ParanoiA

See, now me? I prefer transparency, honest discourse, and integrity over "inside jokes" reminiscent of the shit Pat Robertson discusses, but I suppose YMMV.

Oh come on, is that what The Daily Show is? Stephen Colbert? Lighten up, he's trying to be tongue and cheek with his audience and tweak sensitive media and I really think you're just feeding the troll, so to speak.

Pat Robertson... Laughing at how that silly media took what he said to be representative of what he actually thinks. Silly people, listening to words instead of their guts. Hahaha... Joke's on you, media. You bunch of Moe-Rons.

The key difference is that Pat Robertson is a christian figure and Rush is a political one. He's no Glen Beck, he doesn't talk about god and religion except in terms of rights when the issue is current, and of course taking up for the christian right as a political group. It would be out of character for Rush to actually get that religious, in that way, and that loony. I know you want to believe that, but I just think he's trying to get a rise out of the public.

Ah... That Rush Limbaugh and his zany sense of humor. Golly' date=' he's a hoot.

As an aside, if Obama said the same thing, he'd be lined up and shot by this same person. Hypocrisy, much?[/quote']

 

Hey I got no dog in this fight. I'm just telling you as someone who's listened on and off for years. I know how he operates. But you're free to leave it. I don't care.

 

 

I suppose it's possible' date=' but he also has a whole thing about directly challenging the idea of common ground. He believes in the fight, in not backing down or compromising in any way. Clinton's statement directly challenges one of Rush Limbaugh's most fundamental principles, which is that if conservatives only fight long and hard enough the liberals will give in because they are weak, stupid, and not well motivated.

 

It's why he never backs down in any way, shape or form. Not ever. The only thing I've ever heard him back down on was admitting his addiction to oxy, which he probably had to do to avoid jail time. One of the most revealing things I remember hearing on his show was that when a caller would say anything grudgingly admiring or even slightly admitting of a liberal position, he would refuse to join them on it.

 

Always deny, always obfuscate, always control the damage, always reverse the blame, and always, always ridicule. It is the partisan's creed.[/quote']

 

Just in case it isn't clear, my post was referring specifically to the OP and not the Clinton exchange. This is the first I've heard of it. But yeah, you're right about all of that above.

 

I've always felt he latched on to a canned excuse for drug addiction as evidenced on Shatner's Raw Nerve; this appeal to how he never felt comfortable being open with people. It's just so rehearsed.

I can assure you this is shtick. I'm surprised we didn't hear any of his usual repetitive giggles where he pretends it's really hilarious and is an inside joke that only the intelligent listeners will get. I wouldn't make a big deal of it because he's going to laugh at the media if they run with it.

Remember, this is the same dude that showcases "the media tweak of the day" on his show...well, daily.

I tend to agree with Pangloss on this one. Libertarians are against government, in general, not specifically federal government. For that reason, they'd ALSO be against state, city, county, or other local government providing fire protection services, and Jackson's criticism is really moot since it relates more to anti-federalists than to libertarians.

 

Either way, the graphic above brought me a chuckle so I figured I'd share.

I don't believe that's true at all. Most modern libertarians are classical liberals - the founder's philosophy (as Stossel discovers, minus Judge Napolitano apparently). They created a federal government, after lessons learned. Government does some things well, that only government can do.

There's a laundry list of responsibilities we really like government doing at the local level that still doesn't approach a fraction of the kind of insult to individual rights that extends beyond that title. I'm not sure fire services would be excluded if you polled modern libertarians.

And anti-federalist is a great cousin to libertarians and I've often wondered why we all aren't anti-federalists that direct our efforts to politically diverse state utopias.

Oh and the graphic is funny as hell. I'm printing it and putting it up in my cubicle. Thanks.

You mean this section 8?

 

Section 8: The Congress shall have power To lay and collect taxes' date=' duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States[/quote']

No, I didn't miss it...

 

Yeah, that's the generalized statement that Madison was referring to. It is not its own enumerated power - or else the enumerated powers are needless detail.

 

We could argue this, but I already did above. If you didn't read it the first time, I'm not sure I want to try again.

I'm pretty sure he (and you earlier) were talking of "well educated" not of "intelligence". Why the switch to "intelligence" now?

Because I'm not very damn intelligent this morning?

I don't know how I jumped off the reservation on that one. I'll start all over, if I can edit that post.

My apologies to iNow.

Article One is rather nonspecific, and among other things grants the government the power to tax and create spending bills. It's not like it contains an itemized list of the specific services the government can provide.

 

It seems that we merely disagree as to whether or not healthcare falls under the auspices of "general welfare". I say yes, you say no.

Did you miss section 8 of that article and the list of enumerated "services"? That's plenty specific enough.

But yeah, we're disagreeing on old ground here. I'm guessing you're more of a Hamiltonian stripe, but then keep in mind, that interpretation is also what keeps us from enjoying some relaxing "herbal" remedies. Since I've read your views on that, and other civil liberties, I'm wondering how you reconcile that conflict.

Sixty-four percent believe that the president has increased taxes for most Americans, despite the fact that the vast majority of Americans got a tax cut under the Obama administration. Thirty-four percent of the general public says the president has raised taxes on most Americans.

So can I assume 36% did *not* believe the president has increased taxes for most americans? That certainly covers more than a "few" in my book.

Twenty-four percent of Tea Party supporters say it is sometimes justified to take violent action against the government. That compares to 16 percent of Americans overall who say violence against the government is sometimes justified.

That's not a measurement of "well educated". Or are you saying our forefathers were too uneducated to realize we should be under English rule leading to a revolution based on ignorance? Hell, that may be true come to think of it...

An overwhelming majority of Tea Party supporters, 84 percent, say the views of the Tea Party movement reflect the views of most Americans. But Americans overall disagree: Just 25 percent say the Tea Party movement reflects their beliefs, while 36 percent say it does not.

I'm not sure statistical trivia is a proper measurement of education. How well educated are that 36% on Tea Party views? Surely media reports of racism and violence wouldn't effect such answers now would it?

Maybe they were considering the 59% of americans that think we're headed in the wrong direction. And 36% disavowing agreement still leaves 64% out there - and still doesn't mean their views aren't shared by the tea partiers. You've yet to prove them wrong.

I know a couple of people here at work that distance themselves from the tea party movement, yet are small government (so they say) conservatives. It would be accurate to say their views are shared. I wonder how much of that is responsible for that 36%, or the remaining 39% that apparently "didn't know".

Thirty percent of Tea Party supporters believe Mr. Obama was born in another country, despite ample evidence to the contrary. Another 29 percent say they don't know.

Another stat that really doesn't measure education. Contrast that to how much of the general public believes the assassination of JFK was a conspiracy, and that 9/11 was an inside job, and that we never landed on the moon. There's ample evidence there too.

Fifty-three percent say the Roe v. Wade decision was a bad thing (compared to 34 percent of Americans overall), 40 percent oppose same-sex marriage and civil unions (compared to 30 percent overall) and 30 percent want gun control laws eased (compared to 16 percent overall).

Another statement that says nothing about "well educated".

Fifty-two percent believe too much has been made of the problems facing black people. Far fewer Americans overall -- 28 percent -- believe as much. Among non-Tea Party whites, the percentage who say too much attention has been paid to the problems of black people is 23 percent.

Another statement that says nothing about "well educated".

One in four believe the administration favors blacks over whites, an opinion shared by just 11 percent of Americans overall and seven percent of non-Tea Party whites.

Now that's effin stupid, and not very intelligent. But it says nothing about "well educated" or not.

You're right... This group just OOZES well educated.

Sorry, your point fails. You only have 2 out of 8 accusations, one repeated for redundancy I guess, that even speak to "well educated" and aren't very impressive at that.

Of course, it's also a strawman since my injection was that there are more than just a few educated tea partiers. I don't think those numbers prove anything either way.

Now, on intelligence...I could write a whole post on it. Some would say I already did..

It's also clear that there's a lot of exaggeration about the Tea Party folks.

How do we know he's not an infiltrator of the infiltrators? He could be a token minority tea partier used by the tea party to make believe he's actually an Obama supporter, so he can therefore pretend that the Tea Party were stand up folks.

Jus' sayin

They are tied up like a pretzel due to conflicting loyalty.

This could be the fate of many tea partiers too. While they are still largely republican over libertarian (inferred from the 28% support for Ron Paul per the CBS Poll here), there are enough actual, small government folks in the movement that will be disappointed when Newt Gingrich (I'm calling it now...), or some other big government conservative wins the presidency. They too could find themselves tied up like a pretzel in that aftermath.

You think the 10th amendment prevents the federal government from providing services?

That's a bit broad. I think article one makes it clear what services they are to provide. If they aren't listed, then it's not for them to provide. If providing services beyond what is enumerated is desired, then pass an amendment. Packing the court with activist Justices empowered by an emotionally fearful climate of economic doom was no way to go about it. GWB would have done the same thing with the "terror fear" if he had the vacancies to appoint.

To me it's right there in the preamble... promoting the general welfare is one of the things the government is supposed to do.

 

Were you to ask me where in the Constitution it says the government can force you to buy something, I'd draw a blank.

But that doesn't magically cancel the enumerated powers and the 10th amendment that fills in where they leave off.

Per the text:

Section 8

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and

Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general

Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be

uniform throughout the United States;

 

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

 

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

 

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

 

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the

Standard of Weights and Measures;

 

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

 

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

 

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited

Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

 

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

 

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and

Offenses against the Law of Nations;

 

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

 

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

 

To provide and maintain a Navy;

 

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

 

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union,

suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

 

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for

governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United

States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers,

and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline

prescribed by Congress;

 

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District

(not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and

the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

 

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into

Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this

Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or

Officer thereof.

Madison's view, which is the only reasonable view for a limited government purported by the classical liberal framers (today's libertarian), was that the General Welfare clause was shorthand for the enumerated powers since they promote the general welfare.

In Federalist No. 41, Madison says "Nothing is more natural or common that first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity."

Noting the structure of section 8 and the redundancy of such ideas as "common defence" while also enumerating to raise and support armies, to create a Navy, and even to direct the Militia, it should be obvious that the General Welfare clause is the generalized statement that the enumerated powers recite in detail.

And that's exactly how it was ruled by the Supreme Court until 1936, United States v Butler and finished off in Helvering v Davis. It took 150 years and Roosevelt's 6 Justice appointments to see it differently. Just like they slaughtered the Commerce Clause in 1942.

I recently acquired Adobe Flash CS4 Portable by Atalay, and it runs just fine on my own machine, which is running Windows XP.

But it will not run on my wife's brand new laptop, which has Windows 7. It returns an error to the effect that the program was stopped. When I poke around with the event viewer I find that it's apparently an APPCrash.

I was told to try turning off UAC, which I did. But she doesn't have Win 7 "professional", so the process for turning that off isn't quite the same. It uses a slider instead. I also tried running the program by right clicking and choosing to "run as administrator".

I even tried using Windows Compatibility and applying XP settings - it still doesn't run and gives the same error.

Nothing works. And when I google for a fix, I only find a couple of relevant pages, which appears to be someone else reporting the same problem, same program, but with a different error and there is no solution offered.

Has anyone else experienced this issue, or have any ideas on how to fix it?

I highly doubt a majority of the tea party is made up of undercover operatives looking to defame the group - and a majority of them are the ones that are making the educated few look really bad =\

Educated few? I don't know about that...

They are better educated than most Americans: 37 percent are college graduates' date=' compared to 25 percent of Americans overall. They also have a higher-than-average household income, with 56 percent making more than $50,000 per year. [/quote']

 

 

 

I'd suggest based on available evidence that tea party-ers are more IN-famous than they are famous.

 

According to CBS's poll, only 18% of americans support the Tea Party, so infamous is probably right.

All it takes is one voice in the crowd, a couple nasty signs - out of thousands and you will successfully bait the media. It doesn't have to be huge or remotely organized to pull that off.

Good thread jryan.

The government requires we all "buy" certain things, like insurance on your car before you can drive. of course you have the option of walking, I guess you could refuse to buy insurance and simply live off the grid it you really wanted but to say it's unconstitutional to make someone buy something the benefits the greater good is a little weak.

The constitutional argument against the commerce clause being used against the healthcare bill is that we aren't engaged in commerce by simply being alive and breathing. My medical care doesn't exist until I go engage in it - yet the government has passed a law forcing me to begin engaging in commerce.

Contrast that to other applications of the commerce clause, where there exists an object in possession that therefore can be regulated since possessing that object effects interstate commerce of those objects. Services are regulated on the service side, since by providing a service they are engaged in commerce too. So you can regulate massage parlors if you want.

Nowhere do we have the right to assume that all citizens are engaged in a service and apply regulation to them. One can argue all day long that we'll eventually use the service, but that's a can of worms without a reasonable end.

If by merely being alive and inside the borders of the US means that I'm engaged in commerce, then the constitution is toilet paper.

Caught a few minutes of Rush at lunch time today, as open line Friday's are always kind of interesting and he is doing his annual Leukemia and Lymphoma Society money drive, kicking it off with a $400,000 donation. And apparently donations are surprisingly high this year, as well as last - at least according to the show.

So it dawned on me, that this serves a better example of a point I've tried to make over the years. (I always used starving chinese kids as an example.)That when we set up programs to help folks and fund them with taxes, that we are essentially forcing everyone to redirect their capital to causes that we find important. We've decided that your causes will take a back seat to ours.

You want to help children dying of blood cancer? You'll have to fund that with whatever you have leftover after funding full grown, healthy adults for food and housing, and now health insurance - just the tip of the list. Not to mention a number of child services, like school lunches and head start.

Isn't this a conflict of ostensible priority? Aren't dying children more important than adults without a house? Aren't dying children in more need of my money than children who can't eat lunch? How dare the government force such immoral priorities on me.

I wonder how much money has been taken from the people to fund mild need that would have gone to extreme need by that person's choice.

And "I'm not worried about that," which is what he actually said, is still not the same as "I never (or don't) worry about that," which is what you are misrepresenting him to have said. This case is also a matter of saying something that you interpret as a violation.

I read nothing in my post you've responded to here that counters that.

Try again. This time I'll bold the part you missed.

I'm talking about vocally directly countering your job function. The interpretation here is about whether or not they meant the statement as we heard it - the violation is contained in the verbiage itself - in that case we're trying to be sure the statement was meant to be applied that way[/b']. In your examples, the violation itself is not contained in the verbiage - it's still a subjective reconciliation with the document.

Your opinion is that his statement is not to be applied that way given the context - even though the verbiage, itself, contains the conflict. That's fair. This would be like a police officer saying "I don't worry about the law on this", and we discover later that he had already verified the law supported his position.

In your examples, they do not contain self incriminating verbiage, despite the obvious interpretation also present.

If you're going to draw a valid analogy, it must contain both a statement and the vocabulary must repudiate their job function.

And enough with the misrepresentation charges, you're just as guilty of sloppy work here. He didn't say "I'm not worried about that" - he said "I don't worry about the constitution on this..." which is curious, because you specifically said he didn't say just that in your opening sentence:

"I'm not worried about that," which is what he actually said, is still not the same as "I never (or don't) worry about that,"

But he did say that, after all...

http://coloyan.com/blog/index.php/representative-phil-hare-d-il-doesnt-care-about-the-constitution/

Citizen: What about the Constitution?

Hare: I don’t worry about the Constitution on this, to be honest with you

Citizen2: Jackpot, brother!

Hare: You know what I care about? I care more about the people that are dying every day that don’t have health care.

Citizen2: You care more about that than the US Constitution that you swore to uphold??

Hare: I believe that it says that we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Citizen2: OK

Citizen3: That’s the Declaration of Independence.

Hare: That doesn’t matter to me. Either one.

Citizen 2: It clearly doesn’t matter to you. It is so clear that it doesn’t matter.

Hare: You don’t know what matters to me. [voice rising] What was your question again?

Citizen3: Where in the Constitution does it give you the authority…

Hare: I don’t know.

Citizen3: That’s what I thought.

This is awesome.

The "Immortal Soul Clause" was added as part of an attempt to highlight how few customers read the terms and conditions of an online sale. GameStation claims that 88 percent of customers did not read the clause, which gives legal ownership of the customer's soul over to the UK-based games retailer.

 

The remaining 12 percent of customers however did notice the clause and clicked the relevant opt-out box, netting themselves a £5 GBP gift voucher in the process.

 

GameStation executives are now assuring all customers that they are not enforcing the Immortal Soul Clause and will be contacting customers via email with a notice of nullification - phew!

We can have an argument about the general Welfare and commerce clauses' date=' but this politician didn't even know how to support his position from a legal standpoint.

 

He wouldn't have been able to argue the legality of his own actions (regardless of whether he was right).[/quote']

 

Not to mention it's highly condescending to the people. We're not worth explaining it to? I don't care how beligerant the people get, an elected congressman ought to have an answer for us. It can still be a one liner - "Where is it in the constitution? Try the commerce clause."

 

And then I'll beat him about the head on that instead.

With this you seem to be dismissing all of my examples, only one of which referred to legislation. What of the politician who says they support school prayer or teaching creationism, in a situation similar to this? i.e. to a camera, not as part of legislation. Unlike the healthcare bill, those are two issues that the courts have found to be unconstitutional. Isn't support for them the same as repudiating one's oath? Or is there a loophole, that you can support as many unconstitutional things you want, but as long as you don't admit they're unconstitutional, you're not violating your oath?

They can still violate their oath, but they don't qualify as an analogy to self incrimination by outright repudiation of your very job function. Those are examples of people saying or doing something that we interpret as a violation - while they are free to delusionally believe it is not.

While you and others have done a terrific job of proving more subjectivity than I wanted to believe in this case, I still insist on a distinction here.

I don't really know how to say it any differently. A fireman that doesn't worry about fires. A teacher that says she doesn't care about teaching. A police officer that states he doesn't worry about the law, when questioned why he's arresting a 5 year old for drinking water.

I'm talking about vocally directly countering your job function. The interpretation here is about whether or not they meant the statement as we heard it - the violation is contained in the verbiage itself - in that case we're trying to be sure the statement was meant to be applied that way. In your examples, the violation itself is not contained in the verbiage - it's still a subjective reconciliation with the document.

Do we have a choice?

Oh, and could you shrink the universe so we can explore a bit more than our backyard? Thanks.

That's why the proverbial fine print only flies legally. If you screw enough people with the fine print, you may not have broken any laws, but you've broken trust with the consumer. If that gets out, you're losing business, which is the point of your ISP adventure. AOL was rumored to block content, like a decade ago I think and I forget the details or if it was even true. But I do remember friends of mine and co-workers telling me about it and chucking their service because of it. (I don't even hear about AOL anymore, I wonder if they're still in business...)

Most EULA's don't screw people, so when most of us say "yeah, sure, just install it..." we're reasonably sure we're not agreeing to some malicious scheme.

The fine print and legal mumbo jumbo is pretty chickenshit, I totally agree. But in the interest of freedom, I think it's well worth it.

And I don't think you've made your case, because you have changed the statement, and in doing so, made a strawman argument.

Absolutely it is true that I paraphrased incorrectly, that was sloppy on my part. And that does change the dynamics of the conversation, no doubt. There is a big difference between "I don't worry" and "I don't care".

However, considering that, it has not changed my conclusion since processing this in context still results in similar usage. I do believe in this case, he is saying "I don't worry" the same way you'd say "I don't care" - he appeared to be enthused to share his disregard for the constitution with the camerman because he resents being held to that document when he's trying to "save children". That's why he went straight to it - he is convinced the righteousness of saving precious kiddos justifies not worrying whether or not the constitution supports it.

Once again, you have changed the conditions. I never said you don't get to decide if you think your post was clear. Whether it actually was depends on the reader. What's clear to one is not clear to another.

That's obvious. I shouldn't have to prefix every statement with "Gee, this is my opinion" or "I think" or "I believe" to share an opinion. I actually do alot of that already, but it's nonsense to assume that without those qualifiers that every statement becomes a statement of fact. That's what you're doing here...oops, I think.

This is your conjecture. I never imbued the phrase with any magical qualities. But it does imply that there can be no other conclusion than the one you presented, and that's false.

You don't get to decide what it implies. That's up to the reader. Making opinionated statements as if they are facts is a standard you don't accept from others, so I hardly see how you excuse yourself.

But, of course it implies that - and that has NOTHING to do with this exchange actually. Remember, back on page 1 that started all this:

Yeah...I don't know why I have to keep saying this...again' date=' this thread isn't about pointing fingers at unconstitutional lawmaking - that's subjective.

 

[b']This thread is about glorious self incrimination by one's own mouth.[/b] Got any examples of lawmakers saying they don't care about what they're paid to care about?

 

Maybe because you declared this to be an open and shut case, and people can think of many blatantly unconstitutional acts that have gone unpunished. Your paraphrase is inaccurate. Hare didn't say "I don't care about the constitution;" that was the cameraman.

You're actually trying to excuse yourself for missing the condition of the thread because I called it an open and shut case.

You were the second person to bring up an example of someone supposedly violating their oath by legislative action - not by outright repudiation of their job by their own mouth.

That is the condition I'm arguing in this thread. And this is the reason why. I'm trying to draw a careful line between political prosecution, which is entirely partisan and destructive, and self incrimination of oath violation, which should be absolutely nonpartisan and destructive to let go unpunished.

You can disagree all you want, and most have. We're having this exchange because you're externalizing misunderstanding the conditions I brought up in this thread. Re-reading the OP, my last sentence can be misleading. But the sentence before it nails it, and I even emphasized the word "believe" when I said "you are expected to at least believe you are upholding your sworn oath".

And just like "worry" and "care" can change the meaning, so does "believe", in that statement. It means the difference between 225 years of political legislative examples that can be interpreted as violations of oath and one congressman in 2010 repudiating his elected charge. That's a huge difference.

Misquoting what was said was a big start. Self-incrimination and repudiation of his charge are your conclusions, but you have treated that opinion as if it were a fact.

No, I know it's still an interpretation and you can still disagree with it. But that doesn't make analogies to legislative acts, that can be interpreted as violations, somehow valid. The condition still applies and those examples are invalid.

I don't get to throw in apples because I think you're wrong about oranges.

No, you're leaping to conclusions based on … I don't know. Your desire for him to be in the wrong? It happens a lot. You're only human. No offense.

Offense taken, I do not appreciate being called a human.

I'm not leaping to conclusions, I'm drawing one by considering the context. As an unashamed advocate for personal liberty and Constitutional reverance, I am absolutely astounded by an elected official, who's very job it is to uphold and defend the constitution, shrugging off constitutional questions.

Interpret how you want. I've defended plenty of democrats in my time, including the latest Obama-is-sorry-we're-a-super-power nonsense, and this legislator is guilty of not giving a crap what he is paid to give a crap for - that's my interpretation.

You don't get to decide if your post was clear. That's up to the people that read it. That's the problem with interpretation. All you can do is clarify your position. Ironically though, this thread deals with interpreting what Phil Hare meant, and we see that there are multiple interpretations. Interpretation is usually not very cut-and-dried.

I absolutely get to decide if I think my post was clear. And I think you are externalizing your problem with interpreting my OP.

The notion that my stating it was an "open and shut case" that caused you to not understand the point of this thread, is reaching...to put it kindly. The "Open and shut" phrase doesn't have magical properties that make people not understand concepts.

Remember, that was your excuse for bringing up unconsitutional law making as a comparison to self incrimination and vocal repudiation of one's very charge.

Tell me again, what exactly is so misleading about my OP that I "caused" your error?

I caught a partial segment of CNN today and Sarah Palin was speaking at a TEA Party rally. She said "We'll keep our religion and our guns-you keep the change."

 

Who is trying to take away religion and guns?

That's a swipe at Obama in reference to this.

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and' date=' like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," he said.

 

"And it's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations," he added. [/quote']

 

At this point, Palin is just a sloganeer and motivational speaker. Which is very fitting for protests.

I believe that' date=' the way it is being used here, human nature, the desire, the instinct has always been changing, but it is much to slow to be noticeable by the population, because of course it changes through the process of evolution. So to us many of these characteristics can be seen as a constant.

 

Human culture, social behavior, human behavior are rapidly changing. Sure some things are fairly constant from our perspective and stay fairly the same for thousands and thousands of years, but there is always change, everything changes.[/quote']

 

Totally agree with that. And well said.

 

But to the point' date=' how effective is framing a government around human nature though, what does that really mean? We all pick our nose? We have to hunt, in some manner, to eat?

 

Framing a government is much more complicated than that. Governments need the ability to adapt to new challenges, new problems, and/or new pursuits. That is why I believe a government that essentially does nothing, believes there is nothing new under the sun (like the Coolidge Administration this essay praises) cannot meet the demands of our ever changing world.[/quote']

 

But I don't think they mean to "frame" a government around this nature, but rather build a government symmetrical to that reality. For example, in reverance to human nature, we should have a national defense since we know humans are not done with war and conquering and that our neighbors covet what we have. That sort of thing.

 

With that in mind, we see disarming the citizenry, as asymmetrical to human nature. Government has earned no magical benevolent status just because we're in the 21st century and life in america is so technological and seemingly civilized - we're just animals in pants, like the commercial says. We could have a Nazi Germany equivalent tomorrow, all we need is the citizenry to idolize their leaders, give them the power to increase their economic and social security and then rationalize the oppression of a minority group - like the rich.

 

Just an example of how we might synchronize government to human nature.