denounced for supporting and enabling that activism in the first place.
13th Amendment: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
15th Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
20th Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account
26th Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age. Congress shall have the power to enforce this law through appropriate legislation
16th Amendment: The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
18th Amendment: the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
21st Amendment: The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
AND THE LAST ONE, GET THIS, IS PUT IN WHILE BANNING THE MURDER OF INNOCENT CHILDREN CANNOT?!
27th Amendment: No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.
Tells you where you sit, doesn't it?
I am angry that a man who calls himself Christian, supports abortion rights, disagrees with the ban on partial birth, and voted against protecting the lives of children who survive the abortion procedure. That makes me VERY angry.
It makes me angry that Christians can't seem to take the Bible for what it says, where it says it. The bible wasn't written for Bible scholars, it was written for average every-day people. there is no need to parse the epistles until they're thoroughly neutered. The Bible means what it says, where it says it, in context of the nuances of the original language. A man's "conversation" in the language of King James is his daily outward walk in life. 'Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination' is clear! Homosexuality is an abomination. Is this law abolished because of Christ's death and resurrection? No. Is eating shellfish wrong? It is if you want to be healthy and be pleasing to God..
"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."
--1 Corinthians 3:16-17
No, eating swine is no longer a sin to bar one from heaven, but it will destroy your body by bringing on illness and disease. Those dietary laws are not made null and void... the quality of those foods were not changed when Christ rose from the dead. Swine is still unclean. Lobster, shrimp, crab, oysters, clams, mussels, etc... all unclean. Catfish... unclean. Tuna... unclean.
Let the bible say what it says. Let's not spiritualize or allegorize or simply do away with whole portions because its convenient.
Last thought... Is the Law abolished because of Christ's death and resurrection?
Not for those who die in their sins.
What does that mean? Seriously. What are you saying here? What difference does it make what color Bubba's skin is? Or Barack's for that matter? I don't approve of Bubba because I believe he might be white, nor do I disapprove of Obama because he's black.
Why would you say a thing like that? Is Biden your hero?
To wit: Bubba seeks to call those he disagrees with as merely articulate rather than thoughtful. It is the defense of the unprepared. Just like Biden's white man gut check with new black leadership; also old black leadership's gut check with new black leadership for that matter.
As to your religiosity, Eric, you must be relieved, then, with the laying on of hands to protect Palin from witchcraft. Since you seem so rooted to isolated, seventeenth century colonial living.
Bubba seeks to call those he disagrees with as merely articulate rather than thoughtful. It is the defense of the unprepared. Just like Biden's white man gut check with new black leadership; also old black leadership's gut check with new black leadership for that matter.
My comment had nothing to do with race, and I resent your race-baiting moron. More than that, I made clear that mere disagreement with me is not enough to prompt me to invoke what Dr. Sowell wrote about those he describes as merely articulate.
It's not a matter of being "unprepared" on my part: you do seem to be articulate in Sowell's sense, using "verbal nimbleness" to elude both evidence and logic.
You suggest, probably correctly, that a constitutional amendment to prohibit abortion -- even one with an exception regarding rape, incest, and the life of the mother -- isn't popular enough to be amended. But my point is, such an amendment wouldn't even be necessary if it weren't for the judicial activism you applaud. Without that judicial activism, which argued quite implausibly that abortion is a constitutional right, the issue of abortion would be addressed where it should be: in the legislature, at the local, state, and federal level. Change could be incremental and local and would be easier to implement by either side.
You also write, oddly, that "Amendments ARE interpretive shifts ratified by the people."
This statement is nonsense.
Amending the Constitution, for instance, to prohibit the sale of alcohol (the 18th Amendment) isn't a "interpretive shift." It doesn't change any interpretations of the text as it previously existed; IT CHANGES THE TEXT ITSELF.
When an "interpretive shift" occurs, the interpretation changes while the text remains static. An amendment is an entirely different event, because the text is actually changed.
When you write nonsense like that about the amendment process, I'm completely validated in my belief that you write well but think very, very poorly.
"When an "interpretive shift" occurs, the interpretation changes while the text remains static. An amendment is an entirely different event, because the text is actually changed."
Nonsense will result when you do not read whole sentences. I said:
"Amendments are interpretive shifts RATIFIED BY THE PEOPLE."
It is this second part that gives an interpretive shift the status of constitutional law.
When the 18th Amendment was ratified, it became constitutional law, a part of the whole body of constitutional text, thereby changing it.
When the 21st Amendment was ratified, this cultural shift became constitutional law and abolished the 18th, changing the whole body of constitutional text yet again.
Thus, when an interpretive shift is... ratified by the people... an amendment changes the text of the constitution.
Interpretive shift and amendment can be the same event.
The 22nd is an interpretive shift that does not change the text but adds to it. There was no constitutional prohibition on how many terms a President could serve. But times changed, FDR kept getting the votes, Congress did not want to lose so much power to any one person, so, in an interpretive shift heretofore unthought, the constitution was changed.
Nonsense is when you do not read whole sentences and don't think out loud for yourself the implications of what is being said.
The fourth amendment is under going the pressure of interpretive inspection. It may well shift in the coming decades.
It seems to me that your argument is that Roe v. Wade is an interpretive shift that has not been ratified by the people.
When it is ratified, or when the abolition of abortion is ratified, the constitution will yet again absorb interpretive shift by a majority of citizens over an extended period of time where generations agree.
Such is democracy in these United States. If you can't stand it, look for that island to buy.
I am simply saying that it is the defense of anxiety to accuse the opposition of too much articulation, whomever the opposition may be.
Reagan was a silver-tongued devil-but that is no reason not to debate and oppose his way of legitimizing speech that despises government (while he was leading the government!)
Silver tongued devil.
If your eloquent writing was used to illuminate rational thought, I'd have no problem. Instead, it's being used to conceal idiocy, and that is problematic.
It's not that you're articulate: it's that you're merely articulate.
To take one example, you cite the 22nd Amendment, but it's not as if the people originally thought that the Constitution placed no term limits on the President, then reinterpreted to document to conclude that the Constitution already limited the President to two terms, only then to codify that new interpretation by ratifying the amendment. Instead, they knew that term limits wasn't a remotely plausible interpretation of the document as it existed and then acted to write it in.
If they thought the Constitution already limited Presidents to two terms, the 22nd Amendment would have been seen as redundant.
Instead, their ratifying the amendment indicates the exact opposite, that they didn't see the interpretation of the existing document as fluid, as malleable enough to find term limits that didn't previously exist.
The term "interpretive shift" implies a "reading in" of new material or a "reading out" of old material. But amendments do not involve changes in interpretation, but rather changes in the text itself.
What you write later in the comment suggests either that you don't really believe what you write, or that you have no room to tell others how they don't think through the implications of their positions.
It seems to me that your argument is that Roe v. Wade is an interpretive shift that has not been ratified by the people.
When it is ratified, or when the abolition of abortion is ratified, the constitution will yet again absorb interpretive shift by a majority of citizens over an extended period of time where generations agree.
"When" Roe is ratified?
You're right to point out that efforts to abolish abortion by constitutional amendment aren't getting much traction, because there is not yet a sufficient groundswell of support.
But you fail to notice the flipside of that fact.
Despite what you claim to be broad support for Roe, there ISN'T a movement to codify the conclusion of Roe as a constitutional amendment.
Why would there be? Those who support Roe take the position that the Constitution already protects a right to abortion, and any attempt to ratify an amendment to enshrine a right to abortion would give the appearance that the right isn't already enshrined, after all.
You're imagining a course of events that don't actually occur, that judicial activism occurs first and is then affirmed by the People who ratify an amendment that says the same thing.
That didn't happen with Presidential term limits (or any other issue ratified by amendment): it is not as if the courts first discovered or imagined presidential term limits, and then the People ratified an amendment making explicit what the courts said was already there implicitly.
And, that isn't happening with abortion: nobody who agrees with Roe v. Wade is actually pushing for an amendment to codify that ruling, because they don't think they need to.
Judicial activism might be overturned by an amendment, but it isn't affirmed by an amendment: and an effort to overturn a judicial ruling by a constitutional amendment doesn't imply that the two are complementary events to affirm the same cultural or interpretive shift.
Tell me where I'm wrong:
Abortion rights are protected on a finding of "right to privacy" by the Supreme Court.
Right to privacy is not a constitutional right per se, but rests on implicit rights to privacy against government intrusion found in other rights guarantees.
So, the constitutional umbrella is not secure. An amendment added some notion of "privacy" to the bill of rights is possible (like an Equal Rights Amendment is possible).
Tell me where I went wrong.
To me a new interpretation puts meaning where that meaning was not before. Not necessarily changing or reversing previous meaning. "New" meaning not previously existing rather than replacing something "old".
There need not have been an "old" understanding. There simply could have been silence.
So all amendments amount to new interpretations. And one of them was reversed in a matter of just a few years. A re-interpretation, if you will.
I don't see you applying your logic to prohibition. Why not? Eloquence without substance?
98% of US law is not, strictly speaking, constitutional. Very little of it is judicial activism. Your labeling of Roe v. Wade is mindless use of partisan language. It is US law.
Perhaps it should be overturned as inadequate to the rights of the fetus.
This discussion is painful, difficult and involves potentially competing legal interests and certainly involves competing moral reasoning.
I'd like to overturn 3 strikes and your out. That is law that has no conscience for differing circumstances.
I'd like to overturn the inhumane difference between mandated sentencing for crack users as opposed to cocaine users. It's racist in effect.
98% of US law is not strictly constitutional law and is constantly evolving, shifting, being rethought, interpreting and re-interpreted.
This is part of American life.
You note that it's possible to propose and support a constitutional amendment to make clear the right to an abortion: I don't disagree, but no one's actually working for such an amendment, and that illustrates that there isn't the tight coupling you suggest, between judicial rulings and subsequent amendments to affirm those rulings.
About abortion in particular, even if a right to privacy can be (somehow) implied in the Constitution, it still doesn't follow that that right enshrines what is almost inarguably the deliberate murder of innocent human life.
And it's not the case that Roe proposed a new interpretation where there was once silence: it overturned existing laws, in some cases very old laws prohibiting abortion, proof positive that the subject of abortion's legality had long since crossed the minds of the electorate and the legislators who represent them. The only obvious case where new-replaces-silence is when old principles are applied to new technologies -- e.g., first-amendment guarantees for the telephone, television, or the Internet -- but that case doesn't apply here. Instead of applying an old principle to new circumstances, the courts imposed new principles on long-standing circumstances.
I'm not sure I'd agree that "98%" of US law is technically unconstitutional, particularly because the Constitution affords much greater flexibility to the states than it does the federal government, but I agree that far too many federal laws cannot be justified by a persuasive appeal to Article I, Section 8.
But because this is the case, doesn't mean that it's always the case and that we must simply accept it as such:
"This is part of American life."
It wasn't always, and it need not be permanent, and I find it strange that someone whose political philosophy apparently entails a broad belief in revolution, accepts the status quo as immutable in this one area.
But if you think that most laws aren't constitutional, if you think we must simply accept that as a given, and if, in fact, you embrace a gross assault on the rule of law, you should be honest about it.
Don't hide under this notion of constantly changing interpretations, no doubt of a "living" document: be up-front about your desire to abolish the document since you think it no longer has or should have any authority to constrain the government.
Be honest about your judicial monarchism. Be open about your treasonous opposition to the Constitution.
Admit who and what you really are.
You really want real estate law, corporate law, tax law, family law, copyright law, etc. tied to the Constitution?
I don't think you know what you are talking about.
And who suggested anything about a tight coupling? I said 98% of law is not constitutional. We don't have even 30 amendments to the constitution.
You're putting articulate and empty thoughts in my mouth.
You're doing that all on your own.
The Constitution limits the federal government to the expressed enumerated powers that are given to it, so the only way those sorts of laws could be constitutionally permissible would be for the document to give Congress the enumerated power to enforce copyright law...
("The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries...")
...and, for everything else, to reserve those powers to the state and local governments...
("The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.")
...and, to coordinate issues that extend beyond one state, to give the Congress the enumerated power of addressing things like commerce between the states...
("The Congress shall have Power... To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes...")
...and, to cover marriage and family law, maybe some sort of provision that each state will give full faith and credit to legal documents from other states.
("Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.")
But since such provisions CANNOT POSSIBLY be contained in a document as sparse as the Constitution, we have to throw up our hands and concede that the vast majority of laws -- even those laws that the Founders helped draft for their own state governments, and in the first Congress -- are unconstitional.
Brilliant observation, there.
You're just frontin' now. "Strictly speaking" does not mean "un."
All that waste of fuming.
Specific federal laws regarding patents and copyrights aren't in the Constitution, but since Article I Section 8 enumerates such laws as an expressed power of Congress, those laws are, indeed, constitutional.
It now seems that you were employing an eccentric definition to make a complete non sequitur.
Good for you for wasting my time, and for proving Dr. Sowell correct.
Why is this important? Because in a democracy, the majority determines direction within limits.
Those who find themselves in the minority for a time hate polling and say "just because so much percentage is for that does not make it right."
The point missed is that they are losing the argument.
Progressive tax is our reality. It's not going anywhere soon.
Privately owned guns for uses other than hunting are a reality. It's not going anywhere soon, though I am not sure a majority of Americans believe in it.
Bubba heightens the argument by moving the pleas of the minority onto the different ground (so named by Republican strategists) called "judicial activism." This is a fog of nomenclature to confuse people.
He reminds of people who used to say that you cannot legislate morality (old guard Republicans before the wingy conservatives). They hated the Democrats for passing housing, health, and welfare legislation.
Either generation of wingy conservatives forget that all of law has its being because society wants to, needs to, live as morally well as possible in order to get along and go forward making of life the best that we can.
For my part, I don't care for polls because they are often poorly worded questions that don't elicit an accurate sense of what the general feeling is of the nation as a whole. "Should we torture prisoners?" Most people would say "no". But the question is way too general. What do they mean by "torture"? How do they define it? Who is being tortured and why? Another question might be, "Should we continue to give to the poor?" Most people would likely say, "yes". But how much? In what manner, directly or through taxation and welfare programs?
There's also the problem of how many are polled. In Dan's recent offering regarding progressive taxation, there were only slightly more than 1000 people polled (If I read it correctly). Then we are to believe that it is an accurate picture of the attitudes of how many million Americans? I don't care about what statistics experts claim about polling, even 2000 people polled would be better than a mere 1000, but 10,000 or 100,000 even more so. If they don't have the time or resources to poll that many, don't waste my time presenting or quoting polls.
Even more troubling is, who are these people being polled? Once in a while we might get something like, registered vs. likely voters, but even then, are these likely voters liberal or conservative or something else? And how do we know for sure?
The worst aspect is when one looks to polls to justify their position despite all the problematic points above. And there are some who are actually persuaded because of polls. Or they give up the fight in the belief that they are wasting their time if the numbers against seem large enough. We see this at election time, when some decide not to vote because polls suggest their guy has no chance. I know many who despite still voting for McCain, believe Obama's a lock. But there are those who will not vote for the same reason. And why? Because a polling of 1000 people, who may all be Democrats anyway, suggest Obama will win by a huge margin.
So it's not that a given poll disagrees with my position that provokes my distaste for them, it's that they are rife with problems that in my view taint their credibilty and usefulness.
We'll know next Wednesday.
Like that's ever happened. But it wouldn't anyway. Guessing who wins on Tuesday isn't the type of poll to which I was referring. Nor was it the type of poll the Dan brought up which led to my comment. What was it you said about short term memory?
Obama a Marxist? Or any of the other crap you charge (liar murderer bigot)? Give me a break.
As far as capitalism, Read what the Economist- a bastion of free market capitalism said about Barak Obama this week.