CDZ A New and Improved Constitution for the USA

[Foxfyre]

Imagine the hundreds of billions Americans could save on their home mortgages each year if a new Constitution adopted Sharia Law rules concerning interest. But would it be wrong to cherry-pick just that provision?

The new constitution I would want to see would absolutely allow Muslims or anybody else to form their own community and organize it in such a way as to eliminate interest. If Muslims should gain a majority in a state legislature, they could organize the state banking institutions to operate sans interest. But they wouldn't be able to force such concepts onto anybody else, and they wouldn't be able to initiate a federal policy because that would not be authority given to the federal government to do.

 

[Derideo_Te]

You cannot go back and find statements of mine to support what you have accused me of saying when I have protested being mischaracterized or misrepresented.

Ironic given that was exactly what you just did which is why I called you out on it.

And nowhere will you find any post of mine where I claim to be a paragon of virtue and not indulging in any of the things that you not only accuse others of doing, but where you are the worst offender in this thread of doing all of the above.

You, on the other hand, have repeatedly tried to claim to be above all wrongdoing while castigating everyone who exposes your Libertarian Utopia for the unrealistic farce that it will always be. Furthermore in those same self serving posts you actually commit the same wrongdoing that you accuse others of doing.

This is not intended to derail the thread but to set the record straight. You have deliberately mischaracterized not only my posts but the posts of others too. If you persist in doing so then you can expect to be called out whenever you cross the line you drew in the sand.

I make no bones about my disdain for your OP and your unrealistic attempts to "legislate morality". In the real world We the People need a workable and functioning Constitution that doesn't hand over power to unAmerican Libertarian oligarchs like the Koch bros.

You can now return to your previously scheduled indignation.

 

[Olde Europe]

We have an $18+ trillion dollar debt that is growing by mega millions each and every day. It is unsustainable.

So you stated before, and so, I guess, you'll say again. Perhaps you should inform the markets of the unsustainable U.S. debt, for once they realise this is the case, they'll immediately cease lending to the Federal government, or request rates, say, in excess of 10% annually.

Or, you ought to realise that the debt is not unsustainable, and that the absence of prudent Federal regulations brought about the rise in debt in recent years, along with reckless tax cuts for the rich, along with criminal, and criminally incompetently managed, wars. The pretty stingy American safety net, and overbearing Federal regulations, which invariably you target for extinction, have very little to do with that.

 

[Derideo_Te]

FYI for everyone who still wants to go down the Libertarian Utopia route, it looks like you have already achieved your intended goal.

Princeton Study U.S. No Longer An Actual Democracy

A new study from Princeton spells bad news for American democracy—namely, that it no longer exists.

Asking "[w]ho really rules?" researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page argue that over the past few decades America's political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites wield most power.

Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, the two conclude that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of or even against the will of the majority of voters.

"The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy," they write, "while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."

As one illustration, Gilens and Page compare the political preferences of Americans at the 50th income percentile to preferences of Americans at the 90th percentile as well as major lobbying or business groups. They find that the government—whether Republican or Democratic—more often follows the preferences of the latter group rather than the first.

The researches note that this is not a new development caused by, say, recent Supreme Court decisions allowing more money in politics, such as Citizens United or this month's ruling onMcCutcheon v. FEC. As the data stretching back to the 1980s suggests, this has been a long term trend, and is therefore harder for most people to perceive, let alone reverse.

"Ordinary citizens," they write, "might often be observed to 'win' (that is, to get their preferred policy outcomes) even if they had no independent effect whatsoever on policy making, if elites (with whom they often agree) actually prevail."​

I think I've explained why, in other posts, but the bolded portion is minimized by libertarian policies. The very reason economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have so much influence on policy is because that policy has become their lifeblood. They invest more and more of their energies in controlling policy because policy has a greater and greater effect on their bottom line.

The Libertarian Koch brothers are the bolded portion. They are the problem. They want a Libertarian Utopia because it means zero regulations that are otherwise preventing them from raping and pillaging this nation to their hearts content. Libertarianism wouldn't be anything at all if it wasn't for them funding and pushing it as hard as they can.

The economic and political problems that we face today are as a direct result of the malign interference of the Libertarian Kich brothers and their ilk. Libertarianism is the foundation of the failed Republican "free market" dogma that has economically gutted the middle class and handed over power to the corporations.

 

[Derideo_Te]

How does this sound?

Congress shall make no law allowing anyone other than a natural born, or naturalized, citizen to participate in elections in any manner except to restrict campaign contributions to a level that is easily affordable by everyone. Congress shall make no law enabling the funding of campaigns, participation in elections, or otherwise influencing the outcome of elections except those that pertain to natural born, or naturalized, citizens.

It sounds odd - and I think I figured out why. How does Congress make a law "allowing" something? That seems to assume that everything is prohibited other than what is expressly allowed. Which doesn't seem entirely out of synch with authoritarian politics, but is that really what you meant to express?

Take that up with the Founding Fathers. I used their wording for the first amendment.

 

[Foxfyre]

We have an $18+ trillion dollar debt that is growing by mega millions each and every day. It is unsustainable.

So you stated before, and so, I guess, you'll say again. Perhaps you should inform the markets of the unsustainable U.S. debt, for once they realise this is the case, they'll immediately cease lending to the Federal government, or request rates, say, in excess of 10% annually.

Or, you ought to realise that the debt is not unsustainable, and that the absence of prudent Federal regulations brought about the rise in debt in recent years, along with reckless tax cuts for the rich, along with criminal, and criminally incompetently managed, wars. The pretty stingy American safety net, and overbearing Federal regulations, which invariably you target for extinction, have very little to do with that.

Okay. Show your evidence that those tax cuts produced less revenue than the government was previously taking in.

Show your evidence that it was federal deregulation and not spending more than we were taking in that produced the debt.

Show your evidence that wars authorized by Congress were 'criminal'. (I will concede that all wars we have engaged in from Korea to Vietnam to Somalia to Kosovo to Afghanistan to Iraq to Lybia to Syria et al sans a declaration of war by Congress should have been criminal, and I have proposed that a new and improved constitution specify that no such wars will be entered into without a declaration of war by Congress.)

 

[dblack]

How does this sound?

Congress shall make no law allowing anyone other than a natural born, or naturalized, citizen to participate in elections in any manner except to restrict campaign contributions to a level that is easily affordable by everyone. Congress shall make no law enabling the funding of campaigns, participation in elections, or otherwise influencing the outcome of elections except those that pertain to natural born, or naturalized, citizens.

It sounds odd - and I think I figured out why. How does Congress make a law "allowing" something? That seems to assume that everything is prohibited other than what is expressly allowed. Which doesn't seem entirely out of synch with authoritarian politics, but is that really what you meant to express?

Take that up with the Founding Fathers. I used their wording for the first amendment.

I gathered that's what you were going for, but you inverted it by saying "Congress shall make no law allowing ...", rather than "Congress shall make no law prohibiting ...", and I was just wondering whether that was deliberate.

 

[Derideo_Te]

How does this sound?

Congress shall make no law allowing anyone other than a natural born, or naturalized, citizen to participate in elections in any manner except to restrict campaign contributions to a level that is easily affordable by everyone. Congress shall make no law enabling the funding of campaigns, participation in elections, or otherwise influencing the outcome of elections except those that pertain to natural born, or naturalized, citizens.

It sounds odd - and I think I figured out why. How does Congress make a law "allowing" something? That seems to assume that everything is prohibited other than what is expressly allowed. Which doesn't seem entirely out of synch with authoritarian politics, but is that really what you meant to express?

Take that up with the Founding Fathers. I used their wording for the first amendment.

I gathered that's what you were going for, but you inverted it by saying "Congress shall make no law allowing ...", rather than "Congress shall make no law prohibiting ...", and I was just wondering whether that was deliberate.

My intent was deliberate but whether or not I achieved my intent is debatable. I am more than happy to leave the actual wording up to those who are better than I as long as the intent remains the same.

 

[dblack]

FYI for everyone who still wants to go down the Libertarian Utopia route, it looks like you have already achieved your intended goal.

Princeton Study U.S. No Longer An Actual Democracy

A new study from Princeton spells bad news for American democracy—namely, that it no longer exists.

Asking "[w]ho really rules?" researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page argue that over the past few decades America's political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites wield most power.

Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, the two conclude that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of or even against the will of the majority of voters.

"The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy," they write, "while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."

As one illustration, Gilens and Page compare the political preferences of Americans at the 50th income percentile to preferences of Americans at the 90th percentile as well as major lobbying or business groups. They find that the government—whether Republican or Democratic—more often follows the preferences of the latter group rather than the first.

The researches note that this is not a new development caused by, say, recent Supreme Court decisions allowing more money in politics, such as Citizens United or this month's ruling onMcCutcheon v. FEC. As the data stretching back to the 1980s suggests, this has been a long term trend, and is therefore harder for most people to perceive, let alone reverse.

"Ordinary citizens," they write, "might often be observed to 'win' (that is, to get their preferred policy outcomes) even if they had no independent effect whatsoever on policy making, if elites (with whom they often agree) actually prevail."​

I think I've explained why, in other posts, but the bolded portion is minimized by libertarian policies. The very reason economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have so much influence on policy is because that policy has become their lifeblood. They invest more and more of their energies in controlling policy because policy has a greater and greater effect on their bottom line.

The Libertarian Koch brothers are the bolded portion. They are the problem. They want a Libertarian Utopia because it means zero regulations that are otherwise preventing them from raping and pillaging this nation to their hearts content. Libertarianism wouldn't be anything at all if it wasn't for them funding and pushing it as hard as they can.

The economic and political problems that we face today are as a direct result of the malign interference of the Libertarian Kich brothers and their ilk. Libertarianism is the foundation of the failed Republican "free market" dogma that has economically gutted the middle class and handed over power to the corporations.

Yeah. The Republicans aren't "sponsors of liberty" by any stretch. And their penchant for so-called "privatization" that still manages to leverage plenty of "big government" belies their rhetoric. So I don't see how blasting on them addresses the points I've been making. The fact of the matter is that every major regulatory initiative is dominated by those who stand to gain the most from controlling it. Google Liz Fowler. And stow the save the partisan sniping. It's irrelevant to me.

 

[dblack]

How does this sound?

Congress shall make no law allowing anyone other than a natural born, or naturalized, citizen to participate in elections in any manner except to restrict campaign contributions to a level that is easily affordable by everyone. Congress shall make no law enabling the funding of campaigns, participation in elections, or otherwise influencing the outcome of elections except those that pertain to natural born, or naturalized, citizens.

It sounds odd - and I think I figured out why. How does Congress make a law "allowing" something? That seems to assume that everything is prohibited other than what is expressly allowed. Which doesn't seem entirely out of synch with authoritarian politics, but is that really what you meant to express?

Take that up with the Founding Fathers. I used their wording for the first amendment.

I gathered that's what you were going for, but you inverted it by saying "Congress shall make no law allowing ...", rather than "Congress shall make no law prohibiting ...", and I was just wondering whether that was deliberate.

My intent was deliberate but whether or not I achieved my intent is debatable. I am more than happy to leave the actual wording up to those who are better than I as long as the intent remains the same.

I was hoping you'd clarify your intent.

 

[Derideo_Te]

We have an $18+ trillion dollar debt that is growing by mega millions each and every day. It is unsustainable.

So you stated before, and so, I guess, you'll say again. Perhaps you should inform the markets of the unsustainable U.S. debt, for once they realise this is the case, they'll immediately cease lending to the Federal government, or request rates, say, in excess of 10% annually.

Or, you ought to realise that the debt is not unsustainable, and that the absence of prudent Federal regulations brought about the rise in debt in recent years, along with reckless tax cuts for the rich, along with criminal, and criminally incompetently managed, wars. The pretty stingy American safety net, and overbearing Federal regulations, which invariably you target for extinction, have very little to do with that.

Okay. Show your evidence that those tax cuts produced less revenue than the government was previously taking in.

Show your evidence that it was federal deregulation and not spending more than we were taking in that produced the debt.

Show your evidence that wars authorized by Congress were 'criminal'. (I will concede that all wars we have engaged in from Korea to Vietnam to Somalia to Kosovo to Afghanistan to Iraq to Lybia to Syria et al sans a declaration of war by Congress should have been criminal, and I have proposed that a new and improved constitution specify that no such wars will be entered into without a declaration of war by Congress.)

Okay. Show your evidence that those tax cuts produced less revenue than the government was previously taking in.

Seriously? The national debt was reducing prior to the Bush jr tax cuts. That is a matter of public record.

See the decline in the years preceding 2000? That was before the Bush jr taxcuts.

Show your evidence that it was federal deregulation and not spending more than we were taking in that produced the debt.

Federal deregulation wrecked the economy. It had nothing to do with spending. You are confusing two entirely different concepts here.

Show your evidence that wars authorized by Congress were 'criminal'.

Given that Congress was deliberately and maliciously lied to about the need for the Iraq war that makes the warmongers who were doing the lying 'criminals'.

 

[Derideo_Te]

FYI for everyone who still wants to go down the Libertarian Utopia route, it looks like you have already achieved your intended goal.

Princeton Study U.S. No Longer An Actual Democracy

A new study from Princeton spells bad news for American democracy—namely, that it no longer exists.

Asking "[w]ho really rules?" researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page argue that over the past few decades America's political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites wield most power.

Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, the two conclude that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of or even against the will of the majority of voters.

"The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy," they write, "while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."

As one illustration, Gilens and Page compare the political preferences of Americans at the 50th income percentile to preferences of Americans at the 90th percentile as well as major lobbying or business groups. They find that the government—whether Republican or Democratic—more often follows the preferences of the latter group rather than the first.

The researches note that this is not a new development caused by, say, recent Supreme Court decisions allowing more money in politics, such as Citizens United or this month's ruling onMcCutcheon v. FEC. As the data stretching back to the 1980s suggests, this has been a long term trend, and is therefore harder for most people to perceive, let alone reverse.

"Ordinary citizens," they write, "might often be observed to 'win' (that is, to get their preferred policy outcomes) even if they had no independent effect whatsoever on policy making, if elites (with whom they often agree) actually prevail."​

I think I've explained why, in other posts, but the bolded portion is minimized by libertarian policies. The very reason economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have so much influence on policy is because that policy has become their lifeblood. They invest more and more of their energies in controlling policy because policy has a greater and greater effect on their bottom line.

The Libertarian Koch brothers are the bolded portion. They are the problem. They want a Libertarian Utopia because it means zero regulations that are otherwise preventing them from raping and pillaging this nation to their hearts content. Libertarianism wouldn't be anything at all if it wasn't for them funding and pushing it as hard as they can.

The economic and political problems that we face today are as a direct result of the malign interference of the Libertarian Kich brothers and their ilk. Libertarianism is the foundation of the failed Republican "free market" dogma that has economically gutted the middle class and handed over power to the corporations.

Yeah. The Republicans aren't "sponsors of liberty" by any stretch. And their penchant for so-called "privatization" that still manages to leverage plenty of "big government" belies their rhetoric. So I don't see how blasting on them addresses the points I've been making. The fact of the matter is that every major regulatory initiative is dominated by those who stand to gain the most from controlling it. Google Liz Fowler. And stow the save the partisan sniping. It's irrelevant to me.

That you could not refute the facts says volumes. Deflecting to an irrelevancy like Liz Fowler says volumes too.

 

[Derideo_Te]

How does this sound?

Congress shall make no law allowing anyone other than a natural born, or naturalized, citizen to participate in elections in any manner except to restrict campaign contributions to a level that is easily affordable by everyone. Congress shall make no law enabling the funding of campaigns, participation in elections, or otherwise influencing the outcome of elections except those that pertain to natural born, or naturalized, citizens.

It sounds odd - and I think I figured out why. How does Congress make a law "allowing" something? That seems to assume that everything is prohibited other than what is expressly allowed. Which doesn't seem entirely out of synch with authoritarian politics, but is that really what you meant to express?

Take that up with the Founding Fathers. I used their wording for the first amendment.

I gathered that's what you were going for, but you inverted it by saying "Congress shall make no law allowing ...", rather than "Congress shall make no law prohibiting ...", and I was just wondering whether that was deliberate.

My intent was deliberate but whether or not I achieved my intent is debatable. I am more than happy to leave the actual wording up to those who are better than I as long as the intent remains the same.

I was hoping you'd clarify your intent.

To repeat for the umpteenth time the problem We the People face is that our elected representatives are now owned by the highest corporate bidder?

The intent is to eliminate campaign financing by corporations and the Koch bros and their ilk and restrict elections to only contributions by actual living breathing citizens.

 

[Foxfyre]

We have an $18+ trillion dollar debt that is growing by mega millions each and every day. It is unsustainable.

So you stated before, and so, I guess, you'll say again. Perhaps you should inform the markets of the unsustainable U.S. debt, for once they realise this is the case, they'll immediately cease lending to the Federal government, or request rates, say, in excess of 10% annually.

Or, you ought to realise that the debt is not unsustainable, and that the absence of prudent Federal regulations brought about the rise in debt in recent years, along with reckless tax cuts for the rich, along with criminal, and criminally incompetently managed, wars. The pretty stingy American safety net, and overbearing Federal regulations, which invariably you target for extinction, have very little to do with that.

Okay. Show your evidence that those tax cuts produced less revenue than the government was previously taking in.

Show your evidence that it was federal deregulation and not spending more than we were taking in that produced the debt.

Show your evidence that wars authorized by Congress were 'criminal'. (I will concede that all wars we have engaged in from Korea to Vietnam to Somalia to Kosovo to Afghanistan to Iraq to Lybia to Syria et al sans a declaration of war by Congress should have been criminal, and I have proposed that a new and improved constitution specify that no such wars will be entered into without a declaration of war by Congress.)

Okay. Show your evidence that those tax cuts produced less revenue than the government was previously taking in.

Seriously? The national debt was reducing prior to the Bush jr tax cuts. That is a matter of public record.

See the decline in the years preceding 2000? That was before the Bush jr taxcuts.

Show your evidence that it was federal deregulation and not spending more than we were taking in that produced the debt.

Federal deregulation wrecked the economy. It had nothing to do with spending. You are confusing two entirely different concepts here.

Show your evidence that wars authorized by Congress were 'criminal'.

Given that Congress was deliberately and maliciously lied to about the need for the Iraq war that makes the warmongers who were doing the lying 'criminals'.

I'll repeat the questions posed to OE and perhaps you will actually address them this time. Please do not confuse 'revenue' with 'debt'. Note that I did not use any reference to political parties, persons, or ideologies and any honest response will omit such references. And evidence of criminality really does need to be presented along with the specific charges presented by those authorized to bring charges.

Okay. Show your evidence that those tax cuts produced less revenue than the government was previously taking in.

Show your evidence that it was federal deregulation and not spending more than we were taking in that produced the debt.

Show your evidence that wars authorized by Congress were 'criminal'. (I will concede that all wars we have engaged in from Korea to Vietnam to Somalia to Kosovo to Afghanistan to Iraq to Lybia to Syria et al sans a declaration of war by Congress should have been criminal, and I have proposed that a new and improved constitution specify that no such wars will be entered into without a declaration of war by Congress.)

 

[Derideo_Te]

We have an $18+ trillion dollar debt that is growing by mega millions each and every day. It is unsustainable.

So you stated before, and so, I guess, you'll say again. Perhaps you should inform the markets of the unsustainable U.S. debt, for once they realise this is the case, they'll immediately cease lending to the Federal government, or request rates, say, in excess of 10% annually.

Or, you ought to realise that the debt is not unsustainable, and that the absence of prudent Federal regulations brought about the rise in debt in recent years, along with reckless tax cuts for the rich, along with criminal, and criminally incompetently managed, wars. The pretty stingy American safety net, and overbearing Federal regulations, which invariably you target for extinction, have very little to do with that.

Okay. Show your evidence that those tax cuts produced less revenue than the government was previously taking in.

Show your evidence that it was federal deregulation and not spending more than we were taking in that produced the debt.

Show your evidence that wars authorized by Congress were 'criminal'. (I will concede that all wars we have engaged in from Korea to Vietnam to Somalia to Kosovo to Afghanistan to Iraq to Lybia to Syria et al sans a declaration of war by Congress should have been criminal, and I have proposed that a new and improved constitution specify that no such wars will be entered into without a declaration of war by Congress.)

Okay. Show your evidence that those tax cuts produced less revenue than the government was previously taking in.

Seriously? The national debt was reducing prior to the Bush jr tax cuts. That is a matter of public record.

See the decline in the years preceding 2000? That was before the Bush jr taxcuts.

Show your evidence that it was federal deregulation and not spending more than we were taking in that produced the debt.

Federal deregulation wrecked the economy. It had nothing to do with spending. You are confusing two entirely different concepts here.

Show your evidence that wars authorized by Congress were 'criminal'.

Given that Congress was deliberately and maliciously lied to about the need for the Iraq war that makes the warmongers who were doing the lying 'criminals'.

I'll repeat the questions posed to OE and perhaps you will actually address them this time. Please do not confuse 'revenue' with 'debt'. Note that I did not use any reference to political parties, persons, or ideologies and any honest response will omit such references. And evidence of criminality really does need to be presented along with the specific charges presented by those authorized to bring charges.

Okay. Show your evidence that those tax cuts produced less revenue than the government was previously taking in.

Show your evidence that it was federal deregulation and not spending more than we were taking in that produced the debt.

Show your evidence that wars authorized by Congress were 'criminal'. (I will concede that all wars we have engaged in from Korea to Vietnam to Somalia to Kosovo to Afghanistan to Iraq to Lybia to Syria et al sans a declaration of war by Congress should have been criminal, and I have proposed that a new and improved constitution specify that no such wars will be entered into without a declaration of war by Congress.)

Okay. Show your evidence that those tax cuts produced less revenue than the government was previously taking in.

Show your evidence that it was federal deregulation and not spending more than we were taking in that produced the debt.

Once again you are conflating two completely different concepts. Federal DEREGULATION is what enabled the 2008 economic collapse. Spending had nothing to do with deregulation.

Show your evidence that wars authorized by Congress were 'criminal'.

Let me repeat, Congress was lied to by the Bush jr administration and here are all of the lies;

Lie by Lie A Timeline of How We Got Into Iraq Mother Jones

 

[Foxfyre]

We have an $18+ trillion dollar debt that is growing by mega millions each and every day. It is unsustainable.

So you stated before, and so, I guess, you'll say again. Perhaps you should inform the markets of the unsustainable U.S. debt, for once they realise this is the case, they'll immediately cease lending to the Federal government, or request rates, say, in excess of 10% annually.

Or, you ought to realise that the debt is not unsustainable, and that the absence of prudent Federal regulations brought about the rise in debt in recent years, along with reckless tax cuts for the rich, along with criminal, and criminally incompetently managed, wars. The pretty stingy American safety net, and overbearing Federal regulations, which invariably you target for extinction, have very little to do with that.

Okay. Show your evidence that those tax cuts produced less revenue than the government was previously taking in.

Show your evidence that it was federal deregulation and not spending more than we were taking in that produced the debt.

Show your evidence that wars authorized by Congress were 'criminal'. (I will concede that all wars we have engaged in from Korea to Vietnam to Somalia to Kosovo to Afghanistan to Iraq to Lybia to Syria et al sans a declaration of war by Congress should have been criminal, and I have proposed that a new and improved constitution specify that no such wars will be entered into without a declaration of war by Congress.)

Okay. Show your evidence that those tax cuts produced less revenue than the government was previously taking in.

Seriously? The national debt was reducing prior to the Bush jr tax cuts. That is a matter of public record.

See the decline in the years preceding 2000? That was before the Bush jr taxcuts.

Show your evidence that it was federal deregulation and not spending more than we were taking in that produced the debt.

Federal deregulation wrecked the economy. It had nothing to do with spending. You are confusing two entirely different concepts here.

Show your evidence that wars authorized by Congress were 'criminal'.

Given that Congress was deliberately and maliciously lied to about the need for the Iraq war that makes the warmongers who were doing the lying 'criminals'.

I'll repeat the questions posed to OE and perhaps you will actually address them this time. Please do not confuse 'revenue' with 'debt'. Note that I did not use any reference to political parties, persons, or ideologies and any honest response will omit such references. And evidence of criminality really does need to be presented along with the specific charges presented by those authorized to bring charges.

Okay. Show your evidence that those tax cuts produced less revenue than the government was previously taking in.

Show your evidence that it was federal deregulation and not spending more than we were taking in that produced the debt.

Show your evidence that wars authorized by Congress were 'criminal'. (I will concede that all wars we have engaged in from Korea to Vietnam to Somalia to Kosovo to Afghanistan to Iraq to Lybia to Syria et al sans a declaration of war by Congress should have been criminal, and I have proposed that a new and improved constitution specify that no such wars will be entered into without a declaration of war by Congress.)

Okay. Show your evidence that those tax cuts produced less revenue than the government was previously taking in.

Show your evidence that it was federal deregulation and not spending more than we were taking in that produced the debt.

Once again you are conflating two completely different concepts. Federal DEREGULATION is what enabled the 2008 economic collapse. Spending had nothing to do with deregulation.

Show your evidence that wars authorized by Congress were 'criminal'.

Let me repeat, Congress was lied to by the Bush jr administration and here are all of the lies;

Lie by Lie A Timeline of How We Got Into Iraq Mother Jones

You will note from your graph that the decline in revenue was in the wake of 9/11 that triggered a very deep however short lived recession. You will also note from your graph that revenues started back up when the Bush tax cuts kicked in in 2004. So there is zero evidence that those tax cuts reduced revenues. At any rate the improved Constitution I would like to see would limit the federal government's ability to collect revenues and run up debt.

I did not mention the effect that deregulation had on anything. My point was that it is not more or less taxes or regulation or deregulation or anything else that creates debt. It is spending more than the revenues that creates debt. The improved Constitution that I would like to see would remedy that except for extreme emergencies.

And please do not confuse the extremely left leaning Mother Jones' definition of 'lies' with actual criminal activity. The question was not who lied or what lies were presumed told. The question asked for evidence of criminal activity. Since the Bush administration used no evidence that was not readily available to members of Congress or that members of Congress were not also repeating as evidence or that they could not have confirmed for themselves, it is very difficult to make any presumed 'lies' into a case of criminal activity. If we have Congress too stupid to check things out before committing us to a major military action on a bipartisan vote, we are pretty well doomed don't you think?

My proposed Constitution would put the responsibility on Congress where it belongs and we would not be committing troops for any war action without a formal declaration of war.

 

[dblack]

It sounds odd - and I think I figured out why. How does Congress make a law "allowing" something? That seems to assume that everything is prohibited other than what is expressly allowed. Which doesn't seem entirely out of synch with authoritarian politics, but is that really what you meant to express?

Take that up with the Founding Fathers. I used their wording for the first amendment.

I gathered that's what you were going for, but you inverted it by saying "Congress shall make no law allowing ...", rather than "Congress shall make no law prohibiting ...", and I was just wondering whether that was deliberate.

My intent was deliberate but whether or not I achieved my intent is debatable. I am more than happy to leave the actual wording up to those who are better than I as long as the intent remains the same.

I was hoping you'd clarify your intent.

To repeat for the umpteenth time the problem We the People face is that our elected representatives are now owned by the highest corporate bidder?

The intent is to eliminate campaign financing by corporations and the Koch bros and their ilk and restrict elections to only contributions by actual living breathing citizens.

I was asking about your choice of wording. It's still not clear what that was about, but you seem to prefer it that way.

 

[dblack]

FYI for everyone who still wants to go down the Libertarian Utopia route, it looks like you have already achieved your intended goal.

Princeton Study U.S. No Longer An Actual Democracy

A new study from Princeton spells bad news for American democracy—namely, that it no longer exists.

Asking "[w]ho really rules?" researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page argue that over the past few decades America's political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites wield most power.

Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, the two conclude that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of or even against the will of the majority of voters.

"The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy," they write, "while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."

As one illustration, Gilens and Page compare the political preferences of Americans at the 50th income percentile to preferences of Americans at the 90th percentile as well as major lobbying or business groups. They find that the government—whether Republican or Democratic—more often follows the preferences of the latter group rather than the first.

The researches note that this is not a new development caused by, say, recent Supreme Court decisions allowing more money in politics, such as Citizens United or this month's ruling onMcCutcheon v. FEC. As the data stretching back to the 1980s suggests, this has been a long term trend, and is therefore harder for most people to perceive, let alone reverse.

"Ordinary citizens," they write, "might often be observed to 'win' (that is, to get their preferred policy outcomes) even if they had no independent effect whatsoever on policy making, if elites (with whom they often agree) actually prevail."​

I think I've explained why, in other posts, but the bolded portion is minimized by libertarian policies. The very reason economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have so much influence on policy is because that policy has become their lifeblood. They invest more and more of their energies in controlling policy because policy has a greater and greater effect on their bottom line.

The Libertarian Koch brothers are the bolded portion. They are the problem. They want a Libertarian Utopia because it means zero regulations that are otherwise preventing them from raping and pillaging this nation to their hearts content. Libertarianism wouldn't be anything at all if it wasn't for them funding and pushing it as hard as they can.

The economic and political problems that we face today are as a direct result of the malign interference of the Libertarian Kich brothers and their ilk. Libertarianism is the foundation of the failed Republican "free market" dogma that has economically gutted the middle class and handed over power to the corporations.

Yeah. The Republicans aren't "sponsors of liberty" by any stretch. And their penchant for so-called "privatization" that still manages to leverage plenty of "big government" belies their rhetoric. So I don't see how blasting on them addresses the points I've been making. The fact of the matter is that every major regulatory initiative is dominated by those who stand to gain the most from controlling it. Google Liz Fowler. And stow the save the partisan sniping. It's irrelevant to me.

That you could not refute the facts says volumes. Deflecting to an irrelevancy like Liz Fowler says volumes too.

Oh, she's quite relevant.

 

[Foxfyre]

As for limiting campaign contributions to only certain designated groups--something Congress has been trying to accomplish for decades without success because Congress seems to find a way around each new rule. . . . .

It is already illegal for those running for Congress or the Presidency to accept contributions from other than U.S. citizens. . . .

And there is simply no way to reasonably stop corporations or unions or any other special interests from using their money in ways that they hope to benefit themselves without federalizing everything. . . .

So why not go with my proposal and limit what anybody, including those big bad evil billionaires and corporations, can buy with the contributions they make? Limit the federal government to specific authorized responsibilities and take away their ability to punish or benefit anybody that doesn't punish and benefit everybody else. Then the Koch Brothers or any other corporate interests can empty their entire bank accounts into campaigns and they won't get a single dime or benefit from it.

Give the people liberty rather than more restrictions, and put the restrictions on government, and we are far more likely to achieve the goal we are shooting for.

 

[dblack]

FYI for everyone who still wants to go down the Libertarian Utopia route, it looks like you have already achieved your intended goal.

Princeton Study U.S. No Longer An Actual Democracy

A new study from Princeton spells bad news for American democracy—namely, that it no longer exists.

Asking "[w]ho really rules?" researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page argue that over the past few decades America's political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites wield most power.

Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, the two conclude that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of or even against the will of the majority of voters.

"The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy," they write, "while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."

As one illustration, Gilens and Page compare the political preferences of Americans at the 50th income percentile to preferences of Americans at the 90th percentile as well as major lobbying or business groups. They find that the government—whether Republican or Democratic—more often follows the preferences of the latter group rather than the first.

The researches note that this is not a new development caused by, say, recent Supreme Court decisions allowing more money in politics, such as Citizens United or this month's ruling onMcCutcheon v. FEC. As the data stretching back to the 1980s suggests, this has been a long term trend, and is therefore harder for most people to perceive, let alone reverse.

"Ordinary citizens," they write, "might often be observed to 'win' (that is, to get their preferred policy outcomes) even if they had no independent effect whatsoever on policy making, if elites (with whom they often agree) actually prevail."​

I think I've explained why, in other posts, but the bolded portion is minimized by libertarian policies. The very reason economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have so much influence on policy is because that policy has become their lifeblood. They invest more and more of their energies in controlling policy because policy has a greater and greater effect on their bottom line.

The Libertarian Koch brothers are the bolded portion. They are the problem. They want a Libertarian Utopia because it means zero regulations that are otherwise preventing them from raping and pillaging this nation to their hearts content. Libertarianism wouldn't be anything at all if it wasn't for them funding and pushing it as hard as they can.

The economic and political problems that we face today are as a direct result of the malign interference of the Libertarian Kich brothers and their ilk. Libertarianism is the foundation of the failed Republican "free market" dogma that has economically gutted the middle class and handed over power to the corporations.

Yeah. The Republicans aren't "sponsors of liberty" by any stretch. And their penchant for so-called "privatization" that still manages to leverage plenty of "big government" belies their rhetoric. So I don't see how blasting on them addresses the points I've been making. The fact of the matter is that every major regulatory initiative is dominated by those who stand to gain the most from controlling it. Google Liz Fowler. Andsave the partisan sniping. It's irrelevant to me.