America's coming civil war -- makers vs. takers Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/op

[JakeStarkey]

Only unemployment will decide this in the end.

The bain/tax attack has held many of the centrists from supporting Romney.

If unemployment goes to 8.4 and above, then Romney, for sure.

I am satisfied to see that the wackery far left and far right have had almost no influence this time on the race.

 

[Avatar4321]

Your Mosiah 4 answers your question, Listening. The prophet-king Benjaminn, the Priest and King over the people, theocratic and political leader, told his people that could not judge the righteousness of those asking for help, but that they had to give it.

Your own religious leaders today counsel you to take care of the needy.

You simply ignore the counsel.

You are wrong, completely, on this, morally and politically.

How do you know who I take care of and don't.

There is nothing in there about using political means to enforce "good works".

I'd say you are about as offbase as you can get.

You'll have to forgive Jake. For some reason, he seems to think that unless you support uncontrolled government spending on social programs, you are against the needy. I've tried to explain to him several times that the Gospel teaches us to voluntarily be charitable and to do it individually and not outsource charity to the government.

He has an odd interpretation of King Benjamins sermons. But he's a decent guy.

 

[Listening]

There have been other studies besides the Harvard study that put the numbers in the 20,000 per year range. But when you start calling the demise of fellow Americans 'statistical noise', it reveals that you and I are not operating under the same set of morals and values. Conservatives never have a penny of human capital in their thinking. It is why I call them the modern day Pharisee. If 20,000 Americans dying prematurely is 'statistical noise', then what is a mere 3,000 Americans dying on 9/11?

You didn't dispute my claims.

And you don't understand statistics (that or your purposefully misinterpreting them).

Noise is noise. I can't help that and neither can you. And The Havard study does not have the kind of precision to pick out 1 in 100. I am sorry...but those are the facts. What you are calling a demise....I am calling exptrapolation based on the most specious of assumptions.

And cut the crap about what conservatives have and don't have. I am not going to rehearse to you how I think the system should work because to this point you are not worth it.

So far, we have established that health care is not explicitly called out in the U.S. Constitution.

Whether you believe, as some of us do, that the Federal Government then has no constitutional authority to pass health care administration, has not been established.

You've seen my arguments.



You can make that assertion and I would not dispute it....as a qualitative statement.

This does nothing for your Harvard argument, which also contains quantitative claims that are meaningless. And you never addressed the fact that 99 out of 100 seem to be doing fine.



If this an argument for people having health care, there is no dispute.

It is somehow supposed to implicitly project a conclusion, I don't see it.



What is your point ?

The most telling stories occur at free health care expos around the country. People line up the day before to get free health care. These are not 'welfare queens', over 80% are employed Americans.


Health reform's human stories

New Orleans, La. — — It happened as I watched a 50-something woman walk out, after spending several hours being attended to by volunteer doctors. "She's decided against treatment. A reasonable decision under the circumstances," the doctor tells us as she heads for the next patient. The president of the board of the National Association of Free Health Clinics tells me why: "It's stage four breast cancer, her body is filled with tumors." I don't know when that woman last saw a doctor. But I do know that if she had health insurance, the odds she would have seen a doctor long ago are much higher, and her chances for an earlier diagnosis and treatment would have been far greater.

After watching for hours as the patients moved through the clinic, it was hard to believe that I was in America.

Eighty-three percent of the patients they see are employed, they are not accepting other government help on a large scale, not "welfare queens" as some would like to have us believe. They are tax-paying, good, upstanding citizens who are trying to make it and give their kids a better life just like you and me.

Ninety percent of the patients who came through Saturday's clinic had two or more diagnoses.

Eighty-two percent had a life-threatening condition such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or hypertension. They are victims of a system built with corporate profits at its center, which long ago forgot the moral imperative that should drive us to show compassion to our fellow men and women.

Have you ever heard of a bleeding heart Republican?
Paul Craig Roberts - the father of Reaganomics

And my mother smoked for 50 years and died of lung cancer. Something naturally follow. What is your point in all this ?

That people need health care ?

Or that we should be the ones providing it to them ?

All I need to do is look at people who are taking vacations on their Social Security all the while getting their health care paid for by the guy down the street who can't take vacations because of the money he is paying out of check for his neighbors care....to know that I don't think medicare is the greatest thing in the world...in fact....I think it sucks in many ways.

However, that does not mean I don't believe in people having health care.

They are two different issues and you somehow seem to think that we can read between the lines and figure out how you are connecting them.

In fact, there are even more issues without relevence to the conversation that you keep bringing up. As I pointed out earlier, people who lose their houses because they went bankrupt got the care they needed (and they didn't pay for it). That they lost their houses is a different issue. They got the care. If we are talking medical care, that is one thing. If we are talking safety nets, that is something else.

If these are your facts and figures you plan to bury me with, you'd better get a better shovel. Right now, all you are doing is blathering.

What we have established is:

O.K. we can compare...

1) Health care is not explicitly called out in the U.S. Constitution.

Correct.

a) And neither are any other specifics because the Constitution is a guideline.

Cock-n-Bull, fairytale, etc. ectc.

The Constitution is not a guideline. It is a document set up specifically to limit the federal government. If you don't want to respond to Federalist 45, I understand. It pretty much kills this assertion.

No such thing has been established.

b) There was no such thing as health care per se in 1776. The father of our country died from 'doctors' extracting of more than half of his blood volume within a short period of time, which inevitably led to preterminal anemia, hypovolemia, hypotension and death.

He died. And.....

c) Health care IS a right. The fact that no one is denied treatment proves that fact. The only question is who pays for that treatment.

This certainly has not been established.

Health Care is not a right and people are denied treatment all the time.

The fact that you would premise (albeit incorrectly) the Harvard study...something you hide behind....only contradicts yourself.

Let's be clear....it has not been established that Health Care is a right.

d) You have mistakenly made the claim government 'has no constitutional authority to pass health care administration'. You have based that false claim on a minority opinion of the interpretation of the general welfare clause. You have the right to an opinion.

Yes, quoting the man who wrote it does not seem to carry much weight. And your opinion is greater than his.

No "mistake" has been established.

2) Access to affordable health care saves lives. The only way to achieve that under our current system is by having health insurance. Unless you are 65 years old. American life expectancy at birth ranks 30th in the world. We remain 30th for the rest of our lives -- until we reach 65. Then, our rank rises until we reach 14th at 80.

The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

People driving cars die.

Outlawing cars would save lives.

What was your point ?

3) You mother died prematurely from a preventable disease. By smoking, she greatly increased her risk of what followed. The same applies to health insurance. Not having health insurance greatly increases your risk of dying prematurely from preventable disease. We can argue about how many people die prematurely because they don't have access to affordable health care, but the fact still remains intact.

I don't think I have argued this poiint at all.

However, the term "affordable" (you've not spoken about it in those terms...but now we've established that or what it means ?....sorry, Charlie) is always funny. Affordable being that you can have your health care and keep your house ? When you define that term, we can further discuss it.

However, you've not established anything with regard to how many people have died due to a lack of affordable health care.

4) When are you going to provide facts? So far you have offered only opinions and issued false claims.

While you are hardly worth the time, you are the one who claimed he would bury with me with facts.

The only fact that has been presented (and which you chose to ignore) is that the U.S. Constitution was written to limit the Federal Government. You've not countered that claim at all.

You've also done nothing but proposed a thought experiment when I pre-empted that assanine Harvard study and have asked for a list of the names of people who have died as a result of a lack of health care.

Is this what you call debate ?

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan

So get on with some of those facts.

But, to stay engaged, please don't try to call out your point of view as having been established again.

That is not only lazy, it is dishonest.

 

[Avatar4321]

I am far more "in touch" with LDS doctrine and counsel than you ever will be. Your membership is apparently in name only, not action or understanding.

Be careful brother. Pride comes before the fall.

 

[Listening]

I am correct on every point. Check with your priesthood leadership file all the way to Stake President. You are out of touch with your church's counsel.

Your reply reflects a LDS member out of touch with your church's counsel. You are refusing to follow counsel, and you are counseling the brethren with your refusal.

Benjamin was priest-king, political and religious leader. His counsel is law, not opinion.

Wrong on all counts....again.

Unless you want to point out where the brethren have said we should legislate "goodness" into statute and put people in jail who don't want to be good.

Good luck.

Oh, and what refusal would you be making reference to ? I am quite curious to know how you can interpret LDS doctrine, not being a member of the church yourself.

Please point out, in LDS doctrine what you claim to be true. The comments you make above are nothing but bleatings. I am in touch with my priesthood leadership up through the stake on a regular basis.

And you still have not clarified what is my refusal.

 

[Listening]

I am far more "in touch" with LDS doctrine and counsel than you ever will be. Your membership is apparently in name only, not action or understanding.

Claudette, reply, of course, if you wish, but my comments were directed particularly to LDS of a particular political stripe, so your opinion concerning my reply to a LDS member is completely meaningless.

If taken in context of an outsider looking in who is not religious, your comments are worth what you think.

Hey, Dilbert....

The last I recall, you are an "outsider" too.

You've got a lot of nerve.

Making such a claim demonstrates that isn't the case.

Better luck next time !

 

[Listening]

Your Mosiah 4 answers your question, Listening. The prophet-king Benjaminn, the Priest and King over the people, theocratic and political leader, told his people that could not judge the righteousness of those asking for help, but that they had to give it.

Your own religious leaders today counsel you to take care of the needy.

You simply ignore the counsel.

You are wrong, completely, on this, morally and politically.

How do you know who I take care of and don't.

There is nothing in there about using political means to enforce "good works".

I'd say you are about as offbase as you can get.

You'll have to forgive Jake. For some reason, he seems to think that unless you support uncontrolled government spending on social programs, you are against the needy. I've tried to explain to him several times that the Gospel teaches us to voluntarily be charitable and to do it individually and not outsource charity to the government.

He has an odd interpretation of King Benjamins sermons. But he's a decent guy.

Thank you for that insight....

It seems a bit strange that someone claiming to know about the church could be so ignorant on the subject of agency. Additionally, a significant part of the Book Of Mormon addresses the subject of government and rule.....and does not propose compulsion of "goodness".

I'll end it with Jake. Such conversations with people like this are of no value.

 

[Bfgrn]

You didn't dispute my claims.

And you don't understand statistics (that or your purposefully misinterpreting them).

Noise is noise. I can't help that and neither can you. And The Havard study does not have the kind of precision to pick out 1 in 100. I am sorry...but those are the facts. What you are calling a demise....I am calling exptrapolation based on the most specious of assumptions.

And cut the crap about what conservatives have and don't have. I am not going to rehearse to you how I think the system should work because to this point you are not worth it.

So far, we have established that health care is not explicitly called out in the U.S. Constitution.

Whether you believe, as some of us do, that the Federal Government then has no constitutional authority to pass health care administration, has not been established.

You've seen my arguments.



You can make that assertion and I would not dispute it....as a qualitative statement.

This does nothing for your Harvard argument, which also contains quantitative claims that are meaningless. And you never addressed the fact that 99 out of 100 seem to be doing fine.



If this an argument for people having health care, there is no dispute.

It is somehow supposed to implicitly project a conclusion, I don't see it.



What is your point ?



And my mother smoked for 50 years and died of lung cancer. Something naturally follow. What is your point in all this ?

That people need health care ?

Or that we should be the ones providing it to them ?

All I need to do is look at people who are taking vacations on their Social Security all the while getting their health care paid for by the guy down the street who can't take vacations because of the money he is paying out of check for his neighbors care....to know that I don't think medicare is the greatest thing in the world...in fact....I think it sucks in many ways.

However, that does not mean I don't believe in people having health care.

They are two different issues and you somehow seem to think that we can read between the lines and figure out how you are connecting them.

In fact, there are even more issues without relevence to the conversation that you keep bringing up. As I pointed out earlier, people who lose their houses because they went bankrupt got the care they needed (and they didn't pay for it). That they lost their houses is a different issue. They got the care. If we are talking medical care, that is one thing. If we are talking safety nets, that is something else.

If these are your facts and figures you plan to bury me with, you'd better get a better shovel. Right now, all you are doing is blathering.

O.K. we can compare...



Correct.



Cock-n-Bull, fairytale, etc. ectc.

The Constitution is not a guideline. It is a document set up specifically to limit the federal government. If you don't want to respond to Federalist 45, I understand. It pretty much kills this assertion.

No such thing has been established.



He died. And.....



This certainly has not been established.

Health Care is not a right and people are denied treatment all the time.

The fact that you would premise (albeit incorrectly) the Harvard study...something you hide behind....only contradicts yourself.

Let's be clear....it has not been established that Health Care is a right.



Yes, quoting the man who wrote it does not seem to carry much weight. And your opinion is greater than his.

No "mistake" has been established.



The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

People driving cars die.

Outlawing cars would save lives.

What was your point ?



I don't think I have argued this poiint at all.

However, the term "affordable" (you've not spoken about it in those terms...but now we've established that or what it means ?....sorry, Charlie) is always funny. Affordable being that you can have your health care and keep your house ? When you define that term, we can further discuss it.

However, you've not established anything with regard to how many people have died due to a lack of affordable health care.



While you are hardly worth the time, you are the one who claimed he would bury with me with facts.

The only fact that has been presented (and which you chose to ignore) is that the U.S. Constitution was written to limit the Federal Government. You've not countered that claim at all.

You've also done nothing but proposed a thought experiment when I pre-empted that assanine Harvard study and have asked for a list of the names of people who have died as a result of a lack of health care.

Is this what you call debate ?

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan

So get on with some of those facts.

But, to stay engaged, please don't try to call out your point of view as having been established again.

That is not only lazy, it is dishonest.

Please stop chopping up my posts, it creates a disjointed conversation when the person replying hits the 'Quote' button. Could you reply in sentences and paragraphs?

Thank you for more opinions. Your replies have reached the level of childishness.

FACTS:

1) General Welfare clause

The two primary authors of the The Federalist essays set forth two separate, conflicting interpretations:

James Madison and Alexander Hamilton

Hamiltonian view of the General Welfare Clause predominates in case law.

2) Health care IS a right. NO ONE is denied treatment. Can you name a hospital that will turn away anyone who shows up in their ER?

 

[Listening]

O.K. we can compare...



Correct.



Cock-n-Bull, fairytale, etc. ectc.

The Constitution is not a guideline. It is a document set up specifically to limit the federal government. If you don't want to respond to Federalist 45, I understand. It pretty much kills this assertion.

No such thing has been established.



He died. And.....



This certainly has not been established.

Health Care is not a right and people are denied treatment all the time.

The fact that you would premise (albeit incorrectly) the Harvard study...something you hide behind....only contradicts yourself.

Let's be clear....it has not been established that Health Care is a right.



Yes, quoting the man who wrote it does not seem to carry much weight. And your opinion is greater than his.

No "mistake" has been established.



The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

People driving cars die.

Outlawing cars would save lives.

What was your point ?



I don't think I have argued this poiint at all.

However, the term "affordable" (you've not spoken about it in those terms...but now we've established that or what it means ?....sorry, Charlie) is always funny. Affordable being that you can have your health care and keep your house ? When you define that term, we can further discuss it.

However, you've not established anything with regard to how many people have died due to a lack of affordable health care.



While you are hardly worth the time, you are the one who claimed he would bury with me with facts.

The only fact that has been presented (and which you chose to ignore) is that the U.S. Constitution was written to limit the Federal Government. You've not countered that claim at all.

You've also done nothing but proposed a thought experiment when I pre-empted that assanine Harvard study and have asked for a list of the names of people who have died as a result of a lack of health care.

Is this what you call debate ?



So get on with some of those facts.

But, to stay engaged, please don't try to call out your point of view as having been established again.

That is not only lazy, it is dishonest.

Please stop chopping up my posts, it creates a disjointed conversation when the person replying hits the 'Quote' button. Could you reply in sentences and paragraphs?

No. I'll address your points one at a time. As you posts do not have any connectivity, I am not sure what you care.

Thank you for more opinions. Your replies have reached the level of childishness.

Translation: I am getting my ass kicked and don't know what to do. I'll resort to Ad Hominen

I have simply stated that you didn't establish anything. That you don't like it does not bother me. That you can't do better than this is telling. You are lacking the tsunami of facts and figures you claimed you would bury me with.

Sorry....but that's a fact.

FACTS:

According to who ?

1) General Welfare clause

The two primary authors of the The Federalist essays set forth two separate, conflicting interpretations:

James Madison and Alexander Hamilton

Hamiltonian view of the General Welfare Clause predominates in case law.

The General Welfare Clause is addressed in the Federalist Papers ? Where ?

What has been presented (a fact given it was written) if Federalist 45 which clearly states that the powers of the Federal Government are defined and limited.

For your recall:

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.

That has never been in dispute (that this was written) and the 10th amendment was included as a follow up to reinforce that concept.

Never been in dispute.

Hamilton never wrote about the General Welfare Clause in the Federalist Papers. He did write in #84, a statement that reinforced Madison. 84 was a counter to the idea of a bill fo rights (something Madison also opposed originally). In it he states (making reference to the Constitution):

I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?

History has shown that Hamilton, once in power did not adhere to his own spoken philosophy. However, he did not wonder completely off the reservation either. His battle over the Federal Bank was not without merit when connected to the need by the Fed to collect taxes. He still showed himself a liar on to many other counts and I cannot say, having studied his abuse of the new Government, that I am ever sad to read about his taking one between the eyes from Aaron Burr.

But it was never in the Federalist Papers and Madison's clarrifications didn't come until his presidency or afterwards. So, there was no conflict at the start. And Madison's statements are all in line with the claims of others at the time (mainly the Anti-Federalists) that if you gave the Federal Government open season using General Welfare, the states would soon go away.

As for case law...bunk.

There is plenty of case law that favors the concept of states powers and does not support the idea that the General Welfare clause is open ended.

The most prominent of these were the myriad of ruling from the SCOTUS during FDR's New Deal rape of the constitution. His laws were being tossed out as fast as he could turn them out. He was so pissed at the court he proposed his infamous (and I do mean infamous...the bastard should never have been buried....they should have let the vultures devour him) court packing scheme...an open affront to the independence of the SCOTUS. His congress, despite refusing to support that measure, still helped to blackmail the SCOTUS to force a "switch in time that saved nine". What FDR couldn't do, mortality did and in time his disdain for the court was shown as he replaced dead and retired conservative judges with hacks who did his bidding.

But the fact remains, there is no overwhelming use of the General Welfare Clause in case law that supports your claim.

2) Health care IS a right. NO ONE is denied treatment. Can you name a hospital that will turn away anyone who shows up in their ER?

Buuuuullllllllccccccrrrrrrrraaaaaapppppppp.

That Emergency room bill was not passed until 1986. Before that people were denied all the time. Where were their rights ? Additionally, such an argument is foolish because ER's are not the only places that provide care. If Health Care were a right, they would all be equally obligated. And they are not.

Fail x 2.

Still no facts.

 

[Bfgrn]

No. I'll address your points one at a time. As you posts do not have any connectivity, I am not sure what you care.



Translation: I am getting my ass kicked and don't know what to do. I'll resort to Ad Hominen

I have simply stated that you didn't establish anything. That you don't like it does not bother me. That you can't do better than this is telling. You are lacking the tsunami of facts and figures you claimed you would bury me with.

Sorry....but that's a fact.



According to who ?



The General Welfare Clause is addressed in the Federalist Papers ? Where ?

What has been presented (a fact given it was written) if Federalist 45 which clearly states that the powers of the Federal Government are defined and limited.

For your recall:

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.

That has never been in dispute (that this was written) and the 10th amendment was included as a follow up to reinforce that concept.

Never been in dispute.

Hamilton never wrote about the General Welfare Clause in the Federalist Papers. He did write in #84, a statement that reinforced Madison. 84 was a counter to the idea of a bill fo rights (something Madison also opposed originally). In it he states (making reference to the Constitution):

I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?

History has shown that Hamilton, once in power did not adhere to his own spoken philosophy. However, he did not wonder completely off the reservation either. His battle over the Federal Bank was not without merit when connected to the need by the Fed to collect taxes. He still showed himself a liar on to many other counts and I cannot say, having studied his abuse of the new Government, that I am ever sad to read about his taking one between the eyes from Aaron Burr.

But it was never in the Federalist Papers and Madison's clarrifications didn't come until his presidency or afterwards. So, there was no conflict at the start. And Madison's statements are all in line with the claims of others at the time (mainly the Anti-Federalists) that if you gave the Federal Government open season using General Welfare, the states would soon go away.

As for case law...bunk.

There is plenty of case law that favors the concept of states powers and does not support the idea that the General Welfare clause is open ended.

The most prominent of these were the myriad of ruling from the SCOTUS during FDR's New Deal rape of the constitution. His laws were being tossed out as fast as he could turn them out. He was so pissed at the court he proposed his infamous (and I do mean infamous...the bastard should never have been buried....they should have let the vultures devour him) court packing scheme...an open affront to the independence of the SCOTUS. His congress, despite refusing to support that measure, still helped to blackmail the SCOTUS to force a "switch in time that saved nine". What FDR couldn't do, mortality did and in time his disdain for the court was shown as he replaced dead and retired conservative judges with hacks who did his bidding.

But the fact remains, there is no overwhelming use of the General Welfare Clause in case law that supports your claim.



Buuuuullllllllccccccrrrrrrrraaaaaapppppppp.

That Emergency room bill was not passed until 1986. Before that people were denied all the time. Where were their rights ? Additionally, such an argument is foolish because ER's are not the only places that provide care. If Health Care were a right, they would all be equally obligated. And they are not.

Fail x 2.

Still no facts.

So, what you are saying is Madison's view has predominated case law? Then you should have no complaints.

Maybe you should let George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson know that, because Hamilton's view prevailed during those administrations.

With respect to the meaning of “the general welfare” the pages of The Federalist itself disclose a sharp divergence of views between its two principal authors. Hamilton adopted the literal, broad meaning of the clause;583 Madison contended that the powers of taxation and appropriation of the proposed government should be regarded as merely instrumental to its remaining powers, in other words, as little more than a power of self-support.584

581 3 WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 147–149 (Library Edition, 1904).

582 See W. CROSSKEY, POLITICS AND THE CONSTITUTION IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES (1953).

583 THE FEDERALIST, Nos. 30 and 34 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) 187–193, 209–215.

584 Id. at No. 41, 268–78.

From an early date Congress has acted upon the interpretation espoused by Hamilton. Appropriations for subsidies 585 and for an ever increasing variety of “internal improvements” 586 constructed by the Federal Government, had their beginnings in the administrations of Washington and Jefferson. 587 Since 1914, federal grants-in-aid, sums of money apportioned among the States for particular uses, often conditioned upon the duplication of the sums by the recipient State, and upon observance of stipulated restrictions as to its use, have become commonplace.
Spending for the General Welfare - United States Constitution

 

[midcan5]

History repeats itself, or does it in America just continue for some people. Many Americans fail to realize we did not arrive at this place in time without a lot of turmoil and change, revolution, civil war, Laissez-faire capitalism, great depression, unions, new deal, civil rights, great society, riots, and on and on.

This fictional dichotomy has existed in the minds of the simple since the New Deal - if not before - corporate America has since tattooed it into the minds of the impressible. Makes everything easy to categorize. I'd suggest for those interested in its story a book I am reading now. "Historian Phillips-Fein traces the hidden history of the Reagan revolution to a coterie of business executives, including General Electric official and Reagan mentor Lemuel Boulware, who saw labor unions, government regulation, high taxes and welfare spending as dire threats to their profits and power. From the 1930s onward, the author argues, they provided the money, organization and fervor for a decades-long war against New Deal liberalism—funding campaigns, think tanks, magazines and lobbying groups, and indoctrinating employees in the virtues of unfettered capitalism." [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hands-Making-Conservative-Movement/dp/0393059308/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247845984&sr=1-1]Amazon.com: Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (9780393059304): Kim Phillips-Fein: Books[/ame]

 

[JakeStarkey]

No one is questioning your agency, and your and Avatar's agency is not license to do as you please in view of your leadership's counsel. Your church's history has dealt with heretics going against counsel. Ending it with me will not change the eternal base of these facts.

How do you know who I take care of and don't. There is nothing in there about using political means to enforce "good works". I'd say you are about as offbase as you can get.

You'll have to forgive Jake. For some reason, he seems to think that unless you support uncontrolled government spending on social programs, you are against the needy. I've tried to explain to him several times that the Gospel teaches us to voluntarily be charitable and to do it individually and not outsource charity to the government.

He has an odd interpretation of King Benjamins sermons. But he's a decent guy.

Thank you for that insight....

It seems a bit strange that someone claiming to know about the church could be so ignorant on the subject of agency. Additionally, a significant part of the Book Of Mormon addresses the subject of government and rule.....and does not propose compulsion of "goodness".

I'll end it with Jake. Such conversations with people like this are of no value.

 

[Listening]

So, what you are saying is Madison's view has predominated case law? Then you should have no complaints.

Maybe you should let George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson know that, because Hamilton's view prevailed during those administrations.

With respect to the meaning of “the general welfare” the pages of The Federalist itself disclose a sharp divergence of views between its two principal authors. Hamilton adopted the literal, broad meaning of the clause;583 Madison contended that the powers of taxation and appropriation of the proposed government should be regarded as merely instrumental to its remaining powers, in other words, as little more than a power of self-support.584

581 3 WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 147–149 (Library Edition, 1904).

582 See W. CROSSKEY, POLITICS AND THE CONSTITUTION IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES (1953).

583 THE FEDERALIST, Nos. 30 and 34 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) 187–193, 209–215.

584 Id. at No. 41, 268–78.

From an early date Congress has acted upon the interpretation espoused by Hamilton. Appropriations for subsidies 585 and for an ever increasing variety of “internal improvements” 586 constructed by the Federal Government, had their beginnings in the administrations of Washington and Jefferson. 587 Since 1914, federal grants-in-aid, sums of money apportioned among the States for particular uses, often conditioned upon the duplication of the sums by the recipient State, and upon observance of stipulated restrictions as to its use, have become commonplace.
Spending for the General Welfare - United States Constitution

Now you are wondering.

If you want to relate this back to your original "What we have established", then I will be interested.

You are just fishing for a crack.

That is not how I work.

Go back to the original premise and pull it together. And address of all it. Stop cherry picking what you only want to spend your time on.

Oh, and I might add that the bulwark of your article is based on Butler....a decision that is to be rejected out of hand given the environment in which it was concieved. Roberts was the very "Switch in time that saved nine". Sure, you can point to it as case law. And that means it stands. But his reasoning is Bulls**t and I'll take the history he ignores and argue he is wrong with both yourself and his protectors any day.

 

[Bfgrn]

History repeats itself, or does it in America just continue for some people. Many Americans fail to realize we did not arrive at this place in time without a lot of turmoil and change, revolution, civil war, Laissez-faire capitalism, great depression, unions, new deal, civil rights, great society, riots, and on and on.

This fictional dichotomy has existed in the minds of the simple since the New Deal - if not before - corporate America has since tattooed it into the minds of the impressible. Makes everything easy to categorize. I'd suggest for those interested in its story a book I am reading now. "Historian Phillips-Fein traces the hidden history of the Reagan revolution to a coterie of business executives, including General Electric official and Reagan mentor Lemuel Boulware, who saw labor unions, government regulation, high taxes and welfare spending as dire threats to their profits and power. From the 1930s onward, the author argues, they provided the money, organization and fervor for a decades-long war against New Deal liberalism—funding campaigns, think tanks, magazines and lobbying groups, and indoctrinating employees in the virtues of unfettered capitalism." Amazon.com: Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (9780393059304): Kim Phillips-Fein: Books

Excellent midcan! I am very interested in the topic. As someone old enough to live during the liberal dominance that started with the New Deal through the Great Society, I have seen and felt the drastic change in my country. The New Deal through the Great Society was an era of corporate wealth and boom, American innovation and dominance in technology, the mass building of infrastructure, the growth of a burgeoning middle class, the vast expansion of individual rights and men on the moon.

The conservative era that followed has built.............................................

As one Customer Review on Amazon succinctly described the conservative revolution that followed: "Can anyone deny that the middle class is caught in a veritable Dresden of class war, raining debt, fear, obscurantism, and havoc from above?"

No one from my parents generation or my grandparents generation would have listened to anything these right wingers are saying, because the knew how well FDR's New Deal programs worked. But my grandparent's generation is gone and my parents generation is reaching the end of their existence. There is no large group of people who know the truth, who experience those great years.


Here is another interesting book:


Myths Of The Free Market

by Kenneth Friedman

Excerpt:

Blind Faith

For a country that has prided itself on its resourcefulness, the inability to address our problems suggests something deeper at work. There is something, powerful but insidious, that blinds us to the causes of these problems and undermines our ability to respond. That something is a set of beliefs, comparable to religious beliefs in earlier ages, about the nature of economies and societies. These beliefs imply the impropriety of government intervention either in social contexts (libertarianism) or in economic affairs (laissez faire).

The faithful unquestioningly embrace the credo that the doctrine of nonintervention has generated our most venerated institutions: our democracy, the best possible political system; and our free market economy, the best possible economic system. But despite our devotion to the dogmas that libertarianism and free market economics are the foundation of all that we cherish most deeply, they have failed us and are responsible for our present malaise.

The pieties of libertarianism and free markets sound pretty, but they cannot withstand even a cursory inspection. Libertarianism does not support democracy; taken to an extreme, it entails the law of the jungle. If government never interferes, we could all get away with murder. Alternatively, if the libertarian position is not to be taken to an extreme, where should it stop? What is the difference between no government and minimal government? Attempts to justify libertarianism, even a less than extreme position, have failed. Laissez faire, or free market economics, characterized by minimal or no government intervention, has a history that is long but undistinguished. Just as the negative effects of a high fever do not certify the health benefits of the opposite extreme, hypothermia, the dismal failure of communism, seeking complete government control of the economy, does not certify the economic benefits of the opposite extreme, total economic non-intervention.

It may seem odd, given the parabolic arc of our financial markets and the swelling chorus of paeans to free market economics, but despite the important role of the market, purer free market economies have consistently underperformed well-focused mixed economies. In the latter part of the nineteenth century the mixed economies of Meiji Japan and Bismarck’s Germany clearly outperformed the free market economies of Britain and France. Our own economy grew faster when we abandoned the laissez faire of the 1920s and early 1930s for the proto-socialist policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It has become increasingly sluggish as we have moved back to a purer free market. Data of the past few decades show that our GNP and productivity growth have lagged those of our trading partners, who have mixed economies characterized by moderate government intervention.

The persistently mediocre track record of laissez faire casts doubt on the claim that an economy free from government interference invariably maximizes the wealth of society. In fact, there are sound reasons the pure free market must underperform well-focused mixed economies.

But despite laissez faire’s mediocre track record and despite powerful arguments that it cannot possibly provide what it promises, the notion of the unqualified benefit of the free market has become deeply embedded in our mythology. Apologists have exulted in claims that glorify free market mythology at the expense of reality, and also at the expense of society. Free market principles, even though they have failed in economics, have been eagerly applied to sectors ranging from politics to education, where they have contributed to societal dysfunction.

One politically popular myth, that free market economics and government non-intervention provide the basis for true democracy, flies in the face of history.

As we moved toward an ideology driven 'free market' ONLY belief economically, and away from a mixed economy, the results have been disastrous.

Over the past half-century we have seen lower tax rates and less government interference. We have come a long way toward free enterprise from the proto-socialist policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Since the Kennedy Administration we have reduced the marginal tax rate on our highest incomes from the 91% that remained in effect from the 1940s into the mid-1960s (and a brief peak of 94% during World War II) to 28% in the 1986 tax code. Yet our economic growth has slowed.

Decade/Average Real GNP/per Capita GNP Growth
1960-1969 4.18% 2.79%
1970-1979 3.18% 2.09%
1980-1989 2.75% 1.81%
1990-1994 1.95% 0.79%
(Maddison, Monitoring the World Economy 1820-1992 p. .183, 197)

Despite our adoption of the most enlightened free market policies, our performance resembles that of a declining Great Britain in the late nineteenth century.

Free market apologists contend the closer we come to pure laissez faire, the better. But there is little evidence for even this position. The U.S. has come closer to laissez faire than most other countries, especially since the Reagan Administration. If free market policies are the best economic policies then we should have experienced the most robust growth in the world during this period. But this has not happened. We have been outstripped by our trading partners.

Myths Of The Free Market

The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
President John F. Kennedy

 

[JakeStarkey]

No one is wondering, Listening.

bfgrn and midcan are straight on, and you are listing far to the right without much of a paddle.

Read them carefully and learn for a change.

Now you are wondering.

If you want to relate this back to your original "What we have established", then I will be interested.

You are just fishing for a crack.

That is not how I work.

Go back to the original premise and pull it together. And address of all it. Stop cherry picking what you only want to spend your time on.

 

[Listening]

No one is wondering, Listening.

bfgrn and midcan are straight on, and you are listing far to the right without much of a paddle.

Read them carefully and learn for a change.

He is wondering and you are worthless.

Shove it up your ass sideways and lecture someone who cares.

 

[Bfgrn]

Now you are wondering.

If you want to relate this back to your original "What we have established", then I will be interested.

You are just fishing for a crack.

That is not how I work.

Go back to the original premise and pull it together. And address of all it. Stop cherry picking what you only want to spend your time on.

Oh, and I might add that the bulwark of your article is based on Butler....a decision that is to be rejected out of hand given the environment in which it was concieved. Roberts was the very "Switch in time that saved nine". Sure, you can point to it as case law. And that means it stands. But his reasoning is Bulls**t and I'll take the history he ignores and argue he is wrong with both yourself and his protectors any day.

The cut to the chase phrase in my post is: 'you are saying is Madison's view has predominated case law? Then you should have no complaints.'

IF Madison's view predominates case law, then this conversation wouldn't exist, now would it?

 

[JakeStarkey]

I am far more literate on these matters and your own church's counsel on these matters than you. That you don't get it is your problem, not mine.

No one is wondering, Listening.

bfgrn and midcan are straight on, and you are listing far to the right without much of a paddle.

Read them carefully and learn for a change.

He is wondering and you are worthless.

Shove it up your ass sideways and lecture someone who cares.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

I am far more literate on these matters and your own church's counsel on these matters than you. That you don't get it is your problem, not mine.

No one is wondering, Listening.

bfgrn and midcan are straight on, and you are listing far to the right without much of a paddle.

Read them carefully and learn for a change.

He is wondering and you are worthless.

Shove it up your ass sideways and lecture someone who cares.

that's your problem you don't know a fucking thing but act as if you do. I swear if I was at a party and I met someone that talk like you, I would have your ass busted up in a hospital room for a month.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

History repeats itself, or does it in America just continue for some people. Many Americans fail to realize we did not arrive at this place in time without a lot of turmoil and change, revolution, civil war, Laissez-faire capitalism, great depression, unions, new deal, civil rights, great society, riots, and on and on.

This fictional dichotomy has existed in the minds of the simple since the New Deal - if not before - corporate America has since tattooed it into the minds of the impressible. Makes everything easy to categorize. I'd suggest for those interested in its story a book I am reading now. "Historian Phillips-Fein traces the hidden history of the Reagan revolution to a coterie of business executives, including General Electric official and Reagan mentor Lemuel Boulware, who saw labor unions, government regulation, high taxes and welfare spending as dire threats to their profits and power. From the 1930s onward, the author argues, they provided the money, organization and fervor for a decades-long war against New Deal liberalism—funding campaigns, think tanks, magazines and lobbying groups, and indoctrinating employees in the virtues of unfettered capitalism." Amazon.com: Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (9780393059304): Kim Phillips-Fein: Books

Yes history repeats itself when you have ignorant fucks like you trying their hardest for it too happen.