thinking inside the box
It is not often that politicians are candid about their motivations and intentions. Yet there it was with John Conyers writing recently in the Washington Post regarding the potential for impeachment proceedings should the reigns of power change hands in the next election:
It was House Republicans who took power in 1995 with immediate plans to undermine President Bill Clinton by any means necessary, and they did so in the most autocratic, partisan and destructive ways imaginable. If there is any lesson from those "revolutionaries," it is that partisan vendettas ultimately provoke a public backlash and are never viewed as legitimate.
It was close to complete candor, but let me translate this into plain English for you: “We would impeach the guy faster than a Congresscritter accepts a bribe, but we are afraid of losing our seats from voter backlash”.
Honest yes, but utterly contemptible.
Conyers himself described the charges of malfeasance against the administration as, “grave, serious, well known, and based on reliable media reports and the accounts of former administration officials.” He then goes on to describe the problems of proof, exacerbated by administration stone-walling, that prevent a conclusive determination on the presence of impeachable conduct.
Back in 1974, that was called obstruction of justice.
I can not seem to find the public outrage over obstruction of justice being tolerated by Congress under the explicit rationale that there might be a political backlash. I’m sure the outrage is lying around here somewhere—probably hiding under a pile of weapons of mass destruction.
It will not surprise my readers that I think that 43 crossed the line of impeachability long ago. If you are one of those poor souls who think the Democrats or Republicans will save us, however, it should shock you to learn that impeachment is no longer even an option. Where ever you may come down on the issues, this should torque you. Time after time politics trumps the rule of law yet there is no rage against the political machine.
And it is a political machine: the spirit of Tammany Hall is alive and well. Alive like some twisted vision of Mary Shelly crafted from the head of an elephant and ass of a donkey.
I wish Shelly were alive today to animate the American voters with a bolt of reality.
Whatever my wishes for a great awakening, the American voters continue their oblivious ways and seem poised to reactively return the Ass to the head of our political institutions. If you have been paying attention for the last several decades, you can go ahead and write the speeches now. The GOP urging us to stay the course with ads conjuring phantoms of terroristic demons that only they can be trusted to protect us against. While the Democrats will be urging a return to honest leadership and demonizing those who would send our children to war and poison our Earth to purposely make their lives miserable if they survive.
After all the fine speeches, the Democrats will win. This is the American way after a scandal such as is the current administration. And that of course means for the first time we will be saying “Madame President”.
The sad thing is that many of the hordes of people voting for Hilary will be doing so in a sincere effort to return our government to some semblance of respectability. It is sadder still that we have had a presidential administration so thoroughly obnoxious and incompetent that it makes Hilary look good in comparison. To borrow a phrase from a friend of mine, it is bone crushingly depressing that our choices will be limited to the candidates of Two-party Hall.
Not that I believe Two-party Hall exists as a simple hierarchical power structure. There is no Boss Tweed running the operation. No David Rockefeller behind the curtain. But the mutual self-interests of the power blocks within Two-party Hall operate to protect the family with almost as much loyalty as the machines of old.
Perhaps this is what they meant by “family values”.
Ruminate for a while on the reality of that which lies ahead as We the People turn away from a “culture of corruption” is the likelihood of returning the Clinton family to the White House. Consider their return to power in a world where lying to the American people, insider corporate dealing, unrepentant torture of prisoners, and obstruction of justice are charges too weak to justify impeachment proceedings. The rule of law has become of joke and we have no one to blame but ourselves.
But this joke is no laughing matter. We consistently let politicians off the hook as long as they stoically maintain their walls of plausible deniability. It is hard to laugh at the reelection of the President in the face of the horrible revelations from Abu Ghraib because people are willing to give him a pass on knowing the facts. We failed to remove his predecessor for lying under oath because the economy is good and the majority of Americans did not want to rock that boat. The litany of imperial tendencies could go on ad nauseum.
The problem with failing to take care that we remain a nation of laws is much larger than the political maneuvering of the current election cycle. James Madison articulated it well in the Federalist Papers when he wrote:
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.
Does an executive branch that claims unilateral rights to take us to war, make decisions on searches without judicial assent, and abrogate ratified treaties sound like tyranny to anyone besides me? Do the rumblings about executive privilege make any of you queasy?
What we're dealing with here is a complete lack of respect for the law.
Unfortunately, developing an understanding of the legal implications in the broader populace is probably impossible at this point. Historically, Americans have relied on its opposition leaders to at least point out Constitutional abuses and corrupt practices, but where are the senior statesmen calling Conyers on the carpet for his outrage?
Obviously, these “statesmen” are busy protecting their own position and pecuniary interest rather than seeing to the long term health and viability of These United States. Ultimately, politicians who share the guilt for the destruction of our legal institutions can not be expected to hold their peers accountable. Only an awakening of the power of We the People can change our course and avert destruction.
I think if I were a betting man, I would bet with the power elite that lazy Americans will continue to take it all in stride, so long as their Tivo and porn surfing are not interfered with. However improbable significant social backlash may be our political elite would do well to heed a proverb that I recently heard: "At the end of the game the king and the pawn go back in the same box."
King or Pawn, thinking about one’s future in a box would be a very good thing right now.
145 Comments:
“Madame President”
There’s nothing like testing my gag reflex on a political topic. Thanks.
Prof. Ricardo
Prof,
My gag reflex has been tested over and over for quite some time. They say misery loves company, so let me extend an enthusiastic welcome to my world!
CG,
Unlike you and the other people who see things through politically colored glasses, I think whether you are tired of impeachment or not is utterly irrelevant. The only question now, as eight years ago is whether the law was broken.
All this squishy non-sense about feelings and politics is the entire problem. Sure, what the GOP did was wrong. But don't use that to justify the actions of the Dems today. It is all wrong and I don't give a flying turd who is tired or not.
CG,
My, my CG. That post is the best evidence in existence that all of efforts to educate the world are a miserable failure.
You said, ”We {the people} get punished during impeachments.” You pretty much anticipated my response, but are off as to degree.
There is no worse punishment for We The People than a government that is not made of laws. Your utilitarian approach on this one is bordering on obscene.
Yeah, impeaching Clinton would have been painful. But perhaps we could have avoided some of the worst excesses of the present administration. Impeaching Shrub would be painful, but how much more painful will our continued descent into the abyss of tyranny be?
The sad truth is your analysis is exactly what most people do and exactly a key ill in our society. Pain avoidance is what we are all about now.
The truth is that keeping our Liberty was never calculated to be an easy proposition. I for one think that short term ease for long term tyranny is a very poor bargain.
One the Congressional Office search…I really do not want to get deep into that one. The short version is that Congressmen are citizens subject to all the laws just like you are I. As long as the search was pursuant to a valid search warrant, there is no Constitutional problem. Legal searches like that are an appropriate check on legislative power since the other two branches have to concur in order for the search to occur.
Though I’m no masochist, its time for Professor to take his lumps. I need a clear conscience so I want the full arm of the law to come down on me. Although a citizen since birth (you have to go back at least 170 years to find an immigrant ancestor of mine) I am willing to humble myself and take the “punishment” that our staunch defender against terrorism has reserved for illegal aliens. Yep, I will throw myself on the sword of just punishment that illegal aliens will receive for their international trespass. Can you imagine? They must, and I’m not kidding here, have to pay 3 years of taxes for the last 5+ years income. I humbly request that I too must pay 3 years of taxes for the last 5+ years income. I’ll even let the government choose the highest and most painful levels of tax that I have paid. Then I want the balance of the taxes I’ve paid in over the years refunded immediately. I’ll take it in any denomination, thank you. Direct deposit is welcome too. Oh, and while I’m at it, I’ll take that 1 free forgiven felony (forged and stolen identification) in the form of a gift certificate to be redeemed at my option.
It is tough being treated with the iron fist of Bush. I know I’ll have your compassion as I walk this low road, for no wrong doing of my own, but merely to show my solidarity and compassion for my fellow man.
After this horrific trial, I was thinking about vacationing, I mean fasting, in Guantanamo where I would be forced to eat meals prepared to not offend my ethnicity or religious convictions, so as to preserve my life and have no casualties of our protesting. I’m feeling very Italian this week. I wonder how their veal Parmesan is. I hope they use fresh tomatoes. Those poor tortured souls.
Of course, all the fun and frolic will come to a cease when Al-bortion Gore-bachev or Hillary RODHAM-Clinton becomes president in ‘08. At that time we will need to clean up real & perceived world problems. It is only through the self-flagellation of regulation and taxation that we can truly live with ourselves in the theater of political correctness and socialism. Ah! To perform for those who hate you. The Christians in Rome never had it so good.
Good article Tony. I too am disenfranchised. However, Jesse Jackson has ruined that word for me. Politicians have a habit of doing that.
Prof. Ricardo
Well, you doth protest a bit much. I know you didn't just land on this rock. My take, as is yours from the tenor of your blog, its going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
I long for the days when secret trysts with easy interns were the worst things going on in the White House.
Next time, work in some Elton John:
He was born a pauper to a pawn on
a Christmas day
When the New York Times said God is dead
And the war's begun
Alvin Tostig has a son today.
Levon likes his money.
Guy.
Guy,
“I long for the days when secret trysts with easy interns were the worst things going on in the White House.”
Would you take another pardongate? Not just 47, but say 11 million?
Prof. Ricardo
Guy,
I hear your lament. Isn't it a sad thing when one yearns for the days when Presidents were only proven guilty of sexual discrimination and perjury.
You share my lament, but you aver that I protest too much. I think you are reacting to my tone more than my content. Explain to me where I am wrong.
BTW, I love the Elton John. That was stinking funny.
Common Good: “The only three people left who think global warming is a hoax is Shrub, Inhoffe and Prof.”
You religious blokes are all alike.
Al Gore's hellfire and damnation
Prof. Ricardo
Common Good: “Pawaaa... that was the most creative defense against ignoring global warming that I've seen yet.”
Nice rant. You may want to lay off that second cup of coffee so late in the day though.
Gore’s book Earth in the Balance - Ecology and the Human Spirit is a very religious book. Here is a non-WorldNetDaily site that you can read quotes from the book. Being a disciple of global warming, your blind faith may prevent you from identifying or accepting the religious concepts Gore uses to describe his ecological salvation.
I realize that any website that I reference is suspect purely because it identifies your religion for what it is, but alas, you can’t make the horse drink the water.
Prof. Ricardo
CG,
You are failing to give credit to the posters here at the Disenfranchised Curmudgeon. They did not defend me because they are wise enough to understand the truth of the statement.
Touche'!
Common, Have YOU noticed that....
...it is the homosexuals that are trying to change that which has been the norm for thousands of years?
...there is a difference between the “RR” and the political RINO’s that seek their vote (on even years)?
...that bastions of socialism that already exist and have all that you hold dear (pluralism, universal healthcare, atheist based government) do not attract immigration to their land of Utopia, when we are having waves of unchecked “immigrants” year after year migrating to this intolerant, bigoted, non-plural, non-socialized medicine, (I can’t say non-taxed - you got me here.) U.S. of A.?
P.R.
Prof,
Living in a free society is very inconvenient at times. There are lots of things that I find objectionable on a scale of irritating to repulsive.
The thing about Liberty is that in areas of fundamental liberty, my view on right or wrong doesn’t count in a legal way. That the majority of Americans thinks X is wrong is the absolute LEAST compelling argument in the arena of human rights. These are the same arguments used to suppress freedom every time it comes up.
I’d go on, but I’d get pretty redundant with what I have written in the past. The bottom line is that we need to decide whether we mean it when we say we want our Freedom. In my view, people only want others to be free to be like themselves. This myopia affects people of every political persuasion.
Tony,
Although many things are objectionable to me on a moral basis, I am quite permissive on a governmental level. What Common may not be aware of is that I am quite willing to allow any state that chooses to do so allow perversion, abortion, socialism like universal healthcare, welfare, and minimum wages and all that. What I do not like, and I think destroys our freedom, is the federalization of these concepts.
When our 13 colonies became states, the federal government played a small role in the daily lives of individuals. It seems funny to me that there were enough people in each state back then to determine their individual states direction, maybe a few hundred thousand in each state, but today, the country supposedly would be torn apart by allowing each state to set policy for education, universal healthcare and the like, with tens of millions per state. They want it even across all states.
I see each state as being its own nation and the uniting of 50 nations as the United States. That way if you didn’t like something about one state you could move to another state. When you force the whole United States to go this way or that, you destroy freedom and adopt the centralized planning and control techniques of the nations we detest (which happens primarily for their centralized control and its consequences).
At each step of the way when the liberals ideals are incorporated they fail. When they fail, the liberal says that it was not incorporated on a large enough scale. Be it gun control or healthcare, if you did it locally, there excuse for why it didn’t work is it should have been done on the state level, then the federal level, then the international level.
I say tens of millions on the state level are plenty for a sustainable governed entity. Let the Texans determine whether they will permit homosexual marriage and Vermont decide theirs. That is not closed minded, but open minded and quite liberal (in the original since of the word) minded. Let the different states go about education in their own way. If it turns out brilliant scholars and entrepreneurs are coming out of such-and-such a state, you might want to move their and take advantage of it. Other states would move in the direction of those education methods that are drawing the praise. Education for all will benefit.
Federalize it and equalize it and everybody is stuck with the same thing. No child left behind or whatever cockamamy new cliche comes out of the next “education president’s” mouth will guarantee continued educational mediocrity and rankings of our science and math students with struggling third world countries. Apparently that is what Mr. Good and his comrades desire.
My vision for America is not that it is Lilly white and Puritan fresh, but that government would be responsive to those it was supposedly representing. With our current evolved Federal government, that is so difficult that some people will abstain from voting and create Disenfranchised blogs to discuss the matter. I want a responsive government that may even take positions that I don’t agree with. Now how closed minded is that? And darned if my ideal doesn’t mirror the Constitutional representative government our forefathers created.
Prof. Ricardo
Prof,
I hate to break it to you but Federalism is deader than Jimmy Hoffa and its bones harder yet to find. In my view, it is less than certain that sticking to Federalism would’ve yielded a better result. Just because what we have is a bad situation doesn’t mean that it would’ve been better. I really don’t know on that one.
But it seems to me the greater calamity is the other provisions of the constitution which we have chose to ignore altogether. Which brings me to a question for you:
Are you in favor of returning Human Rights (for which Constitutional Rights are a misnamed proxy) to the states? In other words going back to the original law where the Constitution only limited the behavior of the Federal Government and did not speak to the actions of the individual states?
I ask this because of the whole marriage thing. For your version to work, we would have to repeal portions of the 14th Amendment. In the mean-time, Equal Protection is a Federal issue whether you agree with the law or not.
Alright. Sorry to post and not check back. Here we go: I do not question the substance but I think context is very important. The purpose of the song quote is that we seem to be born in a day when moral relativism and reactionary religiousity pass off as legitimate political debate. In context, the adage "Follow the Money" has become not only a truism but a creed that once followed, the 24 hour news cycle has already passed it by. The truth of the Conyers quote is not the lack of politcal courage or dereliction of constitutional duty, all appropriate as gauge of the political winds throughout our history, BUT THAT THERE IS NO MONEY IN THE WITCH HUNT. It only works as a fundraising tool. To that end, it has been "focused grouped" and found to be a money raising loser. That is a cynical curmudgeon view.
On the other hand, the right wing more than came out on droves to give money over a BJ. Democrats, are not so easily arroused. ; )
Your clarion call for moral, constitutional or legal outrage and the lack of it, is in my view a victim of the 24 hour news cycle and the raising of poltical debate to entertainment news. This is all for our entertainment and a substitute for any real action on any substantive issues. Rhetoric is the word(s) of the day, not action. (Of course, the main fallacy of this point is that the Iraq War is action and not simply rhetoric but I digress).
I am curious what will happen in another decade when the 24 hour news cycyle fails to excite or gain ad revenue. Will we have time to become outraged about deserving matters? I don't know.
Tony: “I hate to break it to you but Federalism is deader than Jimmy Hoffa and its bones harder yet to find.”
And so is a political party that fairly represents you.
“Are you in favor of returning Human Rights (for which Constitutional Rights are a misnamed proxy) to the states?”
No. Human Rights are given by God. To give them to the state makes them privileges not rights. And yes, I knew what you meant. We are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The Federal government was given powers, but not over human rights. Our founders did not grant, but acknowledged those rights. As you know the specific wording of the Bill of Rights did not grant OR PROHIBIT human rights, but acknowledged and reinforced for the citizens comfort what was evident in the body of the Constitution. The first amendment states “Congress shall make no law...” The first amendment did not restrict Congress ability. The founders believed that since we were a Constitutional Republic and our governments powers were granted and enumerated in the body of the Constitutional text, that since there was no provision to limit speech and establish religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof, only delusional con-men could read that into it. But others argued, though that may be true, given the nature of man to expand governments powers, reassuring us in the Bill of Rights was agreed upon.
“In other words going back to the original law where the Constitution only limited the behavior of the Federal Government and did not speak to the actions of the individual states?”
The first amendment states “Congress.” Of course, if marriage can be redefined to be two cowboys on Brokeback Mtn., who knows what “Congress” means anymore. It could be your local daycare. Words have to have meanings for this all to not be in vain.
“I ask this because of the whole marriage thing. For your version to work, we would have to repeal portions of the 14th Amendment.”
Possibly. Or reworded. Had we not gone silly, a whole lot of amendments might have not been necessary and a few others might have been implemented.
Prof. Ricardo
C.G.,
There are so many items to correct from your post that I shall address it properly when I retire.
Your foundational errors of suppositions and presuppositions render any response to state vs federal a mere exercise in typing skills.
“However, this all proves the falicy of your Federalism argument.... the fact that Texas forced Oklahoma's capitialism hands has NOTHING TO DO with our right as a society to define common good for our population.”
Defining a populations “common good” is an exercise for social scholars who can’t make a go of it in the system of “captitialism”(sic). No human has the right to impose on another human some artificial demographic standard of “good” achievement. “Good” achievement is its own reward. “Good” imposed upon people will destroy the will to achieve. I know that went over your head, but I typed it slow just for you. :-D
“Common good has to be ACROSS state by definition.”
How about across countries? Planets? Galaxies? Why can’t it be across 37 families in Tyler Texas? How dare you try and impose some made up level of health, wealth, and entertainment on somebody in the hills of Arkansas or downtown NY. Shear arrogance. BTW, do we get to have a “living” common good where we get to define common good as not across states? And what if several of the states that came on board this last century didn’t become states...should we invade those territories and force our “common good” on them?
“It's fair enough to argue about what should be included in common good, but your argument becomes rather weak when you say dividing that definition among states makes any sense at all.”
Expanding an undefinable standard over multiple states that is the basis for massive taxation for wealth transfers and social engineering and MY argument is weak? Explain how 23 million people in Texas defining their "common good" hurts ANYONE in the other 49 states. This is going to be good. :-)
Prof. Ricardo
Prof.
"I see each state as being its own nation and the uniting of 50 nations as the United States"
See Articles of Confederation, 1781; contra Constitution of the United States of America, 1783.
I think I will not take the bait in the gay marriage issue. It is like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. An interesting but ultimately an absurd debate. I think it is all grist for the mill and has been "focus grouped" as a money maker. That's why it appears as an issue in even years.
Finally, I predict the world will not end if gays are allowed to formalize their relationships that they are already consumating.
pardone -
contra Constitution of the United States of America, 1787.
Common: ... but first I'm really interested in how we LIST rights/privileges the State should have a say in, and human rights that they should not.
You should have the right to nearly anything that does not materially negatively affect those around you. As my late father-in-law said: “your right to swing your arm ends at my nose.” We should not look for the depths to which others, through government, may plunge into our business. Only when we find areas that are to no ones individual benefit or ability, but are for the benefit of society, do we seek a corporate solution, and only when the majority agree, should we embark on these governmental solutions.
“Your belief as I understand it: 1) free speech is a human right the state (or Federal government) can't touch...”
Yes, except where it materially injures another, like in the case of slander.
“2) marriage-related rights/privileges SHOULD be defined by the state.”
Sort of. The state interferes with us on the basis of marriage. To me marriage is between my spouse, me, and my God. I don’t need to be licensed by the state. It is not the final authority over my covenant with my wife.
Marriage was created by God. I realize that carries more weight with me than you. In my worldview marriage “by definition” cannot mean anything but the union of one man and one woman. I could give you the Bible references, but...
Given that the foundation of society are healthy families, to recognize unhealthy forms of families (multiple spouses, incest, bestiality, same-sex) as equivalents is self destruction of a society. Let the Netherlands stand as an example, and yes, it started with the acceptance of homosexuality as an equal standing with traditional marriage.
“Are you going through the bill of rights in the Constitution for "state touchable list", or some other definition. ”
The Constitution lists what a government should do. A touchable list implies a liberated entity that is not constrained by its governing document. Think dictator here.
Prof. Ricardo
pardone -
contra Constitution of the United States of America, 1787.
Guy,
I’ve read the Articles of Confederation and done a study on it as well as many foundational documents and writings.
The War of Northern Aggression was an example of the understanding that our country had about states vs federal. Though slavery was the catalyst, states rights and autonomy were being challenged. The South felt that it was reasonable to succeed, given the aggression of the Northern states. Let me know what of my statement I need to retract, prove, or clarify.
Prior to the War of Northern Aggression, some Union states threatened to succeed. What does that say about their view on state autonomy 150 years ago? Enjoy your weekend.
Prof. Ricardo
Correction: Not succeed. Secede.
I must say, this has been a day of record enjoyability in posting on the Disenfranchised Curmudgeon. Not that my opionion really matters, but I thoroughly enjoyed it all.
In an effort to stay focused, I'll return to my question for Prof...to wit, do you think that Human Rights should be a state issue. I see your jocularity and raise you the issue I was trying to state. In other words, without the 14th Amendment, the States were free to abridge our human rights however they saw fit. In theory, though certainly not in practice, the 14th Amendment extended the constraints on the Federal Government to the States. Prior to that, Constitutional restraints ONLY applied to the Federales.
So, if you want to couch the gay marriage discussion in terms of state's rights, you have to deal with the equal protection issue. I'm not asking for what the law is: that is very clear. And we are of like mind on the basic concept that marriage is a sacrament ordained by God. So, is it proper for the government, be it federal or state to sanction or authorize the institution of marriage?
Only in an effort to clarify, let me restate, there are three primary Consitutional issues I see here: 1) Federalism, 2) Equal Protecton, and 3) Free Excercize of religion.
I do not mean to be ambiguous...my post entitled "shouting down the world" makes my own view pretty clear. But I'm really interested in how you would view the Federalism argument as shaking out ... how should it be structured? No 14th Amendment?
CG,
Privilges and immunities is a complex topic but essential I accept the majority view that the 14th Amendment imposes the Constitutional Constrains on Government action in areas of fundamental liberties on the States. I can clariy further if necessary.
Guy,
What a horrid shame we have been out of touch all these years. Superficially at least it sounds like we are on the same philosophical page on a lot of things. Maybe there was something in the Whitewater?
If you begin witht he premise that marriage is a sacrament ordained by God. The it becomes a seperation of church and state issue also. While I am free to have my union sanctioned in a church the state also has a right tot recognize that union and confer benefits on it as it sees fit. But the sacrament and my civil union are two seperate things. Once this is recognized, then it becomes an issue whether the state will recognize a gay civil union and confer upon it the same benefits as a man and a woman. It si free to discriminate if these folks are not members of a protected class. Oncec it is decided gays are members of a protected class then the state is not free discriminate. That squares the question and in my mind the result is skewed by whether you beleive being gay is a choice or some sort of genetic design.
Common Good:
P.R.: The Constitution lists what a government should do.
C.G.: Huh? I thought the Constitution consisted of 1) defining the structure of our government {part Scalia calls the real Constitutional law} and 2) rights. Which part lists what the government should do?
Article 1, section 8-10; Article 2, section 2; Article 3, section 2; Article 4, Section 3b; and Article 5 all explain what our government can or should do.
One of the key differences between our Constitution and those of other countries is other countries listed the rights of the people and gave government full dominion over everything else. Ours listed what government could do and gave liberty to the people for everything else. It is not surprising that you have superimposed the erroneous concept of other countries governmental forms on the U.S. The failure of our education system, the spewing of politicians, and the ignorance and blindness of the media hardly clarify the issue. In fact, I would be astounded if you actually grasp this subject. If you actually knew the history and content of the Constitution, some of the beliefs you hold would hardly continue to make sense. Read the original documents. Go to www.Constitution.org, click on founding documents and immerse yourself in as many founding documents as you can. A good start would be the Magna Carta. Attack the documents with the premise that everybody including me are liars and you have to discover for yourself what the truth is. I am not perfect and am willing to change and adjust my understanding in light of revealed truth.
Prof. Ricardo
Apparently this is one of those Mars and Venus things. Will pick up the argument at a later date. I am starting to bald on both sides of my head from your latest response.
Unastoundedly yours,
Prof. Ricardo
CG,
I wish I could give simple answers to your questions. The law as it has come to us is just to amenable to being boiled down as you are asking.
Here is a very short article that will give you some idea why P&I is not often discussed. Now I’m in the camp that believe the Supreme Court got it wrong…and there are a lot of folks that feel that way.
But the topic you are interested in is called the doctrine of incorporation. Here is a longer article that has a good summary of substantive due process. Pay special attention to the last paragraph headed Incorporation.
In short, no, I do not think you can take our case law to mean that there are two tiers of human rights under our laws, though as Guy pointed out, there are varying protections based on whether and individual is a member of a protected class. His statement of the law is correct as far as it goes. I advocate plowing some new legal ground based on Equal Protection and P&I that does not rely on protected classes.
C.G.,
I finally found the name of the tax vs revenue curve. It is the Laffer curve.
Tony: “(T)o wit, do you think that Human Rights should be a state issue.”
Yes. Actually both. Any level that has the right to take rights away should, I suppose, be required to recognize human rights.
“...without the 14th Amendment, the States were free to abridge our human rights however they saw fit.”
Yes. Now the Federal government can do it and everybody is held hostage. Right now you can slaughter the unborn in 50 states. In my fantasy world each state would decided the issue and you could slaughter the unborn in those states that decided to do so and not in others. Its really rather simple.
“So, is it proper for the government, be it federal or state to sanction or authorize the institution of marriage?”
I’m not settled on the issue. With government interfering at all levels AND with different treatment of marrieds in benefits, tax, or other responsibilities, and that required and forced upon the private sector, then it is paramount that a decent respect of the institution to be in place over the level of government that is forcing its will. If the taxation of the people, and requirements and so forth were all conducted on the state level, that’s where the defining and sanctioning of marriage should occur, at least as far as government goes. So then if you are a church in Vermont and they pass a law saying marriage can be between any thing from a ding to a bat, then that church may be required to hire individuals with multiple wives or whatever. They could by choice move to another state that was a respecter of traditional marriage. Ditto people and businesses. A net loss in population by those states condoning abhorrent behavior may have an effect on their sanctioning of it. Ditto for those who protect traditional institutions and decency. A net influx, people live in their perceived place of dignity, all are happy.
Since the relative prosperity, protection, and blessings of America are shared among the 50 states, a move from one state to another is minor all things considered. However, there are no equivalent alternatives when abhorrent behavior is sanctioned by the federal government. All options for moving to a foreign land are less desirable because they have already accepted homosexual and other deviant lifestyles and many of the socialist “benefits” that C.G. has so eloquently bid for these many months and years.
We are sinking to the levels of the best alternative countries that are available. These countries are excellent options for those wishing to wallow in socialism and deviant sexual sin. Yet even they don’t like what those countries have become. They want the benefits of capitalism, a republican form of government, and a society of people who govern their personal behavior with the “benefits” of socialism and rampant deviant sex. They want to infuse the characteristics of one onto the other. They want to make a cat bark like a dog.
Having 50 independent states under the protection of a federal government is an excellent option we need to revisit.
"But I'm really interested in how you would view the Federalism argument as shaking out ... how should it be structured? No 14th Amendment?"
We have so much Federal government that even I can’t picture how it would look in 2006 were it to be of Constitutionally limited size. However, What if.....
What if individuals were taxed (income, sales, etc.) at the state level and state governments had to file tax return to the federal government and were taxed for the now greatly reduced federal beauracracy and services? The state governments would have to get their act together and have a good accounting of their numbers.
I don’t think they would be, but various neighboring states may be quite different in laws and regulations. In many ways they are now. Our state’s visitors bureau could have CD’s, DVD’s, or paper manuals explaining what out-of-staters need to know about our state.
However the anti-traditional marriage types know our lack of alternatives if they screw us on a national basis, and therefore it is their only hope of becoming entrenched, if not accepted.
Ask for specifics. I’m making it up as I go.
Prof. Ricardo
Prof. - Huh? I realize that I am new to posting here but really, what the hell is that? It seems libertarian in its tone arguing for state's rights and but then it turns on its collective head to impose a morals and decency clause across the board enforced on a state by state basis.
The abhorrent behavior you speak of is not sanctioned by any government but is unregulated behavior that it has been determined that the state's interest, to the extent it has any, does not trump the individual's privacy rights.
You decry socialism in one breath and long for a theocracy in the next. You seem puritanical and would turn the arm of the state to regulate behavior that you and other like you find abhorrent and offensive.
Is your world filled with activist judges seeking to undermine you and your family? If so, get a grip. You are not the center of the universe.
In the 1970's, conservatives had a cry against liberals to "Love America or Leave it." It would seem that the tables are turned.
Really, can't you see the inherent contradictions in your post? "Free Markets, Closed Society" that should be your motto. or:
"A cop in every bedroom." or:
"I'm from the State Capital and I'm here to help or intrude in your personal life which ever is necessary."
Believe it or not, I had a lot more strident rhetoric to post but I will stop here.
P.S. I am a rebel without a cause enjoying benefits of capitalism, a republican form of government, and a society of people who govern their personal behavior with the “benefits” of socialism and rampant deviant sex. Long Live non-conformity and rock-n-roll!!
BTW, could you define more specifically, "rampant deviant sex." It gets me a little hot when you say it. ;)
Tony, if I have reduced the discourse to just coarse, then I apologize. To the extent I have walked into the wrong room, I will intrude no more. Nothing gets under my skin more than moralists pointing fingers and throwing stones.
Guy said...
“...but then it turns on its collective head to impose a morals and decency clause across the board enforced on a state by state basis.”
1. I’m advocating let the states determine their level of decency and not “across the board.”
2. Only in as much as Federal law intrudes on us do we need to define the terms and morality that it affects.
“You seem puritanical and would turn the arm of the state to regulate behavior that you and other like you find abhorrent and offensive.”
Regulate the behavior, no. Nor change the definition of marriage.
“Believe it or not, I had a lot more strident rhetoric to post but I will stop here.”
You’ve impressed me adequately so far. No need to continue.
“BTW, could you define more specifically, "rampant deviant sex." It gets me a little hot when you say it. ;)”
I like to leave my readers begging for more...
C.G.
“50 different Bill of Rights... this is going to get interesting.”
Disregarding Guy’s request for a definition, you may want to bone up on the Bill of Rights that already exist starting with The Virginia Declaration of Rights. Oh darn, I’m sorry. This states rights thing was all supposed to be my silly idea. Ignore the link, it’ll only confuse those enraptured with their own opinions.
Prof. Ricardo
C.G. said...
“Prof... you realize we would need a name change from The United States. Maybe something like The Geographically Close States.”
Actually, the name The United States at least admits there are borders and at least different names. The current population has yet to find a problem that could not be better dealt with through more centralization and a greater depth of bureaucracy. You’re in much company, which ought to give you warm fuzzies. As such, you need to be aware of Guy.... :-)
Prof. Ricardo
Guy,
First, you are very welcome here. Pretty much things are no holds barred in this forum. I practice what I preach and encourage utter freedom in posting here. You haven’t even approached the levels of vitriol that have happened here in the past.
Keep in mind too, that everybody here is friends on one level or another for the most part. That fact seems to add to rancor however, and not reduce it. What can I say but that this is the kind of friendship I seem to attract.
Frankly, I will take coarse over stupid any day of the week.
Prof,
I will respond to you a little more fully, but one thing you said deserves more focused comment: “We are sinking to the levels of the best alternative countries that are available.”
Here is where you and I have the greatest common ground. I do not personally care for how our society is changing. While we have had many changes that are for the good, with those changes we have brought along a lot of junk. I share your concern.
That said, I believe in a free society. This includes the freedom to destroy ourselves as individuals and as a corporate body. America is not worth preserving because we have such great citizens but rather because of its ideals that until somewhere around 1969 or so we had been actively working toward achieving. We have ventured from that historical path and that is the disaster that we should all decry.
From a Christian perspective, what I prefer is the level playing field. An equal chance for all worldviews to compete in the arena of ideas. I believe our beliefs will win because of their truth and superiority as long as we compete on the merits rather than attempting a political triumph.
I do not think telling gay couples that they can not marry gains us one thing as a society. On the other hand, the fact that my church does not sanction same-sex unions does gain us a great deal. That is the moral stand that matters.
Truly I do think that we are confronting the utter destruction of American society. It is morphing into something alien and ugly right before our very eyes. To me it is clear that the only way to save it is to embrace freedom rather than turn further from it.
Or to say it a different way, God was the first libertarian when he gave us free choice. Jesus did not come to reject, but to accept flawed people. He did not pick and choose and hung out with those with flaws of a most serious nature. Jesus confronts us with a choice not a legal system. I choose to embrace his plan and not that of the radical right.
Allright then. I am enjoying the debate but if I am consistent on anything it will be that context is important. What I mean is the world is not ending.
What I decry is rhetoric both right and left. (I acknowledge the ability to let it fly also). "Utter destruction of American Society?" Please. This is what I am talking about when I say you protest too much.
Where is the Faith in Man? Where is the optimism that are founders had that men are good and government is bad? We have it backwards now.
Slave Trading; Trust Busting and Progressivism; The Great Depression and the New Deal; WWII and the fight against tryanny. Our history is littered with people who felt we were on the edge of destruction and yet we have survived. Despite the long odds.
I will acknowledge that we are a young country and 200 plus years is hardly a sign of longevity in the great march of history but on the edge of utter destruction? Not even a close one.
Let's debate, Let's engage in the marketplace of ideas but the extreme hyperbole is a cancer. (Yeah, I recognize that that is hyperbole). I agree with Jon Stewart when he appeared on Crossfire and told the hosts that they were what is wrong with America.
What happened to the days when Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neal could debate in public and share a drink in private? I think the right and left would just as soon run over each other in the parking lot at the end of the day.
My complaint is where is the optimism? It doesn't seem like morning in america anymore but the end of a very long day and we are all a bit cranky.
Rights? Rights are for the optimistic who see opportunity and want the government to stay out of the way. Laws? Law are for those who seek to curb and regulate behavior because of the weakness inherent in men. Liberty is the uneasy middle ground that recognizes these two qualities in mankind.
Sorry about the soap box but context is important.
To my list of times where some said we were on the verge of destruction I add: Women's Suffrage, Civil Rights Struggle; Integration of Public Schools. All these things were viewed in their time as signs that the end was near. Evidence of moral decay. To fight these things Jim Crow Laws were passed; miscegenation statutes were passed. Twisted activist judges (in today's parlance) proffered the Dred Scott Decision.
Again, it's the 24 hour news cycle in this media drenched age that makes you think the world is coming to an end.
From what I read, we are the most church going western country in the world. Why don't we take confidence from this? Instead, we are told the end is coming and God's Judgment is at hand. From these portents you can read nothing, for "I come as a thief in the night."
The religious right flexes it's collective muscle and delivers an election to the president. Does it make them feel better? No. They just feel betrayed because they look for purity in politics. There is none. Did they just land on this rock? I think not. Politics is compromise. Politics without compromise is tyranny of the majority or just tyranny.
I'll take all bets against the utter destruction of american society, whatever the times. I'll take all bets for the end of the world on any day. It's a sucker's bet.
I require more cynicism and disdain from a bunch of a crusty, ill-tempered, old men. Utter Destruction. Puhleeze. You've been to too many superman movies and missed or forgotten the message. Mankind is good though imperfect.
Guy: "Utter destruction of American Society?" Please.
If I may be so bold as to speak for another, I believe what Tony was saying is not that America would be a smoldering ash heap of humanity wailing as in the throes of Hell itself, but that the America the pilgrimage of humanity has sought and dreamt of will disappear and the same sad spectacle of humanity that exists on hundreds of other countries would now exist here.
Take the concept of private property. In 1774 the phrase was written Life, Liberty, and Property. Thomas Jefferson rewrote it to say Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. Back then people knew what that meant. They knew the nature of governments to confiscate property. To find out that governments are confiscating property through eminent domain today merely to change from one business or residence to another business, or entertainment facility (Texas Motor Speedway being a recent nearby example) purely for the tax benefits or tourism boost is thievery and our founding fathers would take up arms without hesitation. Today, its page 1 of the newspaper, but it is happening. Tomorrow, its page 17 of section B, under local farmer finds cow patties. That general downward trend is not the destruction of humanity, but the destruction of the American Dream. Not in and of itself, but coupled with a thousand other drifts from what, I would assume Tony would agree with me, a desirable American Dream to just another squalor of humanity. Sure, we get to keep the Eagle as our national bird, but the Bible calls that kind of hollowness a white washed tomb. My $.02.
Prof. Ricardo
Guy,
Prof pretty much nailed my view, but let me be more expansive.
In my view the utter destruction of America is almost complete. It is the America of ideals of which I speak, not the political entity which is the United States of America.
I for one have no doubt whatsoever that America will continue to exist as an entity for a very long time. After all, we have accumulated wealth such as the world has ever known or concieved before the 20th Century. We have used that wealth to strengthen our defenses and continue to build financial capital. America is an incredible economic collosus that will not fall precipitously in our lifetimes.
But the ideals have already slipped into a coma and we are waiting on the politicians to pull the plug.
Here is why there is nearly no hope for the Shining City on the Hill: we are stupid. We collectively operate as if Democrats and Republicans really care about their consitutents. We willingly acquiesce in the media constructed artificial two party axis largely because we have lost our critical thinking skills.
This inability to think critically has led to the systematic gutting of our constitutional protections. I'd love to hear someone such as yourself who is more knowledgable than I explain how the Constitution really does matter any more. From where I sit, the executive branch does what it damn well pleases and even the opposition in Congress rubber stamps outlandish things for political expediency. I know there are still real legal fetters, but they mean less and less with each passing year.
I'm thinking especially of the attrocious and shameful behavior of the Congress with specific regard to the Clinton Impeachment, the War Powers Act and the Patriot Act. There are other lesser examples, but these stand out.
Americans have ceased holding their political elite accountable in an intellectually rigorous way. Most of what passes for news these days is really meta-news. We are treated to article after article about the political aspect of so-and-so taking such-and-such position and very little about the merits of such-and-such position. Form has completely triumphed over substance and therein lies the rub.
I sincerely do think I stand outside the media drenching. I listen to very little news and am very selective in what I consume. The hysteria of the right and left are tiring and unproductive. I don't think America is ending because of anything that has happened in the headlines in the last thrity years: it is coming to an end because of what has happened in our hearts and minds.
We have ceased to be communal such as when you and I were young. How often does a neighbor know their own neighbor much less help them these days? We are isolated and cut off from each other and this makes it easier for politicians to exploit us based on our personal self-interest. On top of being isolated, we are stupid...too stupid to see the lines of bull shit that passes these days for national debate.
While I do decry our moral condition, our laws and political policy have zero causal relationship to that in my view. It is our poor moral condition that has lead to our deteriorating legal and poltical institutions. Perhaps that is a bit circular, but in my view the chicken did come before the egg. Viewing our condition through strickly a Christian Eschatological perspective is vain as you correctly point out an I totally agree. I have no clue whether God's will is for us to be the Shinning City on the Hill or the Beast and anyone who claims they do is probably smoking some sacramental peyote or high on some prozac induced neurotransmitter overload.
You ennumerated a nice list of things that have incorrectly been heralded as the portent of doom for America: Slave Trading, Trust Busting, Progressivism, The Great Depression and the New Deal, WWII and the fight against tryanny, Women's Suffrage, Civil Rights Struggle, Integration of Public Schools. This is an interesting list worth some analysis. Unfortunately it is late and I will have to substitute less analysis than that for which it is worthy.
Slave Trading, Women's Suffrage, Civil Rights (and school integration) as the end of America share the common thread of being the clarion call of the small minded and bigoted amoung us. I am not someone who suggests that allowing gay civil unions (or porn or the national endowment for the arts funding Robert Maplethorpe) will lead to our destruction. What I do suggest is that our whole brain-numbed approach to the "debate" is evidence of a slide toward destruction. There will always be bigots unfortunately.
The Great Depression and WWII present a different class of challenges. Those threats were real physical threats to our existence. I do not think that the contemporaries of those events were being espcially hyperbolic to suggest that either of those threatened our existence because they clearly did. The doomsayers were wrong but those were risky times and cirumstances. I don't think those are comparable to the doom which I forecast.
Trust Busting, Progressivism and the New Deal are closer to the mark but still miss. Those were political programs that were cast as portents of doom largely for political reasons. These bit of history are the ones most like the broad general doom-casting that goes on presently. Still, none of these are like the evidence I identify as pointing to our impending demise.
Here is a wrap up. We are doomed bacause 1) we are willingly stupid, 2) this stupidty causes us to cherish form over substance in the political arena, and 3) the only value we seem to rally around is the value of the dollar.
Sorry to rant on for so long. I've said most of this before and probably it bores the long-timers here. But your "extreme hyperbole" accusation got me going.
Me protest too much? You have no idea...I'm just getting warmed up.
C.G. Prof... you need a little more "we" in your diet.
Since I was born, it has been my daily habit of not taking on “we”, but eliminating it. I realize that there are many around me who are full of "we", but their golden hue has not presuaded me thus far. If this is the banner you have thus chosen, to speak out for the "we" individuals in our midst, dribble on. And may your pool contain much "we". :)
P.R.
CG,
I have told you the cure to the problem and almost nobody here except Prof seems to agree: education. I just see no hope for improvement unless we make sweeping improvements to our education system and do so quickly. Otherwise, we are destined to be just another rich powerful empire slowly broken on the rocks of its own avarice.
I’d be happy to return to the topic of education but it always is greeted with silence. And that is the root of the problem: nobody gives a damn.
Prof,
I just we'd on myself.
“...or will they be well eduated me-centric soul saving profit centers?”
Maybe if they were a little more “me-centric” they wouldn’t have to be victim-centric, welfare-centric, and low self-esteem-centric. Don’t worry, for your statist dreams there will still be victims. Jesus said “the poor you will have with you always.” That should make you feel better. :)
P.R.
Tony,
Anchor babies, the 14th amendment, and the United States v. Wong Kim Ark case in 1898. What is your take on this?
P.R.
Have been faithfully reading the Curmudgeon's essays and the responses for many many months. I'm just hoping you all get back to the original thread (if that's the correct terminology) of this post.
In any case: IMO there isn't much chance of the President being held to account. There are obviously sufficient cowards of both party's, in both houses of congress, to assure his safe exit. From the history I have studied, it seems lots of pain has to be experienced before citizens get their heads out of the sand. There's little doubt in my mind that this country is headed for big financial trouble. Not only because Bush has borrowed, legislated and spent us into debt, but also too many Americans spend, borrow and have no savings. Big pain is coming.
G-Ma
If I am going over plowed ground, I apologize but I am enjoying the debate and will work my way back to the original thread.
But in the interest of full disclosure, I think you should know that I am contrarian in nature, for better or worse, trained in the way of legal argument and prideful of being a despised trial lawyer. My educational and professional profile can be found at www.brewsterlaw.com.
I specialize in Plaintiff's trial work and complex litigation of all sorts but especially enjoy civil rights cases involving constitutional matters. I have argued before the Tenth Circuit on behalf of the wrongfully accused, the wrongfully convicted and victims of excessive force by law enforcement in wrongful death matters.
I enjoy representing the little guy against powerful interests and do not like to lose. I am either your hero or represent all that is wrong with America depending on where you stand.
I do not say these things to be boastful but to put in context my views and how they are shaped. Constitutional issues are not academic debate for me but represent interpretation of a living document that has been controversial ever since activist judges decided Marbury v. Madison.
With that said, I will get back to the thread in the next post.
Doom and Education.
I agree with CG, stupidy and greed have always been problems in this country. That is why when the founders originally wrote "all men" they meant free white landholders. They also recongized the uneducated masses.
Certainly, education has great merit but but we all can't have liberal art educations. How many business majors does the world need? How many lawyers for that matter?
But I am curious, what is the American Dream? And aren't more people achieving it than ever? (Yeah, I recognize the heavy debt burden and overleveraged middle class.)
I will engage in the debate but the pessimism is so pervasive here. Where is the optimism? This is my contrarian nature. For every kid you can't point out to me who doesn't get a good education and I can point out two others who are getting a great education in the public school system.
It can't always be give me liberty or give me death. Even the founding fathers got tired of being lectured by the firey Sam Adams after a while.
We are at the end of the First American Century. Have we been coasting? Yes. Resting on our laurels? Yes. Acting unitlaterally as if we are big spoiled child who doesn't understand why nobody gets us? Of course. Chipping away at hard fought freedoms for the illusion of security? Most definitely.
But the giant sleeps. This is still the country that started a revolution over "taxation without representation" and dressed up like indians and threw tea into a harbor to protest. What a quaint idea and a fable that is still taught in every elementary school. This is a powerful founding mythology that once pricked will not easily die down. And one that is readily grasped by all levels of education.
Doom? I can't even hear the footsteps yet.
BTW - I hope we all realize that the NSA computers are collecting and crunching this electronic data as we type. When the revolution comes, they may knock on your door first.
Guy, “Constitutional issues are not academic debate for me but represent interpretation of a living document that has been controversial ever since activist judges decided Marbury v. Madison.”
Just curious. What other legal documents/contracts do you know of that are “living?”
“But I am curious, what is the American Dream?”
Actually, I thought Tony and I covered that, but apparently not. Our perspective, of course, is to peer from the year 2006 over a multitude of governmental intrusions and to have never known a life where government didn’t know our income, control our level of risk at work, or tax our labor and property. Depending on your worldview, what ever is harmful to my “American dream” may be a fulfillment of yours.
The original American dream was the ability to work unencumbered by government and actually receive the fruit of your own two hands. To worship and not be told what God or method to worship. To speak out against threats and possess the means to keep your household secure. This has lured peoples for hundreds of years. That is the American dream that is slipping as we introduce more government control over our lives, our transactions, more monitoring of our incomes and travels, and so forth. But if you are the sort that welcomes the security and oversight of the government in all of your daily life and you don’t see the trend toward greater government and larger portions of your wealth being used for the Common Good and, therefore, less available for you to direct towards your own security and felicity, then this is indeed a great day and a fulfillment of your American dream
P.R.
Prof, you are one frustrated accountant. Jeffersonian agrarian democracy went out with the cotton gin.
Let me be clear, I do not welcome more government intrusion for the sake of security. I don't ask simple questions to be obtuse but to draw you out.
Who is keeping you from worshipping your God? Who is keeping you from being as wildly successful as you want to be? Who is keeping you from speaking out? Who is keeping you form defending your home? Did Texas pass a firearms ban while I wasn't paying attention?
I don't know you but I know Tony. A highly educated white male as am I. We are kings in a land full of opportunity and you act as though you are a peasant in a land of fences and sharecropping. Luddites attack!!
The revolution was not over taxation but taxation without representation. You cannot be opposed to tax but only the details of how much and what is taxed (income or spending).
I certainly decry ever increasing taxes and a growing federal goverrnment. I decry the slow encroachment of our liberty for the sake of security. I like the idea of small government.
Get off the net, cut up your credit cards and pay cash for everything. I am not saying I disgree with everything you guys or Tony is saying. Far from it or I wouldn't keep wandering back but you guys need to open up a window in this chat room and let some fresh air in. It's stuffy.
Prof,
Well, I hate to tell you but that Farah piece is fundamentally flawed, though I’m sure his simplistic argument will have a lot of appeal to his audience.
While the United States indeed kept English common law, where it spoke to the law, the Constitution superseded the common law. I haven’t read the entire opinion, but the holding of the court was that the US could not deny citizenship to someone born in the United States. The language quoted by Farah is dicta…excerpted from a portion of the opinion that was restating the common law rule for the purposes of analysis. Dicta does not, and manifestly should not have the force of law.
I can find the full opinion and read it for absolute certainty, but I am pretty sure that Farah is full of it on this one. He said himself, “Now I'm no lawyer…”.
G-Ma,
Well, welcome back. I'm glad there is something of profit here for you.
As much as I abhor the debt, I'm not sure that will be our undoing, though as you say it may well inflict great pain.
Guy,
Plowing old ground is fine by me. The big topics deserve re-examination.
First let me say that I applaud what you have done professionally. If I had chose the route you did, perhaps I would still be a lawyer today. I’d love to do civil rights law. Ah, maybe someday.
I for one do not accept the “living document” concept…or at least as it is commonly described. I’m not a textualist either…I think there is sound room for jurisprudential maneuver. That said, I think the Supreme Court has strayed way too far from the text and done so unnecessarily for the most part. We can have that debate some day though CG wants your dissertation on the subject sooner rather than later.
On education, there is education and then there is education. When we speak of such things I always think of my “uneducated” Grandparents. Their 8th grade educations left them far better equipped to deal with policy issues and to think critically about them than does the education most people receive today. But taking your 2 to 1 numbers for the purposes of argument, I find the possibility of 33% of our population being unable to function to be a really huge and serious problem. OK, I’m going to quibble with your numbers too. If you look at functional literacy rates there are large swaths of this country where the number is less than 50%.
And are you sure you don’t live in a good educational bubble of some kind? I spent three years on the East Coast and let me tell you, the situation out there is really bleak. Here in Dallas, you can’t imagine the state of the Dallas school district. Sure, out in Plano and Coppell, things are peachy. Other burbs range from good to horrid (such as Irving).
Seems like someone who prides themselves on being for the little guy would be with me on this one. It is the poor that are getting royally screwed on education.
Perhaps I’m a bit Sam Adams-ish at times. But then, I really do not see enough concern in this nation over the fundamental changes that are happening around us. I agree that human faults have always been with us, but we have leaned on our institutions to save us from ourselves. That is what the whole system of laws is about. When that system is attacked and the various checks and balances removed or weakened, we are in great peril.
All of that said, I often have to remind people here that I am personally not as depressed and negative as I may come across here at the Disenfranchised Curmudgeon-mostly because I have a lot of confidence in my family’s own ability to weather the death of America Idealism. While I see a complete social collapse and civil unrest to be a possibility, I do not view it as a probability. I think the sleeping giant can awaken again but I am concerned that it might not. I think somebody needs to shake the giant from its slumber though because the trend is not a good one.
When the NSA knocks on my door, you will be my one phone call.
Hi Guy!
Re: My unanswered question....
Let me quote from my notebook on America, The First 350 Years, by J. Seven Wilkins:
—QUOTE---
How should the Constitution be interpreted? We should interpret the Constitution like we interpret any other historical document - by the original intention of the authors. Chauncey Burr comments:
"It is the rule laid down by Blackstone, that the intention of the parties to a compact is the key to its meaning. The terms and language must be referred to the time of its enactment, and must be taken as understood by those who so employed them, and not according to any subsequent definition. Thus the Constitution of the United States must be explained as those who made and framed it intended. Their INTENTION IS THE LAW." (op. cit., p.211)
When this rule is cast aside, the liberties which the Constitution was intended to preserve will be lost. Again, Chauncey Burr, .
"Such were the rules by the Constitution was interpreted by the Supreme Court undeviatingly from the foundation of the government to 1863. Since this last date a change has come over the spirit of the judiciary which is in violation of all the past rules of interpretation, and indeed of judicial proceedings among all enlightened nations. The doctrine has been boldly proclaimed, by leading journals, that laws and compacts are to be construed so as to be in harmony with the 'will of the people,' and judges have, in too many instances, succumbed to this monstrous delusion...It indeed amounts to the overthrow of all fixed and regular governments, and leaves the passions and fancies of an hour the only guarantees of liberty." (Ibid., p. 212)
Because of this view of constitutional interpretation, we have become a nation of men (ruled by the opinions of Supreme Court justices and other radical minorities) rather than a nation of laws.
—End of Quote—
So, let me repeat.
Just curious. What other legal documents/contracts do you know of that are “living?”
Would you include your mortgage agreement “living?”, your employment contract?, Wills? DNRs?
Your jolly, frustrated accountant,
Prof. Ricardo
C.G.
Wow... another laywer on Tony's blog. That has to be past some acceptable quota.
It’s nearly up to their percentage of the population. :-D
BTW, thanks for tainting the water on the "living" Constitution issue. I was wanting to see his reaction sans your filter. Were you unsure he could handle it alone? :-)
P.R.
I can see the tough thing here is keeping up the response to the various challenges.
Prof,
What other legal documents/contracts do I know of that are “living?” I would have to agree with Chauncey Burr on this one, they all are. "It is the rule laid down by Blackstone, that the intention of the parties to a compact is the key to its meaning."
Wow, talk about leaving enough room for interpretation to drive a truck through. The intention of the parties or in this case gentlemen who have been dead for over 200+ years? Hey, I like Scalia. In my opinion he is neither liberal or conservative cause you never know what intent of the founders he will seize upon to support the result he desires. Having said that I do not like some of the results oriented decisions he has reached.
No disrespect but I think the argument over interpretation of the constitution is a false choice and a fiction. We are always interpreting all documents based upon either our current understanding or what we perceive to be past understanding. Either way it still involves divining intent given your point of view.
If you are to strictly interpret, what right the judiciary (and Scalia) have to decide what is and isn't constitutional? The power isn't expressed in the Constitution but only an inferred power.
"The judicial power of the United States is extended to all cases arising under the constitution.
Could it be the intention of those who gave this power, to say that in using it the constitution should not be looked into? That a case arising under the constitution should be decided without examining the instrument under which it arises?
This is too extravagant to be maintained." Marbury v. Madison.
No citations for this authority or interpretation. Justice Marshall merely supposes that to beleive otherwise is ludicrous. I am not saying I disagree but so we have gone on the past 200+ years. Marshall today would be run out of town for his judicial activism.
No, I do not equate, nor does any other serious consitutional scholar, the constitution with any other common legal document similar to the examples you provide. If it were so, I would apply the rule of parole evidence and deny any extrinsic evidence of intent to explain the terms of the contract. Having thus found, the document must then live or die by the words within the four corners of the document and our common understanding of the terms. All evidence of the parties intent is excluded from the analysis. (Of course, if the document is found not to be clear and unambigous, then parole evidence may be allowed. You gotta love the law. Always a black letter rule with a clear exception.)
I think the best example of the textual problem is the ever evolving definition of people under the constitution. They certainly did not mean "people" in the sense we mean it today. There were several classes of "people" who did not have rights and did not enjoy the privileges and immunities of citizenship. Did we only in time come to understand that they really meant women and blacks or did we begin to expand the definition as we began to interpret the document?
Hey, given the brevity of the document I think that it is a mona lisa masterpiece. What the hell are they smiling about? The devil was in the details and to the extent you include too many, the chances of each colonial legislature adopting the document drop drmatically. I beleive the intent was to make it vague on purpose so they could get passed by the people. Sorry, I mean State Legislative Bodies. No democracy, it's a republic. The words are always subject to interpretation (intentionally).
Having said that I do believe "certain truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Oh yeah, these words never appear in the US Constitution. Oops.
Prof. Maybe this is what you are looking for: "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
I am sure that I have failed to satisfactorily answer your question. I may take another stab at it later. I have to go get some fresh air.
All kidding aside, Man, I love that language in the Declaration of Independance. Gives me chills.
Stupid Movie - National Treasure but the character is right, nobody talks like that anymore.
Tony: You're right, I am on your side of improvement needed to the education. It is far from perfect or even acceptable. I do live in an education bubble and my kids go to the same schools you and yours went to. We did not stray far from home.
One improvement regarding interpretation on the supreme court to me would be to put real people on the bench. I have e-mailed you an article from the Atlantic which makes some very interesting points. If you know Prof's and CG's e-mail feel free to forward it. The title "Remote Control - The Supreme Court's greatest failing is not ideological bias—it's the justices' increasingly tenuous grasp of how the real world works" The Atlantic, Sept. 2005
The article argues that whether they are appointed from the right or the left, the justices increasingly have very little real world experience but seem to be self generating. In the resume' of each justice you hear the same things over and over. He served as a clerk to Justice XXXX for XX years. Sometimes you have to go outside the company to make a great hire. The supreme court is in my opinion a very incestous body.
CG when I read the books on constitutional interpreation by the justices (and I admit that I have only read excerpts) I don't get it. I can tell you I have never seen any of their books cited in a brief.
Textual, non-textual, living document or ouija board they are all intepreting the document. Anyone who says they aren't is lying.
Finally, Prof - I am still worried about who is attacking you and the many questions I asked.
Guy,
“Finally, Prof - I am still worried about who is attacking you and the many questions I asked.”
I assume you mean...
“Who is keeping you from worshipping your God?”
I don’t recall claiming that I could not worship my God.
“Who is keeping you from being as wildly successful as you want to be?”
Mostly me I suppose. However, that 40-50% that I “contribute” to government has stifled my potential.
“Who is keeping you from speaking out?”
Once again, I don’t recall making that claim.
“Who is keeping you form defending your home?”
Actually I have quite the arsenal. Every time Clinton drug out poor Brady and signed a gun control bill, I went out and bought a new gun to celebrate. I bought ammo too. However, the left uses incrementalism. Think frogs, heat, water, and all that. They didn’t ban fireamrs, just some firearms. They didn’t ban ammo, just some ammo. They didn’t ban magazines, just some magazines. They didn’t ban gun purchases, they just made them subject to background checks and a waiting period. Maybe we can implement waiting periods for free speech, then I can ask you “Who is keeping you from speaking?” The threat to take away my right to defend my home existed before the first law was passed that affected it. The threat to take away your free speech has existed since man has governed man. That’s why you put in safe guards. To dismiss the progress of the individuals that have stated their goal is to take away my right to own a gun is willful denial.
“Did Texas pass a firearms ban while I wasn't paying attention?”
When my father was a child, he put his .22 rifle over the handle bars of his bike and rode down the neighborhood street to somebody’s house on a farm. He stop and ask if he could hunt squirrels. Even though they didn’t know him they’d say yes and tell him where the hunting was good on their property. When I was a kid in high school, must boys with pickups had a gun rack and a rifle or shotgun in the rack and parking in the school parking lot. Today, a young man is kicked out of school because he helped somebody move into an apartment and a kitchen knife - not the chef kind with a sharp edge, but your basic cut-your-broccoli variety - was in the trunk of his car. An 8 year old is suspended from school for cutting out a piece of paper “L” shaped like a pistol and aiming it at someone. I’m no social engineer with a doctorate, but I see a trend here. Yes, we don’t rope cows in my yard either, but there is a difference that is leaning more towards suspicion of citizenry having weapons than of only having an armed government.
Prof. Ricardo
Guy,
We are of the same mind on Scalia. An incredibly smart man but once he has an objective in mind, he doesn’t work as hard as others to hide his result oriented methodology. He is a much better dissenter than majority opinion writer.
Your words on the parole evidence rule are right on target. Legislation is a different animal than a contract.
I think the whole constitutional construction “debate” is undone by the same two-endpoint false duality that permeates our politics. The Constitution is not a living document. It is a document for living people that must be construed in light of facts. It isn’t a rigid unbending comprehensive that must be amended for the slightest extension. It is a framework from which our body of law hangs.
Neither extreme is intellectually honest. The founder’s intent may only be imperfectly discerned. The document can not mean only what the government says it means, or the document is without value. Marbury is a classic early data point for test the four corners principal in the context of constitutional law: it doesn’t work. But just because you have to go beyond the four corners, it does not mean that the words can be interpreted in whatever fashion is convenient for the day either.
Sorry you find the air here so stifling. Think about the poor souls such as myself who come here and find the air fresher.
Guy,
I really enjoyed the Atlantic article. Thanks for that. And I did forward it to CG and Prof as well.
I like the suggestion of a limited tenure, but in my view there is no substantial improvement to be expected unless we by some miracle take the politics out of if. The whole nomination process has become nearly irrational it is so political. A very sad state of affairs I have to say.
While we are at it, we need tenure on CongressCritters as well.
Prof,
Well said my friend. Well said.
It isn’t so much that we have presently lost our freedoms it is that the legal constraints on government have been watered down.
Tony:
I agree with your post. The air is not too stifling here but I just hate to see such pessimism even when it is warranted. That's my nature. I see and hear tragedy everyday in my line of work and as a defense I have developed a fairly black sense of humor and the ability to whistle in the dark.
I must admit that your optimistic remark, "I have a lot of confidence in my family’s own ability to weather the death of America Idealism" brought a wry smile to my face.
If there is to be change, in my view there has to be some optimism that it can and will happen. "Deep roots are not touched by the frost." (Sorry about the Elton John and Tolkien quotes but I find it much more accessible than other long dead poets and philosophers. I'm sure it's my public education.)
Tony, et al,
Although the words seemed to have damned Farah, I’ll admit it to, I’m no lawyer...
It is not that we can discern “original intent” with perfection so that we can explain better what the synapses running around in the Founders heads better than they were able to communicate to their peers. It's just that “Oh we don’t know what they thought.....So what’s the international community think?” is a sad substitute. Its funny how the Supreme Justice’s oath to defend the Constitution is sacrificed for the desire to entertain foreign law principles.
As a layperson too stupid to walk erect, I thought a contract was an agreement. (Stop me when I stray...)
That agreement may be oral, written, or implied. It is supposed to represent what the parties to the contract intended it to mean. To discern what is in a contract or governing document, I think reasonable people could go to the notes, discussions, committee reports, and prior decisions to discern “intent.” I am totally convinced that this is an imperfect science. But the evolution of rights that never existed within the document and the evolution of government authority that was never authorized could not have been derived from looking at original intent, but from thinking happy thoughts and claiming some loose definition of terms, or equally mischievous, ignoring the document entirely, and this has severely hampered the Constitutions teeth. All political parties share in this travesty, as well as a pathetic public education on the matter these last many years. Heck, we here can’t even agree that the intent of the parties to the governing document have value.
If a “living” document “means adapting to current times” like Common says, In this current time people have spoken and said “we want marriage to be lawfully recognized as between one man and one woman.” Yet, activist federal judges have struck it down at every turn. Given that marriage has always been between one man and one woman, and that it is the current desire via 20 state elections, am I the only person on this planet that sees the “living document” as an excuse for judicial tyranny?
Maybe it is I that needs the education, to compromise the concepts of intent, to accept click-your-heels-and-make-a-wish Constitutional interpretation that effectively negates the need for a Constitutional convention. I’m too tired to argue about it further. My little sand castle can not stand against the incoming wave of Its-my-turn-now political thought. The American Dream is fading and it is my job to record what it was for my descendants. In no way do I want them to sulk, but to enjoy to the fullest the remnants of the best nation currently on the planet. But I want them to never forget, what they never knew, and what some here will never get.
Prof. Ricardo
Tony:
The politics of the appointment process are outrageous. Who would want a job that you had to go through that? And who would want the people who have the kind of backgrounds that can navigate that? If I get nominated, I'll have to reject just on the basis of the incoherent ramblings I have scribed in this forum.
That's probably why law clerks work so well. They get locked up in a vacumm; publish very little in the way of their own opinions and are trotted out once they reach the appropriate age.
A natural progression as a judge may be from U.S. District Court to the Appellate Level and then on the the highest court. With your level of competence being judged by the quality of your mind and the opinions that flow from it. No, that makes too much sense. For the highest court, we want a blank slate. I am always suprised that all of the candidates are so willing to lie when asked if they have any opinions about current hot legal issues. Abortion being the most asked. My dry cleaner and Starbucks Barrista have opnions on abortion and I am supposed to believe that these highly educated and partisan individuals don't have one? In the words of Justice Marshall, "This is too extravagant to be maintained."
Do we really want someone who hasn't formed an opinion by the age of 40 sitting on the highest court in the land? Seems absurd to me but I'm crazy like that.
Which brings us back to the theater of the absurd of your original post. It's not suprising but to say the least very dissapointing.
CG:
I will collect my thoughts and try to give you a more complete answer although I think you have hit it on the head. For most people who decry judicial activism, they know it when they see it. And when they see it is in an opinion or decision that they disagree with that has broader implications for social policy.
I will admit, I don't think about judicial activism very much as a practicing attorney. To me, judges all come with their own predilections and supporting constituency that they are always playing to. I am not saying that they are wrong in their decisions when I disagree with them but that I try and understand the context in which the decision is rendered.
Having said that, I am for a few more real people on the bench. My problem is that while we all argue constitutional issues in the abstract, sometimes a little real world common sense would help. Hell, let’s get a reformed drunk who went to night law school up there. We may not all agree with his decisions but we will all understand them. I'm starting to think Harriet Myers might have been a good choice. ;) I did not like her politics but I guarantee her opinions would have been simple and clear. Especially after they were proof read by Cheney. Further, I wouldn't expect that she would need a book to explain her methodology. "That just ain't right."
Given all of the bright minds on the bench today, it has become harder to understand what they are saying. I am not the only one saying this and I will try to find an article explaining this point of view. But the number of decisions reached in a plurality or in a majority where many of the justices all write separately concurring has grown over the past several years.
As an attorney trying use the doctrine stare decisis to anticipate where the court will go, such written musings by all of the justices don’t help. What am I supposed to do with that?
I could go for some clear judicial writing by Justice Marshall these days. No one really seems to argue or disagree with him when he says, "This is too extravagant to be maintained." We all just nod our heads and agree with this common wisdom which is the linch pin for all of the judicial activisim we have today. (If you believe it exists!) :0
One more thing . . .
When we think about how old some of these guys are, I am reminded of a comdeian in the 1980's talking about how old Reagan was in his second term. The line went something like this all though I can tell it better . . .
Reagan, What is he almost 78 years old now and he has his finger on THE BUTTON! My grandpa is 73 and we won't let him operate the remote control to the TV!
I found it funny and hitting a little close to home with a seed of truth.
Text of al-Zarqawi Safe-House Document
Jun 15 8:58 AM US/Eastern
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/06/15/D8I8LJBG0.html
By The Associated Press
Text of a document discovered in terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's hideout. The document was provided in English by Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie:
___
The situation and conditions of the resistance in Iraq have reached a point that requires a review of the events and of the work being done inside Iraq. Such a study is needed in order to show the best means to accomplish the required goals, especially that the forces of the National Guard have succeeded in forming an enormous shield protecting the American forces and have reduced substantially the losses that were solely suffered by the American forces. This is in addition to the role, played by the Shi'a (the leadership and masses) by supporting the occupation, working to defeat the resistance and by informing on its elements.
As an overall picture, time has been an element in affecting negatively the forces of the occupying countries, due to the losses they sustain economically in human lives, which are increasing with time. However, here in Iraq, time is now beginning to be of service to the American forces and harmful to the resistance for the following reasons:
. . . . cont'd in link above . . . .
Good enough for me!
I'm afraid that they would get ahold of my Disenfranchised Curmudgeon rants and the nomination process would be hell. But thanks for thinking of me. I do like to wear black and pontificate.
Prof,
That was interesting. Thanks for the link.
How many of you curmudgeon's beleive that the al-Zarqawi Safe-House Document is real? It smacks of disinformation to me.
Off Topic:
"With the stroke of a pen, President Bush has established the largest ocean wildlife reserve in the world, centered along a string of islands, reefs, and atolls that stretch 1,400 miles northwest of the main Hawaiian Islands."
I guarantee there is no oil under that reef.
Guy said...
“How many of you curmudgeon's beleive that the al-Zarqawi Safe-House Document is real? It smacks of disinformation to me.”
I do. Why?
1. It seems logical in its topical layout, agreeing with what we already suspected and giving logical responses to it.
2. The first #5 item states “By creating a big division among the ranks of the resistance” is in congruence with the fact that it was inside information that we used to kill al-Zarqawi.
3. The information gained has allowed us to carry out 452 raids and kill 104 insurgents using information retrieved from the site.
4. The method used to deliver the “disinformation” was too costly (ie, al-Queda leader and half a dozen lives lost).
5. Because it shows the current method is working and that the extended “time” that we have been there has worked to the US & Iraqs advantage, to save face it is necessary for the Democrats (authors of Cut and Run ©) to discredit it.
6. I would think our government is thinking seriously about a military response to Iran and this paper taints that by saying that al-Queda would give us disinformation about Iran's level threat.
7. Because Common Good thinks it is... :-)
Guy, Let us know why you think it is a fraud.
Prof. Ricardo
Prof:
You have caught a lawyer asking a question that is vague and subject to different interpretations. I do not believe it to be disinformation from al-Queda but from the Iraqi and US Government. To the extent you are pulling my chain by interpeting my question the other way, you got me.
Why do I beleive it to be a fraud?
(1) It reads like a memo from an insider Enron accountant listing all the problems within the organization and what needs to be done. This is complete speculation on my part, but I don't picture al-Queda compiling such a self-critical document. Were they going on a management retreat next week to work on their skills? It sounds way to corporate and frankly, american-mba 'ish.
(2) If you were attemtping to convince ordinary Iraqi's to stand up and quit supporting terrorists, you couldn't have come up with a better memo explaining why the terrorists are attacking Iraqis and different factions to drive a wedge. I am not saying this isn't happening, of course it is, but to put it all down in a memo is too extravagant to be maintained.
(3) All the stuff about Iran. To me this is bonus info used to try and get the Iranians to stop helping the resistance by showiong that the interest of the resistance is to get Iran and the US in a shooting war. I guarantee, even in light of all the hot rhetoric, the Iranians are not interested in provoking us to the point of invasion and open war.
Hey, I am stuck here in an office in Tulsa, OK. What do I really know? I seen to many movies obviously.
Also, the movies "I seen" are dumbing me down. Tony, you were right about the public education system.
Note to Self: Must Preview Messages more often.
First, I totally think it is possible for a thumb drive to survive the bombing. I accidentally sent mine through the washer and dryer a couple of months ago and it seems to work even better now. I do not doubt for a second that useful information may have been culled therefrom.
That said, I too thought it did not sound right. When I read it, my first reaction was that it was a weird translation. In retrospect, I would say that the disinformation is not unlikely.
I think it is hard to come to firm conclusions. Lets say it was not a phony. Just because it was on his thumb drive would not mean much. Perhaps it was a draft of something from someone not so important. Maybe it was a working document. It is likely that the various terrorist organizations are engaging in disinformation of their own…perhaps there a complication here that those outside the internal power struggles have no clue about.
Without the context of a lot more knowledge than any of us has, it is hard to pin down any of this stuff.
If I were betting, I’d bet on a creative translation that was spun through the translater’s interpretation and then released for disinformation purposes.
I’m stuck in an office in Dallas, so what do I know? :-D
The administration that has incompetently played every card in the deck, often releasing sought after documents to clear Bush of whatever infraction, only after the media had turned to something else, only to drag the bad media coverage back into the spotlight. THAT’s the administration you want me to believe has ingeniously orchestrated a disinformation campaign? Wow! Surely Common is in agreement with me that we think he couldn’t pull that over if it was an XL hoodie.
Prof. Ricardo
Re:500# bomb ineffectiveness.
From what I understand the same bombs had an effect on Uday and Qusay that pig lipstick couldn't fix.
Using a daisy cutter on al-Zarqawi may have had negative public relations effect because of unintended collateral damage. Sure would be neat to see the video though.
Prof. Ricardo
Prof, I would agree that it is difficult to believe that an administration that has been so stunningly incompetent so far would be able to pull this off. Must be an Israeli or British Operation.
Common,
As you see it,
(1) What is the source of our obligation to the plight of others?
(2) What is the scope of our obligation to the plight of others? (Ie, non-economic plight?)
(3) Who gets to define plight?
(4) If society says that there is no plight, then does that mean there is no plight, or is society wrong? If so, by what objective standard?
(5) If the average salary is say $40,000 and a plight individual is only making $12,000, is it our obligation to bring him up to the average (40k) or some figure between the two?
Thanks,
Prof. Ricardo
Common,
Your answer to:
(1) "Living in the same society."
Says who? Why should that position be given weight over any other position? By what authority?
(2) "Common good defined via representative democracy and collected via pooled federal tax."
So it is economical only. Check.
(3) Who gets to define plight?
"We the people."
Check.
(4) If society (we the people) says that there is no plight, then does that mean there is no plight, or is society (we the people) wrong?
"Society is wrong."
So there is a standard, a decider, that can judge “we the people.” So “we the people” don’t decide, they just act like the decide as long as they agree with______ which is the real standard for deciding what plight is and how to deal with it. So, what is _______ ?
"Plight has always been with us, and always will. The measure of a society is how it deals with the least among us, not how many $ millionaire's we create."
I do not disagree with this statement. However, it is highly unlikely that the plighted will improve on their own in a society that is stagnant in producing people with wealth.
If so, by what objective standard?
"See #3."
Not if they are wrong (judged by) some other standard.
(5) "We the people can define fairness as we choose within the limits of our economic system."
Unless “(s)ociety is wrong.” Whoever decides if society decided rightly or wrongly is he who defines fairness.
Prof. Ricardo
Yoshi,
Good to see you again my friend.
Normally, I do not consider anything anything affiliated with the White House (especially the press corps) to be worth any of my time whatsoever. But hey, I’ll try to be open minded. Its possible that I might not puke over it.
Man is so easily corruptible . That is why it is harder to get a camel through the eye of a needle than for a wealthy man to get into heaven. However, God is not against with blessing people with wealth.
And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he prayed for hi friends, and the Lord increased all that Job had twofold. ... And the lord blessed the latter days of Job more than the beginning, and he had 14,000 sheep, and 6,000 camels, and 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys., Job 42:10,12
Since man is so easily corruptible, that is why giving him control over his fellow man, and his fellow man’s pocket book, is an easy way to corrupt the politician and have all kinds of mischief take place. Thus the need for the rule of law and minimal government. There is very little difference between your rich man that you despise and the politician who controls the rich man's money for his own purposes, except it is easier for a politician to spend money that cost him nothing and he has nothing to lose by making a bad decisions. Notice there is no restitution by politicians.
Re: Thomas quote
But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.”, Jude 9.
Prof. Ricardo
Yoshi,
“Buffet and Gates, two private individuals, are not stupid. They are INVESTING in the world's future. They aren't giving "aid", they are investing.”
I’m not always clear in my responses. My mother always said I would argue with a fence post. I guess that’s why blogs interest me.
My main point is that we should not equate helping the poor, or other great goals, with government programs. The beauty of the Buffet and Gates philanthropy is that it was not coerced. It was totally voluntary. It would be so easy to hoard it but they are seeing that money for the sake of money will not have a lasting impact for the future the way their foundations can.
As wonderful and big as their numbers are, the millions donated by the little guy dwarf it. But a lot of people think philanthropy is purely in the government’s domain. And as you know the more money you pass through the governments hands, the more corrupt the politicians become and the greater the inefficiency of the money being delivered.
With the Gates foundation, they probably won’t let go of the money without knowing precisely where and how the money will be spent.
“the implication from you ... is that INVESTMENT (my new word for "aid") is a waste of money that is stolen by undemocratic blah, blah, blah.”
My deal is, you see how beautiful it looks when it is voluntary? That is a great characteristic that we should applaud and imitate. Some help the African needy, some adopt crack babies, others give discarded items to AmVets, some money to the Heart Association, etc. We all see a need. We can all do something, a million different ways. What God lays on you heart, spreading the gospel, helping the poor, visiting the aged in retirement centers (my kids are doing a play in a retirement home this afternoon), we can all see a need either in our own neighborhood or across the world. A case in hand is a family from my church where the young father died of liver cancer. Many dozens came together to help out this family. Meals for six twice a day were brought to the hospital for family members. A different man each night from our church stayed in his hospital room each night from 7p-9a every night for the 5 weeks he was in the hospital. While I was not helping Africa, I & many others were helping a brother in need. There is a need for all kinds of help the world over. It’s obvious your calling is Africa and similar situations. Our family has multiple ministries that we participate in that will never hit the news like Bill Gates billions - and it shouldn’t. We didn’t do it to be recognized. But when my government chooses to take a larger portion out of my annual income, I have less to do those ministries that God has called me to do, so that some politician can do his “ministries” the he feels called to do, which may be as ungodly as the devil himself, like abortion.
“...Professor, don't let them influence you into cynicism about the ONE Campaign...”
I am not against the help, only using the inappropriate method. There are things government should do. Philanthropy is not one of them. It is morally abhorrent to take one man’s property to give to another man purely to right some perceived injustice of the recipient, not the fault of the taxed individual.
Prof. Ricardo
Yoshi,
“Prof? What do you think about Pastor Rich Warren, the "Purpose Driven Life" guy?... I'm sure Rush though smugly mocks him.... maybe not directly, but he mocks his causes...”
To use a metaphor you might like, Rush is a tough nut to crack. He doesn’t comment on religious issues like you would think. He’s quite evasive when callers make some Bible or Christian comment and he redirects it to political issues - probably not to step on anyone’s religious toes.
This blog may not be the right forum for me to comment on Pastor Rick Warren, but I’ll give you a synopsis.
Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback is another highly successful proponent of the Church Growth Movement (CGM). Schueller(sp?) was before him. They had them in the late 1800's and all the way back to the first century. In my opinion, they compromise the mission of the “Church” with dilution of content, both in preaching, praising, and maturity of members.
He has many great ideas, but he is a salesman. If reading him and participating in the Purpose Drive Life will bring you closer to God and your “purpose” in life, do not let me be the Grinch that stole that from you. But his use of watered down paraphrases of the Bible drives me nuts. The Message Bible is so far removed from a translation that it is embarrassing to see it used in a service.
If you want further info, email me.
Prof. Ricardo
I went to Vegas to do some work for my favorite charity and I return and you guys have really gone off on a tangent.
Prof and Yoshi: I guess I am excited to see such worthy ideals for humanities sake but the older I get the more "British" my attitude becomes. And by that I mean, British in the sense of "Imperial British." They colonized Africa and India for their own economic purposes and really didn't care if the local population got any "democratization." But they did open these people up to liberal educations. India in the end seemed to get it (Ghandi was a British educated attorney) and not much is left of imperial Britain in Africa.
I have always thought our greatest export is our culture. Give them iPods and Gameboys and the hearts and minds of their youth will eventually follow.
In that sense, the Muslims get it and (it pains me to say this) I agree with Rumsfield we are in a culture war. It will be hot and cold for many years to come but our culture is so insidious that you cannot keep us or our ideas out. The Chinese are finding this out everyday.
Worldwide Caliphate? Never happen. These folks still represent warring tribes and religious factions. You can only have a worldwide caliphate when you can control information. You can't do this anymore. For $50 bucks in any country in the world you can buy a satellite dish and point it to the sky. The western world is yours 24/7. Why such violence now? We are in the last throws before the Islamic world realizes that they can no longer control their people and what info gets in their brains.
They will choose to use our technology to combat our culture with their own programming. Unfortunately, once you give them al-jazeera they can also get MTV and HBO. I read an interesting article on that this is happening right now on a large scale in Egypt.
Will this cause the war to end next year? No. But over the long haul, we will have the minds of their youth and they will all be consumers. You will know we won, when the Riyadh Disneyland opens in 2020.
Common Good: “Jeeze Prof... look around. We ain't getting it done. Please don't tell me we would be dealing with the immorality just fine if we all just got more of our taxes back. There isn't anyone here that will buy that nonsense. ”
George Benard Shaw once said: “England and America are two countries separated by a common language.” I feel like you and I are that way. We both speak English, but I can not decipher your code.
“We ain’t getting it done.”, “Looked around a bit Prof? How do you think you private only guys have done.”, “...of very little consequence other than personal conscience's... i.e. ain't worth jack in the global scheme...”, “that's just a process ideology that has proved itself a miserable failure for the existence of this globe.”
It sounds like you are saying that (1) all that has been done so far has been private, and (2) if it had worked there wouldn’t be poor, hunger, AIDS, bad officiating at basketball games, and any other atrocity that is bothering you.
#2 - If everyone started with a million dollars today (forget the economic effect of hyper inflation caused by such a feat), in one year some people would be broke, some wives would still be beaten, some children would still be abandon, some people will still get AIDS through promiscuity, some people would still die of cancer, some dictators would still slaughter their citizens, some droughts and floods will still happen, some hurricanes and tsunamis would still kill, maim and destroy property. Jesus said, “the poor you will have with you always.” That was not a wish, but a fact. There will always be people in need. To say look around me as though if personal philanthropy had worked, Utopia would have been achieved, does not show a depth of wisdom I know you are capable of. Please rethink this as a “proof” of the failure of personal philanthropy.
#1 - Collectivist societies the world over have implemented countless programs, aids, projects, safety nets - choose your term. The correlation of increased collectivism to increased poverty and unhappiness is so readily apparent to even the willfully obtuse, its seems particularly strange that being electrocuted your answer is to turn up the juice. More of what causes poverty rarely rids the poverty. Increasing collectivism in this country could only be expected to duplicate the failures it has reaped in other countries.
Since we have what could safely be called a mature welfare state, from the New Deal forward increasing in size and scope in an exponential fashion, it is funny that you now look at the results and say, “lookie how volunteerism failed us.” Did you happen to overlook a few trillion dollars worth of collectivist effort when assessing the current pulse of need?
Take your paper and rewrite it with both eyes open and then turn it in at the end of class and maybe you’ll get a good grade and a lollipop to boot.
“Prof... I seriously have a fond spot in my heart for you...”
Oh...garshh. I like you too.
Prof. Ricardo
“Prof... maybe I understand why you are so cynical... it's no secret a liar doesn't believe anyone else....”
Maybe you can tell me what you meant by this.
P.R.
Hmmmm. Where to begin…where?
First, Prof and CG are having the old argument and I guess I should mark out my position. Or at least do so in brief. It puzzles me why things are always discussed in the extremes. It goes something like this:
CG: “We need to address this problem with a government program.”
Prof: “That is socialism and it has been tried and failed. Quit stealing my money.”
CG: “The GOPers are heartless laissez-faire pigs.”
Not that I do not enjoy the debate, but it puzzles me. I do not understand why there is so seldom a middle ground here or in national debate. It seems blindingly obvious to me that full tilt socialism is an abject failure. It might be how we wish things worked, but mankind is not up to the task. It is equally clear that full tilt market based economics is very unfair to a large number of people. Interestingly, last night on Charlie Rose, I heard Gates and Buffet making this exact point.
I agree with Prof in that much of what passes for egalitarian programs are illegal grabs of theoretically constitutionally protected rights by the majority. That said, I do not necessarily believe we should not have those programs either. I am arguing here against the legal basis of our current law.
In other words, while I agree with CG up to a point that shared needs should be publicly supported, I do not believe a majority vote is (or should be) constitutionally adequate to deprive Prof of his life, liberty or property. I think our current idiotic majority rule mentality has a number of defects including a few the left does not consider. That defect being that anything that can be enacted by 51% can be undone thereby too. Far better in my view to determine what our true shared needs are and put them on a solid constitutional footing
In other words, we need to be serious and mature about such things and not do the two-party tango. This left-right dichotomy just reduces intelligent people to arguing extremist positions that ultimately do very little good.
Guy,
I sort of agree with your point on iPods and Gameboys, but I think you are missing the key ingredient: accession to wealth.
I really do not see that it is our culture per se that overwhelms other cultures; I think it is the material wealth that brings the culture along with it. Capitalism was big in Japan before Disney. What we have is not so much a culture war as an economic disparity.
You are correct when you say, “These folks still represent warring tribes and religious factions”, but they are only able to get traction because of the poverty of the people they are nominal advocates for. To step up to another level of conflict, the wars in Europe only began to decline once the shared economic success became a reality.
This is at the center of the problem I have had with “nation building” in the Middle East from the start of the neo-con vision. You can’t drop the concepts of separation of church and state on Islam and have it work because of its practical (or moral) superiority. The whole notion does not compute. But, you encourage market principals and let them work it out for themselves and all things are possible because as you suggest, after they are fed, the iPod desires will drive greater egalitarianism internally and better behavior in the international community.
Right on point Tony. I left a very important factor out of my equation. These young men need jobs. Without the ability to generate an income you cannot participate. (Or if not jobs, at least distribution of royalty checks to one and all).
With regard to democracies, I was arguing with a colleague the other day that prior to the Declaration of Independence, there was a traditon of formal representative democracy in America that went back at least a hundred and fifty years and an intellectual discussion of the nature of liberty that had gone on at least hundred years before that. It reached, in my opinion, it fullest discussion in John Locke and bore fruit in the Declaration of Independence.
Yet, we presume to show up to shake and bake a democracy in under two years. Not going to happen.
Having interceded in Iraq, we are going to be there for the longhaul to (1) protect the oil; (2) stay close to Iran and (3) wait for the Iraqis to stand up.
I am going to opt out of the socialism vs. volunteerism debate for now.
Yoshi: “...you are so indifferent to massive global emergencies, that kind of displays a little about your personality...”
Actually, I’m not indifferent at all. You perceive that because I protest the METHOD of collecting and distributing the aid.
My daughter just told me this week that she wants to be a missionary, to go out and help others and spread the Gospel. That is quite the commitment to want to travel to and live among peoples, meeting their needs, winning their respect, and sharing the Living water that will satisfy for more than a day. Does such a desire in my offspring evidence an indifference to massive global emergencies?
What I have against the method you choose is:
(1) - There is no authority in the Constitution to do it.
(2) - It is immoral to do bad to do good.
....(a) taxing for public works are necessary and benefit all (highways).
....(b) taxing to reallocate wealth is arrogant elitism.
....(c) private wealth are not public works.
(3) - It is inefficient.
....(a) it has people spending other peoples money (no incentive to economize).
....(b) it is money spent on other people (no incentive to get exact need).
....(c) it has horrible administrative losses.
....(d) it is more prone to corruption than private charities.
....(e) it is at the mercy of political whim, posturing, & compromise.
(4) - It’s unaccountable.
....(a) no way to define poverty.
....(b) no way to define success if it is working.
....(c) no provision to cut funding if it is unsuccessful.
....(d) in fact, a failure only creates a greater need for the method itself, thus ensuring a continuation of the jobs created by it. The old 'survival becomes the overriding goal of all programs created.'
....(e) failure demands greater funding of the failing program.
(5) - History bears out my account. Your account, though noble, though compassionate, though hopeful, goes against experience.
Can I Yoshi, after having read countless news articles, after studying the history of man, knowing his temptations and fallen bent, studying economic theory and what provides man incentive and disincentive in support of all the forgoing, Can I knowing all of this accept a poorer stewardship of our common generosity? What if I feel the need is not for poverty but global warming? Why worry about AIDS if everybody is burned to a crisp? Isn’t that the greater need? Who are YOU to say I’m wrong? And what about snail darters, Kangaroo rats, baby seals, and spotted owls? Are you going to callously turn your face from these needs? How about teenage pregnancy in this country? Childhood obesity? Cancer? What about......?
Yoshi there are tens of thousands of causes to champion. All of them important to somebody. Each will receive the economic attention people are willing to give it. Before income taxes in the 1800's people established libraries, universities, hospitals, help for the poor, unwed mothers, and sponsored underprivileged children’s school tuition. It was all done before a single politician lifted a single finger. They don’t tell you about it on the news or the school textbooks and so the public is utterly clueless. They think, if the government doesn’t do this, it wont get done, thus ignoring actual history in our own country. It is the lack of knowledge about our history that drives people to make incorrect assumptions about the future.
If you choose to send $25 billion more to these causes via government, you have taken money out of other’s pockets that they now do not have to go to worthy goals they have so that yours, or who ever was strong enough politically to get his championed, will be funded. How elitist. How selfish. How arrogant for anyone to say, “ I feel so strong about this cause, that not only will I send my money, but I demand that everybody else contribute to my cause regardless of what causes others may be led to champion.”
Indifferent? Hardly.
Prof. Ricardo
CG,
I’m actually more in the Prof camp when it comes to identifying successful government social largess. I just don’t see it. At one time I would’ve put social security in that camp, but that has run amok too.
This is different from saying I do not think it is possible to have successful government social programs. Different too from saying that I do not desire such a thing. As you have pointed out ad nauseum, we need agreement first on what the goals are. We have a mechanism for reaching well defined agreement on what the government should be doing in a free society: its called the Constitutional Amendment process.
You see, the half-assed approach of addressing such things through majority-rule is what leads to ineffective solutions that are subject to the whims of the next election cycle. The liberals in America are just as stupid as the Conservatives on this point. The voters sadly just don’t get it.
Which brings us back to education. But that is a truth you and nobody else seems too interested in hearing.
Hey, I just thought of a highly successful government program in the 20th Century. It lead to economic prosperity and better conditions for all but a relative few unlucky souls: the Second World War. Maybe that was the model Shrub was actually using when he invaded Iraq.
I think the problem is fixed!
Yoshi: “Already today on account of foreign aid, Uganda has had tremendous success fighting AIDS, for example.”
Here is a comparison of Zimbabwe and Botswana. I’m sure they wont post this to the ONE Campaign site.
As far as permission from the constitution, yada, yada, yada, it is a public good. If millions of Americans demand it... it's legit... period.
A pure democracy...which goes against your previous post stressing our Representatives. If the Constitution is of no effect, then the rule of law, the protections of the Constitution, and any difference between us and a banana republic is pure window dressing. You know better than to throw out a reckless comment like that. . . . . don’t you?
It's not a "bad" to make a "good." That just sounds really, really stupid.
The ends justify the means. Reminds me of a Monty Python movie where the surgeons came to a guy’s house to collect his liver since he had signed a donors card. He said he thought the collection would happen after he died. The need for the liver existed. The means was to take from another living soul. If the means is bad, you can not use it to do good. Hitler was purifying the Aryan race. With such a noble goal, how bad can the means be?
Letting millions of people die when we have the means to stop it, that's just stupid. Period.
And employing failed socialist methods that have proven to exacerbate the problem is smart?
What you are thinking about, regarding history, is that brief moment of history you grew up in, where we paid gangsters to be our friends against the Soviet Union... and now we say the money was stolen or wasted. Yea, duh, that was the intention...
My study of history goes back thousands of years to current day world events. I’m always learning, always seeking. The best I have been able to ascertain from multiple sources over the past couple of decades does not differ from the Walter Williams commentary I quoted above.
As for all the "pet" causes in the world, this isn't a cause, it's an emergency.
According to somebody’s opinion. And tree sitters think theirs is the most pressing issue as well. You can’t stand as emperor of humanity and command all humans, “Thus saith Yoshi...” It is important to you and other people. You people need to pool your efforts and go and change the world. Allow others to pool their efforts and their money, and in their own way go and do the same.
Prof. Ricardo
CG, “Is your position that our current Constitution as written outlaws collecting Federal taxes for public good?”
Apparently public good includes everything. As an all inclusive term that covers what men may want to do with other’s money, the answer would be no. I would be curious what you would not include as “public good” that no one else would label as such. I think it is in the public good to have a Christian nation and folks not burn in hell. However, that “public good” is not for me to fund with others money. For me to force Common Good to use his money (via the Fed.) would be arrogant and selfish of me to do so, and thievery to boot.
Am I consistent?
Yoshi, “I just hope you ultimately get the grace you would deny to others...”
Yoshi, God bless you, but you have a mental block. I hope 10 Trillion dollars flow to Africa. Can you top that? Having the federal bureaucrats and UN child abusers skim 50% off the top, and the funds flow into tyrant’s hands does not seem like good stewardship of those monies. You act as though my Christianity hinges on embracing redistribution of wealth rather than the blood of Christ. Socialism is not a percentage of funds allocated to a specific program, but a type of government that does not respect private property rights.
QUESTION: If a government has a noble goal, say eradicating poverty and world hunger, does it have the RIGHT to take as much money - say 90% of the citizens wealth - to accomplish that goal? I didn’t ask if it was a good idea. I ask, does it have the RIGHT? And you say......
Prof. Ricardo
Yoshi,
I think maybe you were a bit harsh on ole Prof. He takes things well I must say which is a good attribute for hanging around here. After all, the nicest poster here is a Lawyer…pretty rough stuff. He may lose that though if he hangs here much.
Well, I never meant to suggest that there were zero government social programs that were successful. More along the lines of the vast majority of them not working out so well.
Seems to me the most successful of the public endeavors of governments generally are infrastructure funding. The best examples of course are roads. Look at Germany and the boom created by the autobahns and the US and the vast rewards of the Interstate Highway System (a greater achievement on the part of Eisenhower than any of his others including during the war). Public Health I believe is another area. By Public Health I’m referring specifically to things like disease eradication and control.
I think the common denominator for success is clear well defined goals and objective criteria to test the results by. These attributes do not eliminate waste, but they certainly limit it.
I’m not for writing blank checks and creating open-ended entitlements except in narrow cases where there is broad enough support for a Constitutional Amendment. We should seek to implement market based solutions wherever possible. When the market fails us, then we should seek to implement solutions that bring as much market based incentives to bear as possible. Large publicly ran programs should be avoided if possible. Unfortunately, it is simply not reasonable to avoid the government running some things.
So, what I mean is that I am closer to Prof in terms of guiding principals but I do not follow him in his desire to strangle the government to death. Still, I used to be a looneytarian, so I find more substance to his ideas than perhaps you do.
C.G.: “drop the special tax treatment of churches and religious entities, and we can talk further.
Not that you wanted to go down this rabbit trail, but....
There are many non-profit organizations and a religious organization is only one type. Non-Profits can be Churches, schools, colleges, universities, hospitals & medical research organizations, and private foundations. The church of Satan and Wiccan organizations can also be non-profit. It would be difficult to argue that Christianity is getting some benefit that other non-religious entities are not getting.
Additionally, contributions to a church are not really income. It is a voluntary gift. Some churches or religions may require some percentage, but then membership is voluntary and the obligation is usually to the deity and not for any “service” performed. The pooled gifts of the congregation are then used to pay expenses and fund ministries. There is no stockholder or other owner that is reaping some income. What ever the preacher or other employees receive is either on a W2 or a 1099 as self employment income.
I assume you are aware that gifts to you are not taxable to you. Under current tax law somebody can give you up to $12,000/year without a gift tax return. If that amount is exceeded then the giver files the gift tax return, not the recipient.
P.R.
CG,
I try to stay out of a thread and 10 posts later, someone takes a pot shot at me. ;)
As a newcomer, I think I must retract some earlier complaints about the pervasive pessimism in this group and thank Tony for e-mailing me enough to draw me in. You guys are entertaining to say the least and you are engaging in a vigorous idealistic debate that I haven't had since Western Political Thought II. I will have to retrieve my notes and see if my views have changed.
Having said that, I think that the debate lacks in that in takes too idealistic view from both sides. The world is neither good or bad. It is what it is and it has always been that way. That's not to say that we shouldn't try and change the human condition. Death and taxes seem to be the only certainty and continued human suffering.
Prof, "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's" and get on with life. I believe that Bill and Warren exist under the same tax code that you have complained so vociferously about.
Jesus and God, if all knowing and powerful, certainly have the ability to relieve all human suffering but choose not to. To me, that says something about the human condition. And when I step back and look at this speck of dust in the universe that we live on, it seems even more amazing that we are here at all.
There will be no enlightened Star Trekian Utopia in the 3rd millennium where all human suffering is eradicated and somehow we give up the pursuit of material wealth. As long as that is true, and it will always be so, some will be better than other, either through skill or fortuity, at wealth accumulation.
I say it again, we are kings in a rich land of opportunity by virtue of winning the uterus lottery.
What the poor and thirdworlders need are buses to get the hell out of the desert but then we are back to the immigration problem. (It will be interesting to note how many of the poor black New Orleans residents actually come back after leaving that hell hole. The Katrina Diaspora will have very intersting social consequences.)
"Public Good Freeloader" "Cut and Run", "Death Tax", "Stand down when they stand up" Its all just grist for the mill.
Despite 60 Billion in assets, I predict little will change. How's that for pessimism?
I think I hit as many bases and cultural references as anybody else. Done.
BTW - I do recognize that New Orleans residents are American citizens and not thirdworlders. But I was on a roll.
“That said, Prof would send the average Democrat off to commit suicide.”
Nah. It doesn’t do any good. It doesn’t stop them from voting.
P.R.
Guy, “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's...”
When you followed up that quote with this one, “Jesus and God, if all knowing and powerful, certainly have the ability to relieve all human suffering but choose not to.”, In order to more efficiently respond to you, it is necessary for me to know your religious convictions. May I have a summary?
Prof. Ricardo
Religious convictions? Prof, Guy is NOT a prosecutor you know.
Yoshi, another thing I have not said and certainly intended not to imply is the idea that private philanthropy will be automagically efficient. I’ve worked at some highly commercially successful companies that virtually define inefficiency. That said, the least efficient organization I have ever worked for was the FAA…and that isn’t even close.
My simplistic point being that whether you fund things publicly or privately, the pooch can still get screwed.
One of the things I’ve mentioned in the past that we only talked about a bit is something related to Yoshi’s observation about Gap manufacturing in Africa. I’ve never understood why we have given Africa so little attention over the years. Seems to me it is a continent begging for development dollars. Strategic planning coupling US government investment and private development could be a great win-win for the US and Africa. I think Gap manufacturing there is just fantastic news.
We should press hard to become a key benefactor in Africa for both humanitarian reasons and long term economic development of the United States. Granted, things are not so simple. As has been stated by many of us, you can’t just drop our economic and political model on people and have it automatically work. But if you start by creating some agricultural infrastructure and export oriented manufacturing facilities, the full bellies and better lives will work their own miracles.
“...another three days coming on frickin WORLDVIEWS. Oh my GOD!!!!”
Now your claiming He’s your God. Make up your mind. :-)
Prof. Ricardo
CG - I saw your research assignment and will look into it for a thoughtful answer. Without doing any research, I predict there will be a general law proscribing the leaking of state secrets and "classified" material and that it is felony to do so. The defense will be Freedom of Speech and the first amendment. Having set the parameters of the legal problem, I do not know at this time what the finer points will be.
Prof - Religious Convictions? I have never been convicted on religious grounds. I will deline to go into my views at this time in much detail but suffice it to say that I have always been a back bencher and troubled by the hypocrisy of organized religion. I do carry an ingrained set of judeo-christian set of values through which I view the world. I can say if you are wishing to test the depth of my convictions through my actions you would find very little evidence of outward religiosity.
CG,
Rather than making stuff up, or worse getting information from MoveOn.org, why not do an analysis with bonafide numbers.
Exxon/Mobile (in billions)
Gross Revenue........371.
Cost of Revenue.....(213.)
Gross Profit...........158.
Less:
. Operating Exp.......(97.)
Operating Income......61.
Less: Taxes............(23.)
Net Income,
. .After Taxes...........36.
After tax income/Gross Revenue = Profit margin
$36 billion / $371 billion = 9.7%
If this is a windfall, by all means sell your mutual funds and buy as much stock as you wish. I would assume other oil companies are the same. I’ll let you prove otherwise.
Prof. Ricardo
CG,
First, I studied classified documents very briefly in Federal Criminal Law and Guy is pretty much on target with what I remember. There were a number of executive orders that established the classification system and various classifiers. As I recall, the law (i.e. Federal Statutory Law) was sufficiently vague that anyone can be prosecuted who handles classified data and does anything more than just read it. Like most criminal law, intent is a big element. I believe all that is required for prosecution is 1) knowledge of the fact that the material is national defense related and 2) an intent to distribute that information. I believe the intent can be inferred from the old “known or should have known” intent standard.
On Net Neutrality, I don’t have much to say which isn’t pretty obvious. In my view this is extremely similar situation to the classic anti-trust litigation. The earliest litigation on anti-trust was over railroads giving each others access to bridges across rivers. I my aging brain is telling me the truth, I believe the case was over a railroad bridge across the Mississippi at St. Louis and was decided in favor of the railroads … of course, this was in a time where everything was decided in favor of the railroads.
Just to give you a perspective on how things never change, there was some case-law in place that was pretty amazing in order to protect the railroads. One particular doctrine of torts is the idea of “notice”. In other words, if certain things happen, you are on notice of the risk. At the time, contributory negligence was a COMPLETE bar to recovery in a tort action. So, if you were on notice, the other party was off the hook. Well, there were some suits against railroad related to bad markings for railroad crossings. The plaintiffs argued that there was no notice. Really, a cut and dried case when you think about it. Never fear, however, if you are a company that is a key cog in the economy. The courts actually supplied the RRs the legal defense they need. They said that trains are so big and obvious that they “provide notice of themselves”. Said differently, they said that you could not miss noticing a train unless you were contributory negligent. Said differently again, there were pretty much no facts on which you could recover against a RR for getting hurt at a crossing.
So, this is really nothing new. Sad, but not new.
C.G.,
Do you have any pics you can upload to the blog showing the thousands of years old thermometers they used? Thanks.
Prof. Ricardo
C.G.,
AP INCORRECTLY CLAIMS SCIENTISTS PRAISE GORE’S MOVIE
Prof. Ricardo
C.G.,
Here is a review by people who think like you.
Ask Mr. Science: The moral flaws of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.
P.R.
C.G.,
I mean, you don't really think it's a good thing spewing all of those exhaust fumes into the air we breath do you?
Nope. We use Green Mountain Energy as our electric company (the wind energy folks) and I counted 32 compact florescent bulbs in the house. Mostly I did the bulbs for the energy savings and Green Mtn for the environment, if you can believe it.
As far as exhaust fumes, I still drive America steel with a big V8, but it’s the $60 fill-ups that will get me burning rice. And its that monetary incentive that will shift other folks as well. At $73/barrel and double last years electric utility cost, there is plenty of incentive to conserve today.
Prof. Ricardo
If somebody asked me today quick, antoher four years of Bush or Four years of Gore as president, I hate to admit it but it would take me a long time to answer.
I haven't seen the movie, but Gore's reappearance has made me remember why I don't like him. (Yes, I am a democrat.)
An even harder question - Quick what's the difference between two planks of wood and a Gore - Kerry Ticket? . . . . Hold on, I'm thinking!
A president's approval rating at 33% and there's still a chance the democrats could pull defeat out of the jaws of victory.
Oh now I remember what Gore said that brought up those bad memories. On the Daily Show he stated that this movie is a way for him to get back to what he was talking about thirty years ago.
Thirty years ago?? That was when they were saying an ice age was coming.
It must have been when he was busing inventing the internet.
Guy: It must have been when he was busing inventing the internet
Thanks for the laugh Guy. I forgot how much carbonated beverages sting in the nasal cavity.
I can argue all day long how Bush has disappointed me. But the infatuation of many on the left with hating Bush at all costs has been amusing to say the least. He is an easy target for logical arguments, but when people start making stuff up they damage their reputation significantly. Gore’s near psychotic tantrums after he lost the Presidential election was a pathetic caricature of the man who was groomed from the womb for the presidency. It was not presidential at all.
I am glad he and others are so passionate about saving the planet. However, this doomsday “the sky is falling” cry is sure to work up more emotions than thinking and will further damage his reputation and internet inventing skills.
You correctly point out the cry of eminent ice age threat. Since then we were told we would run out of fuel before the 90's, that the earth would be uninhabitable by the 21'st century and a lot of that kind of stuff. When these times pass and the world still turns, we feel gullible and betrayed by those who supposedly knew better. That happened with the population scare, the ice age, the “energy crisis”, Reagon nuking the world silent, and Y2K.
After awhile you start thinking that Tony has a point. If their mouths are moving, they’re lying...or maybe that’s my point. Any way, that is one of the reasons I want smaller government. Less control of resources by those with an agenda.
I know it may look like I am selfish to want to keep money I earned. But selfishness does not go away when we are elected to office. No, it accelerates. Politicians rarely get poorer in office when they take “lower paying” public servant jobs. Power corrupts, absolute power....etc.
The noble goals of save the planet, feed the poor, insure the uninsured, often trample on the little guy, and if history is any guide, have the opposite effect of that which was intended.
Common and Yoshi think I’m a tad heartless, or at least insensitive to the needs of the impoverished. After years of studying the results of government action on “the war on poverty,” if I saw it having a negative effect (and I have), could I in good conscience endorse that which exacerbated the problem rather than achieved the goal? I do not criticize them for seeing a need and wanted to remedying it. However, there is a just method that accomplishes the goal IN THE MOST EFFICIENT WAY. (At this point tell Common Good to look away.) One’s philosophy of life and exposure and interpretation of history (ie, their world view) will either allow them to see these things or not. You must reconcile all thoughts with your world view to make sense of it. (You can look again C.G.) Some people have been expose to the false limited pie theory where if somebody is lacking, its because somebody else has it and its up to us (society) to socially engineer, or adjust these inequities. On the opposite end is the expanding pie/property rights theory that I have. Though not labeled as such, it was roughly what Adam Smith was talking about in Wealth of Nations.
C.G. doesn’t see it because he has filtered it through his worldview and since it doesn’t line up he discards it. Kind of sad, because with his compassion for the poor, to mis-channel it so does the poor a great disservice. (Cue the violin music)
Prof. Ricardo
Common, “In other words, I could be swayed from my position... you could not by definition.”
Not necessarily. There are people who have reconciled evolution to Scripture in their own minds. If I could be persuaded that my interpretation of certain scriptures to be wrong, then that could sway me independent of results. My current study of results is not contrary to my current standing on the issue. I do not claim that no good comes from taxing some for the benefit of a few. Were I to be the few receiving the money, I’m sure I would see that as “good.” So good that I would seek for it to be gooder, by increasing the amount I received, until I had received the goodest amount that could happen. :-D Gooderness may be in the wallet of the beholder.
Prof. Ricardo
CG - I don't know of an emoticon for tongue in cheek or I would have used it. But really, Gore? Can't we do better? As to your next question, who would be better. I don't have a great answer. I agree that Bush has re-affirmed the great american dream that anyone and I mean anyone can be president.
While I am optimistic about life, I am pessimistic about the two party system. Having said that, I did like Reagan, I liked Bush I, I liked Clinton. The past 6 years and the sustained acerbic discourse has left me feeling . . . (wait for it) . . . curmudgeonly. Obama, not ready for prime time. Biden. Looks good now that his hair has grown back in but the more he talks the less original he sounds.
I am looking for a fresh breath of air. A little known governor from a state whose can do attitude can change the way things work in Washington. An outsider with an air of irreverance and disdain for the political discourse that allows him to point fingers at both parties. A guy who can veto a spending bill but make you feel like the poor will still be taken care of and the military industrial complex will not collapse becasue of this veto. A politican who can make me feel good about my tax break on my hydrid car and that I am doing enough about the environment without cramping my need for material things. A guy who can say that he will get the best and brightest on it and doesn't choose the likes of Harriet Meirs or some closet neo-con or liberal freak who can pass through the eye of the needle. I want a politician who won't invoke either the wrath of god or his help and honor the seperation of church and state. One who won't try and tell me how to be religious and leave that to me. One who isn't dismissive of the other side because God's on his side. One who won't be the first to write constitutional amendments to limit people's rights. After an age of partisanship, a politican offers a hard fought battle but will still drink whiskey with the other side at the end of the day. I want an intelligent, well qualified moderate! (Man, that rant went on for longer than I thought it would.)
Oh yeah, Prof - I agree with your comment about the hatred of Bush. I do not respect him. What I am always puzzled by though is the ability of the right wing to decry this visceral hatred of Bush and not see that they had the same visceral hatred of Bill Clinton and now Hillary.
I told many of my conservative friends early in the Bush presidency that in the end he will make them fondly reminiscent of the Clinton years. I know they won't admit it, but I think they are starting too.
Finally, the answer on charity, voluntary or state mandated is . . . both. Moderation. The middle ground is usually where the truth lies especially in politics.
That's it. I have convinced myself. I am running in 2008. "I can see clearly now the rain has gone . . . I can see all obstacles in my way . . ." Come on, join in my campaign theme song. You know the words. "Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind . . . It's going to be a bright, bright sunshiny day"
When I am president, I promise to work as many obscure references to 70's pop music as possible into my state of the union speeches. I get it. It's bad world. Lighten up a little, there's plenty to go around. Have a Gameboy and do the dew.
Oh, yeah, have a Happy Fourth of July. Cue the Music!!
Bush: I don’t know what to get our country for its 230th birthday!
Clinton: How about a 210 year old country?
Yoshi,
Generally speaking, I am against governmental interference in dealing with nations, tarrifs, trade restrictions and all that. As a national security issue, if we need to limit trade, and there fore enrichment of countries like North Korea, I’m for it. I'm also against the “big fat checks” going to farmers. I want the free market there as well.
I once had a farmer get a $90,000 check for a shortfall in milk production. The shortfall was because he was going out of the dairy business. Yep, he cashed the check. THAT’s what happens when government gets in the business of redistributing wealth. It ain’t always pretty is it? There is not a department of concerned compassionate bureaucrats with furrowed brows interviewing weeping farmers with stories of woe. Fill out a form, check the right boxes, and get a heaping big serving of American compassion. If you’re a business its called a subsidy and if you’re an individual its welfare. But its not the storybook setting of the Peace Corp handing out bowls of porridge. Its distant and often ends up in the hands of those who should not receive it. Katrina FEMA mishandled funds were $2 billion. That’s over $6 for every man, woman, and child in America. And that’s just the mishandling of ONE governmental department on ONE event....and it doesn’t even get a second glance. We are so used to money going down the toilet - a billion here, a billion there - that it doesn’t affect us any more. We are jaded. Well you all are. It just reinforces why I want to limit government’s hand reaching deep into our pockets.
Prof. Ricardo
Guy,
Not to take anything away from your candidacy, but I'd vote for most of the folks who post here over anyone out there from either party that has a shot at the nomination. That probably says more about the sad state of affairs than it does about us.
Still, you would definitely get my vote because You Light Up My Life, though I fear your campaign would flicker out like a Candle In The Wind rather than taking flight like a Rocketman. The two major parties would definitely Celebrate your demise and swoon rhapsodical that Another One Bit The Dust. They would be Dancing on the Ceiling while they waited on the everyone to arrive in Convoy after Rocking though the night.
Sheeze, If I Had A Hammer, I'd beat my skull till I Hung My Head And Cried for doing that.
[Cue the lousy phony laugh track from Gilligan's Island]
Tony - Just Excellent.
All kidding aside - I guarantee my descritption of someone I would like to see run would be a winner. I nominate Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico.
CG?? A penny for your thoughts?
Prof - 2 Billion in mishandled funds. I do not dispute the number but in this free market it did trickle down and help the economy. The debit card is used at the strip club and turned into dollar bills. These are handed out generously in a open market bidding system that allows consumers to delegate their dollars to the most succesful dancer thereby weeding out the weak ones.
These dancers in turn poor this money back into the local economy spending it on food, beer, cigarettes and other essential items generating tax dollars for the local economy and putting money back into the tax coffers for use on public projects to rebiuld the city.
So 2 billion wasted? Nay, I say. These folks didn't keep the money, they spent it based on their most pressing needs just as Mr. Smith predicted.
Its as if a poltical convention came to town and all the politicians were given $2000 to pump up the local economy. They don't pocket it but spend it freely. Lifting all boats with the rising tide or storm surge you might say.
CG - I have talked many people off the ledge when they take the current situation to its ultimate conclusion. I think what many forget is that politics is a pendulum and for every action there is a reaction.
I know the two party system "seems" to have a throttle hold on the government but consider this:
Repubs control the all three branches of government. Why can't they get more of their agenda accomplished?
Too much infighting to be sure but its not just disagreements on policy details but it is also concern over the power in each branch of government. Yeah, your a republican first but then you become a senator. Your new constiuency is also legislative power. Despite the majority, you fight an executive who is on his way out. Establish your own power base and protect legislative authority. (See a resurgent Orin Hatch, Arlen Spector and Bill Frist willing to buck the execitive's agenda).
Your a conservative justice but you also realize that if you grant to executive broad powers in your decision this may work against you and prevent future courts from checking a powerful democratic executive in the future. So you decide to place some limits on the expanding executive.
If the unitarian executive was here, then why hasn't the president gotten any of his agenda through? Of course this also explains why in the face of a majority in both houses he still won't go to them to ask permission for any controversial programs. He can't control his party.
When the president was elected to a second term he stated that "he had some political capital and he was going to spend it." What happened to that? It evaporated and he didn't notice how perishable it was.
I always siad the best thing that ever happened to Clinton was the repubs taking over the house. It made him compromise and deal with the other side. Here the repubs have gotten exactly what they wished for but its like the rudder fell off the ship when they got to the smooth waters of control of every branch of government.
The best thing for Bush may also be a democratic majority in the Senate. He may actually have to deal with some people then. For every action, there is a reaction.
Yoshi: “I would like to not feel any responsibility towards anyone...
Sorry to hear that.
“ i'd like to just a little hedonistic lifestyle like good patriotic Americans should...”
??? Oh yea, you’re an internationalist. No borders kind of guy.
“but then that pesky little conscious just comes and gets in the way... some people call it Christianity...”
Actually Christianity is a lot deeper than a guilt trip.
I’ve discussed this previously, but I recap for you. The Christian inducement to help the poor is aimed primarily at the individual, then extending to the “body of Christ”, (ie, other Christians). It was not to petition Caesar for funds to pay people on your help list.
“ I used to think it was some kind of universal, intrinsic force everyone has, but apparantly not..”
No, you’re on to something. Confusion and misapplication are very widespread.
“So if you are against farm subsidies and for a level playing field, sounds to me like you think the ONE Campaign is in fact then a good idea,...”
Then you would be mistaken. Farm subsidies are corporate “leveling of a playing field..” Your compassion loses nearly all it compassionness when you choose to use other peoples money to assuage your conscious.
“Of course, it's also advocating some aid, aid that was already promised years ago...”
I’m all about keeping our promises. But I thought you were the one talking about other nations debt to our country being forgiven.
“And a tiny amount of aid at that... what is 7 cents from every 10 dollars?”
That’s why I want the government to send me that much for my “Make Professor Rich” campaign. Its only 7 cents from every 10 dollars. You wont miss it, and as Guy says it would “trickle down and help the economy.”
“Do you really think that will distort some kind of economic system we have?- (Guy addressed that wasted New Orleans money pretty well, btw.)”
You’re kidding. I thought C.G. argued against trickle down pretty well.
“Or mainly, you just don't think you've the right to tax, period?”
I wasn’t being ruder early, but this is evidence of what I said. You have a mental block. The concept is outside the box and I keep trying to explain it in different ways. Here it goes again....
I am not against taxing people. Never said it, you can't find it in any posts to the beginning of time on Curmudgeon or Wildershow archives. You equate taxing people at all as taxing people for non-Constitutional expenditures like “leveling the playing fields.” So when I say “don’t tax and spend money wrongly” you see that as “don’t tax and spend at all.” Secondly, you define compassion as not reaching into your own pocket to help another, but reaching into other people’s pockets. And when I say “don’t reach into other’s pockets, reach into your own,” you equate that much more compassionate act as having no compassion at all. Totally backwards. You who would try to accomplish your goals at no cost to yourself (...only 7 cents out of every 10 dollars...) are the supposed heros of compassion while those of us reaching down into our own pockets till it hurts are “just a little hedonistic lifestyle like good patriotic Americans should...”
“If that's what you think, we'll just write that off as a cute though bizarre idiosyncrasy...”
I think that says less about me...
Prof. Ricardo
CG, I’m tempted to write something lengthy, but I think I’ll just stop at telling you that was a very Curmudgeonly post.
Guy, keep trying to talk me off the ledge my friend. Please. It is drafty out here.
Common:
An MIT professor says: Al Gore is wrong. There's no "consensus" on global warming.
Prof. Ricardo
CG,
Welcome to my ledge. It is not a comfortable spot but at least there is a clear view.
I think Guy is right for the most part as far as he goes with his analysis. I don’t think any one thing spells our doom. That said, there are a lot of little things that point to our doom and as I have said way too many times, the pace of the incremental destruction is accelerating. Most importantly, the only potential check on the destruction, an educated and informed electorate, has been thoroughly destroyed itself.
While Guy is correct to point to the historical pattern (as I often do myself), it is important to note that there is good reason to believe things will not follow the historical pattern. Of course that depends on what you call history. If we take a shorter-term but still arguably grand view from 1980 forward, I believe we have a new pattern of increasing centralization of power without concurrent implementation of liberty-preserving controls.
At the risk of being overly repetitive, I think the greatest single risk to Liberty is one I bring up here regularly but which we seldom discuss: the increasing bond between big government and big business. The scary statist vision that we are incrementally slouching toward is not Socialist, but rather Fascist. I’m not saying that full fledged fascism has arrived or necessarily ever will in its mid-twentieth century form. But, increasing centralized control coupled with big business leveraging regulation for competitive advantage is slowly and surely giving us many of the attributes of fascism.
We even have our group to cast blame on.
It is strange to me that so few question directly the form which regulation is taking. Oh, it gets some buzz from time to time, but it dies in the press quickly. Has anybody besides me noticed that the traditional service station has ceased to exist? And if you have noticed, have you bothered to ask why?
Tony - I will try to talk you off the ledge and I will do a thoughtful response to the increasing bond between big government and big business.
In the meantime, check this article out: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200607/purple-west
I don't think that worked, so I emailed it to you.
C.G.
PR:"The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate."
C>G>: That's good enough to get my relieve..
You cut that quote like a Democrat. Let’s include a few more words: “...the infamous "summary for policy makers" reported ambiguously that "The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate."”
ambiguously - unclear, perplexing, puzzling, bewildering, confusing.
I get the feeling that there is some connection to arguing against the possibility of global warming and fundamentalist Christian belief. Is that so?
Not exactly. There is a need for a certain political persuasion to have victims, because government is their savior, and therefore they need victims who need to be saved. Poor, environment, cute fuzzy animals, sodomites, etc. That has allowed these people to embrace the threat of global cooling and global warming within the same decade, with the answer to both coming from government intervention limiting the rights of man. It is this victim chasing that arouses suspicion.
In the same way that we define inflation, when something is overused it becomes cheapened. For instance: child abuse is a terrible thing. But when we start labeling chastisement or withholding a child’s wants as child abuse, we cheapen the real concept and fact of child abuse. And in the same way for marriage. If marriage is not just between a man and a woman, but two creatures that breathe and can walk upright for a few feet, cheapens the concept and actuality of marriage. The liberal art of finding and defining victims, creating, expanding, and pinning a government program on to the newly found victims to relieve their guilty consciences cheapens the real need that exists and a real compassionate response to it. It nearly makes me physically ill to see millionaire Hollywoodites fly their Lear jets across the globe for a photo shoot next to a cute small black child with a bloated stomach (How come ugly children don’t starve?!?) And then they rush off to throw a $2 million party telling their friends how they gave 4 days and $10k to help the poor. I am sure they do feel better about themselves.
There is a somewhat Christian connection to the global warming rebuff, but it’s a discussion for believers only. Those not in the daily reading of scripture have nothing to hang the discussion concepts on.
Prof. Ricardo
Prof, Isn't most of scientific theory non-absolute?
Yes. Most scientific theory deals with temperatures far above absolute...zero. :-)
P.R.
CG:
"There is a somewhat Christian connection to the global warming rebuff, but it’s a discussion for believers only."
See Moby Dick by Herman Melville. If you need further illumination let me know.
CG:
See also In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
CG:
See also the works and writings of Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642).
Hmmm. Post-modern Christianity. I like the term…I may have to steal it. And don’t fret Yoshi, you WON’T get credit. :-D
Guy, I thought you were going to talk me in from the ledge. Instead, you reached out and gave me a pretty strong shove. Fortunately, I cling to hope fairly zealously. A link that makes a good case for the Democratic Party waxing powerful again is about as depressing of a read as I can envision.
Perhaps your point of encouragement to me is that we can get back to the days of glorious deadlock? That friction applied to the downward spiral would indeed bring me a weak smile, but ultimately I do look for a little progress.
Tony - e-mail CG the article please. The purpose was not to scare you about democrats coming back to power but merely to point out that for every action there is a reaction that is many times unintended. In this case, the turning of the west from red to blue.
CG - The point of the references is not that Jesus is coming but the long-standing and historical hostility between science and religion. This is not to say that all religious people are narrow minded flatlanders.
But, when you tell them that we are not the center of the universe there is a natural hostility to this proposition. (Galileo/Copernicus) This is the most obvious reference. I leave out evolution for the time being.
With regard to Moby Dick - The terror or subtext to Moby Dick (one among many) is that one of God's beasts, whom he gave us dominion over, would ever retaliate or harbor a human trait such as vengeance.
Nantucket Whalers were the oilmen of their day. Their oil lit the lamps of the world and greased the wheels of industry. They were mining a natural resource in a very brutal fashion. They were also deeply religious. They viewed whaling as their God given right and when a leviathan seems to take vengeance upon them, it throws their view of the natural order of things completely out. If God gave them dominion, how could this beast not go along with this natural order? If this beast was visiting vengeance upon them, was it God who was speaking to them? If God was displeased then their whole world view was subject to questioning.
In the context of global warming, if we are given dominion over the earth to be fruitful and multiply, then how can these efforts cause anything that is contrary to God's plan? If so, then either Global warming is a false alarm that we need not pay attention to or it is simply the will of God. The fact that Prometheus (science) brings us this knowledge only arouses more suspicion. (Thought I would work in an oblique Frankenstein reference for you, Tony.)
This is not to make fun of any religious beliefs (I am liberal for goodness sakes) but merely to point out the historical context of the debate.
The debate continues as we were spared total destruction when some of the universal debris passed us by this morning rather than clobbering the rock that we live on. Question: If an asteroid does destroy our planet before Jesus comes, does that mean the second coming is off or merely delayed for another billion years? Should we spend any money to defend ourselves against an asteroid? I mean we all know that's not how the world is going to end, right?
CG - IMHO the beautiful thing about the founders is that they thought about these things and debated them vigorously. Individual Freedom v. Collectivism - the great debate. The great compromise between the representation of the House and Senate. Big States v. Small States.
Yoshi & Common,
Stop it. Stop it. Your killing me. My side hurts from laughing. With tears of laughter I will once again state truths beyond your world view.
"I’ve discussed this previously, but I recap for you. The Christian inducement to help the poor is aimed primarily at the individual."
“-that's absolute silliness. You are the one with the mental block on that. Why not 2 individuals, why not 3, why not... etc. etc.”
Apparently you failed to read the next sentence and identify what the “body of Christ” means.
After individual I wrote: “..., then extending to the “body of Christ”, (ie, other Christians).” Those would be the “2" or “3" or any other number of individuals.
Since we are probably all concordance cripples, I invite you to bible.crosswalk.com to do a Bible search. I searched for “poor”, “poverty”, “in need”, and “hungry” and read the verses found. Sure enough all verses call for either an individual to do something or a group of Christians to do something. Not once did I see this ministering apply to governments or through governments.
James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
“Oneself” I would assume would be a very individual kind of person.
I have numerous other verse, but not the time to waste on material that will be ignored. :-(
John 21:20 Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them...21 When Peter saw him, he asked, "Lord, what about him?" 22 Jesus answered, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me."
“You must follow me.” Salvation is an individual effort. You can only decide for yourself. Given that, then the fruits you must exhibit must be individual to. That doesn’t mean that you can not band together with like minded folks and accomplish your goals. The One Campaign has 2.5 million - THEY can ban together to accomplish their goals. Being voluntary does not mean running a solo act. It means not using funds from those who are not on board with the One Campaign. If I want to save the speckled wombat, it is unconscionable for me to have your money accomplish my goals. And oh yea, vice versa.
And unless Common Good has changed his tune, he is intellectually bound to oppose government doing the “god’s list” purely on a anti-theocracy, separation-of-church-and-state argument. Of course, hypocrisy car rear its head in the most interesting places.
Prof. Ricardo
Yoshi,
“I don't remember any of them saying charity was limited to "the body of Christ," ie, only Christians as defined by Professor Ricardo. That's just bizarre.”
It sure would be if I had said it. But alas, the block is getting larger and not smaller. Let us recap:
Yoshi said you’d like to be a hedonist but a conscience prevents you and you equated it with being Christian(“...some people call it Christianity”).
Because YOU brought Christianity into the arena of ideas, I said “The Christian inducement to help the poor is.....blah, blah, blah.” In this statement I did not say only one person can help others (you made that up.) I did not say non-Christians can’t help others (you made that up to). I was saying from a scriptural basis the charges that Jesus and the disciples gave the Christians were directed foremost to an individual responsibility, but not necessarily to be fulfilled by themselves. Charity is not limited to “the body of Christ”, but I was referring to the inducement of Christians. I realize my public education leaves a lot to be desired, but I do not think my poor writing style would prevent an objective minded person from seeing what I actually meant here.
I’ve got some way out there ideas. :-) But I’m spending time defending things you THINK I said, when in reality I did not say it.
BTW, have a happy & safe Independence Day.
Prof. Ricardo
Common,
“Of course here you don't mean like minded in regards to helping the poor... you mean like minded in religious beliefs. Wow.. can you say Taliban?”
You know C.G., talking to a Philistine such as yourself about Biblical concepts is, no offense intended, casting pearls before pre-bacon. But you make doing it so fun.
Let me insert religious disclaimer. Ie, why you don’t get it.
1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
So, when I tell you that I don’t think it is forbidden that I band with the heathen to help a person in need, I miss out on one of the great blessings.
Matthew 5:16 “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”
As Christians helping out those in need, we can point to the source of the charity and let God receive the glory. The heathen’s source is personal guilt. I know you don’t understand that.
“Obviously the like minded folks restriction only applies to matters of money, because you are here discussing such matters with an obvious infidel.”
I wont tell my pastor if you wont. :-)
“Prof, you sneaky devil... have you been proselytizing me here the whole time...”
Duh! Your wife holding one heal and me the other we’ll drag you through the Pearly Gates kicking and screaming. (Technically, it has to be of your own free will - so don’t get your hopes over the dragging scenario.)
Happy 4th!
Prof. Ricardo
UHHH . . . Tony . . . Can we get a new thread? This one seems to have played out. Uncle . . . I give . . .
I don't want to play bible quotes. Although this does put a big red X on what I hate about politics today.
Oh yeah, well my God says that you’re going to hell!! Oh no, infidel, you're going to hell!!
You godless liberal, if you're OK with gay marriage then your going to hell!!
That kind of talk always puts me in the mood for good political discourse. There seemed to so many Old Testament Christians running about. Eye for and Eye, Tooth for a Tooth. Follow these rules or your going to hell!! Believe as I do or your going to hell!! Oh yeah, well I know what the bible really says!!
Man, what happened to the Sermon on the Mount and turn the other cheek? Angry Christians always seems like such an oxymoron.
I know Ben Franklin was a big drunk at the Constitutional Convention; I am sure he's in hell. And don't get me started on that Miscegenating Thomas Jefferson. Fathering children not only out of wedlock but also with a slave girl. There's got to be a prohibition against that. And that freemason, slave-owning sonofabitch George Washington. He's most definitely in hell. Oh yeah and that Lincoln guy, suspending the writs of habeas corpus. Well, that was probably OK. But he was gay, right? Well, that puts him in hell.
I could go on but I won't. I grow weary of throwing stones.
I'm working on a new post...it is getting hard to not repeat my past stuff now. I probably will start revisiting old ideas with new twists and take my chances with the redundancy police.
CG - No Tony did not forward the memo containing the brief personality profile on each of you. I am still here and I am starting to question what that says about my personality. Enjoying the discourse and filling in the presumptive blanks on my own for each of your profiles.
Let me also say that the current discourse led me to my last post but you guys are not yet just damning each other but I took off on that. I'm sure the damning will come soon. But in my view it does point out the problem with discourse today.
On the one side, since you are not Christian enough you cannot properly understand my position and therefore my dialogue is reduced to rhetoric. On the other, since you think that the world is only 5,000 years old you are obviously not intelligent enough to participate in the discourse either. Therefore, we sit back and throw rhetoric at each other rather discuss substantive issues.
This is not a criticism of this group specifically though I see seeds of it here but a general discussion of the discourse that occurs in society today.
Why would I negotiate, negotiate or compromise politically with someone who I have determined is less worthy or of such poor intellect? These are extremes but I think if you reduce some of what is being said today, this is its essence.
In the US it takes on the character of flame throwing discourse. i.e. "The Godless Liberal" Ann Coulter being the most obvious proponent on the right and Al Franken on the left although he is much funnier than Ann.
Outside the West, it gets a bit more serious with let’s just destroy those who are inhuman enough to have a different point of view. Iraq being the most poignant example.
Guy,
I have to say that vitriol is not the norm. Prof, CG, and Yoshi have been going at this for some time and I think they are very civil in a way. But if you think this is rambunctious, you should see CG and I or DavidR and I go after it sometimes.
Stay tuned...things can get very interesting around here.
C.G.: “ I heard Bill Gates dad on TV last night defending the inheritance tax, and he put it well as anyone I have heard so far.
I'm not keeping up with the ONE Campaign, but heard the other day that Bill Gates has dedicated half of his wealth to his charitable enterprises. Wow...
Double Wow...”
Yoshi: “Yea, I saw Buffet too.
I guess they read that part about getting through the eye of a needle. Now if only Professor would start understanding that part...”
The top estate tax rate is 46% this year. Were Buffet or Gates to die with 40+ billion in their estate, nearly half would be consumed by the Federal government. However, assets given to charitable organizations is not included in the estate for estate tax purposes since the assets are no longer in the control of the individual. By creating their own foundations (like Teresa Heinz Kerry) they can preserve the corpus and continue to fund their wishes. They can reside on the board of directors of their own foundations, receive paychecks, employee anyone they wish, and of course, payout a certain percentage each year to charitable organizations.
I do not mention this to take away from their philanthropic good will, but rather to point to a smidgen of hypocrisy of daddy Gates on the inheritance issue. This tax planning strategy is legitimate, smart, and a response to high inheritance tax. Otherwise, they would not take funds out of their individual control and commit it solely to the objectives of a foundation, even if they can still control it. Similarly, all the libs in Hollywood have paid big bucks to save on taxes currently and upon death.
It had very little to do with figuratively getting through the eye of a needle.
Prof. Ricardo
Post a Comment
<< Home