Mmm hmm. And what if you had a 5% mortgage and got a 7% bond? Then would it be smart or foolish to pay off the mortgage? It depends on how all the numbers play out, and it's massively more complicated than the childishly simple scenarios you and I just traded.
Again, there may be some good reasons to worry, but you (and GP) haven't given any of them.
Uh, it's our business to the extent their governance affects us. That's the same reason all countries put pressure on all other countries, to the extent they are able.
Why? Because despite your not understanding it, the smart people who run the UK government know that it is better to roll over that debt than to pay it off. I won't explain it to you; get an economics textbook.
So saying that debt will not be paid off in our lifetime is insufficient cause for alarm. I don't know how long your threshold is for when things aren't "fine", but if things can be projected out for two hundred years, I think it's reasonable to say that things are "fine". There MAY BE OTHER very good reasons to be concerned, but you didn't list any of them.
Dude, what? Democracy might not "ensure" freedom, but it comes pretty fricking close. At least voters have some control over what freedoms they give up. If you list all the countries of the world from most to least free (in whatever way you would judge that) I proffer that the democracies would be toward the top of that list -- and China would not.
To be clear, our "war" in Afghanistan isn't just about blowing up weddings (although that is a terrible part of it); we are also trying to "nation build", which means establishing things like schools, other government services, government itself, and the beginnings of an economy not based on heroin and terrorism.
I'm not involved in this project but I imagine that part of that last effort was that we sent out some scientists to poke around and see if there were some natural resources that might help. Apparently they hit the jackpot, but digging the jackpot out of the ground might cause more problems than it solves (it's difficult to predict).
Before you get too sure of that position, familiarize yourself with the "resource curse". Every now and then a country successfully leverages a natural resource in the absence of a larger functional economy, but it is exceptionally rare. Almost always, a huge resource in an economic vacuum makes the situation much, much worse.
But we can always hope for one of those exceptionally rare miracles.
Okay. So your argument against supremacy is premised on those things being unconstitutional, but you also recognize that a large majority of people don't agree with that position, so you recognize that a large majority of people don't see the same beef with supremacy that you see.
I think your argument is fine and internally consistent, even if I don't agree with it. I'm comfortable (in fact rather pleased) with the constitutional understanding that developed during the 20th century. But, again, it would also be okay with me if we went through the arduous process to explicitly pass a bunch of overly specific cluttery amendments to authorize these policies, even if I prefer to simply hang those programs on the welfare clause. To be honest, if I were to design an amendment which would authorize those things, it would sounds a lot like "Congress shall have to power to promote the general welfare of the people."
Are you just saying that you think certain things are 'unconstitutional' and thus 'not law' in a valid sense, even though we all live by it anyway? Things like Welfare which aren't enumerated and thus 'not law'?
Or are you saying that those things are fine, but rather when one of those laws IS passed, that the supremacy clause just doesn't apply to THAT law, but would apply to laws which directly address enumerated powers?
The way I understand it is that all of Congress' powers derive from the constitution, which specifies for instance how laws are passed, and that is what 'pursuant' means. Like, they vote on it and it passes, and that makes it law according to the constitution, and thus is 'pursuant'.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof
Hah! Wait until 2050, when we are still using that word to deride idiot ideologue conservatives. (Not all conservatives mind you, only the idiot ideologues.)
Indeed, that's how pragmatic governments move forward. Cross reference to the recent health care legislation. It doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to be better than the previous policy, and we can keep fixing it (or scrap it altogether) later if we want to. Also cross reference to welfare, significantly modified in the 1990s. Also cross reference to... well, any policy pretty much.
Your post makes me realize how happy I am that your unworkable ideology is not more pervasive. Luckily, it can't become very common, because as soon as it does things fall apart, and the pendulum swings the other way again. Protecting ourselves against your belief system is exhausting, but well worth the effort.
It would be reasonable for a Christian to say that Jesus, the one and true living embodiment of the everlasting father, has a prerogative to change rules that mere humans do not have. That is, The Son delivering believers from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant is fundamentally different than some schmoe deciding to put an asterisk in the Holy Bible.
Of course, as a non-Christian, to me that sounds like a bunch of poppycock.
"Strict construction" or "original intent" is not 'somewhat' dishonest, it's flat-out dishonest in every way. So I agree with you even more than you agree with yourself!
If you buy a product and it kills you, and kills a thousand other people, word will get out
This is a statement of perfect information, and it is exactly what I reject. *Sometimes* (perhaps often, but not always) word will *partially* (perhaps widely, but not universally) get out, but the economic theory is predicated on the notion that word will *always* get out to *everybody*. That doesn't happen, and it's one of the several reasons that free-market theory doesn't match reality.
So, non-free market theory might be closer to describing reality. Obviously, supply and demand to interact to help set prices; obviously competition and information move markets; but people who rely on that competition or information for market regulation are, in my well-considered not-so-humble opinion, naive.
Thus, market theory is fine, but free market theory is hogwash.
Free markets are like perfect circles: nice to think about in textbooks, but they cannot exist here in the real universe. We are foolish when our policies are based on free market theory.
Good story. I can one-up you. A guy who bullied me in junior high school went to jail because he and his stupid little wanna-be gang MURDERED THEIR LANDLORD AND DRANK HIS BLOOD IN SOME KIND OF RITUAL. Holy shit.
That's a true story, and I'll even tell you his name: Nick Marsh, from Anchorage, Alaska. He acted hard, but I bet he wept all during his first months in prison.
Agreed. I joined the frat with the reputation for being nerds, Jews, band members, CS majors, gay, nice guys, and a few other stereotypes. There were only forty of us so it was hard to live up to all those at the same time (but we sure tried). And yet, my fraternity at other colleges, one the few occasions I visited them, was often populated with guys that I was rather not fond of, so I'm not trying to defend all fraternities. Some are good, some are bad, on a continuum.
Like I said the first time, for marijuana I am sympathetic. For marijuana, you and I probably agree that smoking the dope is just fine, but "taking over governments" and other violence is the problem. So, you example doesn't compare people committing the same crime.
So, say, a small theft ring is when a couple guys break into a house and steal some cash. A large theft ring is when eleven thieves break into a casino and make off with millions of dollars. In both cases they have committed pretty much the same crime, at different degrees of magnitude, and no, I wouldn't want to excuse the small ring just because it isn't so large as the big ring. In both cases there was a conspiracy, a break-in, and a theft.
I'm with him. Removing files in Unix should move them to a trash directory. The trash directory could be configured to delete immediately (parallel the traditional behavior), or delete after a waiting period (five minutes, five days, five months), or delete when hard drive space is needed, or whatever.
Basically, the idea is that dangerous operations should be undoable when possible, and in this case it's easily possible.
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Mmm hmm. And what if you had a 5% mortgage and got a 7% bond? Then would it be smart or foolish to pay off the mortgage? It depends on how all the numbers play out, and it's massively more complicated than the childishly simple scenarios you and I just traded.
Again, there may be some good reasons to worry, but you (and GP) haven't given any of them.
Don't say never; say almost never. It CAN happen, it's just so unlikely that expecting it to happen is unreasonable.
Uh, it's our business to the extent their governance affects us. That's the same reason all countries put pressure on all other countries, to the extent they are able.
The UK is "still paying off" debt from WWII, and in fact still has some debts on the books from before the Napoleonic wars.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4757181.stm
Why? Because despite your not understanding it, the smart people who run the UK government know that it is better to roll over that debt than to pay it off. I won't explain it to you; get an economics textbook.
So saying that debt will not be paid off in our lifetime is insufficient cause for alarm. I don't know how long your threshold is for when things aren't "fine", but if things can be projected out for two hundred years, I think it's reasonable to say that things are "fine". There MAY BE OTHER very good reasons to be concerned, but you didn't list any of them.
Dude, what? Democracy might not "ensure" freedom, but it comes pretty fricking close. At least voters have some control over what freedoms they give up. If you list all the countries of the world from most to least free (in whatever way you would judge that) I proffer that the democracies would be toward the top of that list -- and China would not.
To be clear, our "war" in Afghanistan isn't just about blowing up weddings (although that is a terrible part of it); we are also trying to "nation build", which means establishing things like schools, other government services, government itself, and the beginnings of an economy not based on heroin and terrorism.
I'm not involved in this project but I imagine that part of that last effort was that we sent out some scientists to poke around and see if there were some natural resources that might help. Apparently they hit the jackpot, but digging the jackpot out of the ground might cause more problems than it solves (it's difficult to predict).
Before you get too sure of that position, familiarize yourself with the "resource curse". Every now and then a country successfully leverages a natural resource in the absence of a larger functional economy, but it is exceptionally rare. Almost always, a huge resource in an economic vacuum makes the situation much, much worse.
But we can always hope for one of those exceptionally rare miracles.
Indeed. It has bad points along with the good points.
Okay. So your argument against supremacy is premised on those things being unconstitutional, but you also recognize that a large majority of people don't agree with that position, so you recognize that a large majority of people don't see the same beef with supremacy that you see.
I think your argument is fine and internally consistent, even if I don't agree with it. I'm comfortable (in fact rather pleased) with the constitutional understanding that developed during the 20th century. But, again, it would also be okay with me if we went through the arduous process to explicitly pass a bunch of overly specific cluttery amendments to authorize these policies, even if I prefer to simply hang those programs on the welfare clause. To be honest, if I were to design an amendment which would authorize those things, it would sounds a lot like "Congress shall have to power to promote the general welfare of the people."
I'm not exactly clear.
Are you just saying that you think certain things are 'unconstitutional' and thus 'not law' in a valid sense, even though we all live by it anyway? Things like Welfare which aren't enumerated and thus 'not law'?
Or are you saying that those things are fine, but rather when one of those laws IS passed, that the supremacy clause just doesn't apply to THAT law, but would apply to laws which directly address enumerated powers?
The way I understand it is that all of Congress' powers derive from the constitution, which specifies for instance how laws are passed, and that is what 'pursuant' means. Like, they vote on it and it passes, and that makes it law according to the constitution, and thus is 'pursuant'.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof
Absolutely true. To be a little more specific, the poppycock is the mythology itself, not so much the internal rule.
Oh, okay thanks, it's all super clear now.
Hah! Wait until 2050, when we are still using that word to deride idiot ideologue conservatives. (Not all conservatives mind you, only the idiot ideologues.)
Indeed, that's how pragmatic governments move forward. Cross reference to the recent health care legislation. It doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to be better than the previous policy, and we can keep fixing it (or scrap it altogether) later if we want to. Also cross reference to welfare, significantly modified in the 1990s. Also cross reference to... well, any policy pretty much.
Seriously. When people make that argument I want to scream.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude ... shall exist within the United States
Ever so rarely, Americans learn their lesson and write it down somewhere important so they don't forget.
Your post makes me realize how happy I am that your unworkable ideology is not more pervasive. Luckily, it can't become very common, because as soon as it does things fall apart, and the pendulum swings the other way again. Protecting ourselves against your belief system is exhausting, but well worth the effort.
It would be reasonable for a Christian to say that Jesus, the one and true living embodiment of the everlasting father, has a prerogative to change rules that mere humans do not have. That is, The Son delivering believers from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant is fundamentally different than some schmoe deciding to put an asterisk in the Holy Bible.
Of course, as a non-Christian, to me that sounds like a bunch of poppycock.
"Strict construction" or "original intent" is not 'somewhat' dishonest, it's flat-out dishonest in every way. So I agree with you even more than you agree with yourself!
No one really anticipated that federal power would supercede those rights in many cases.
Hmmm. I don't know about that. The supremacy clause is pretty clear, and was equally clear when adopted.
Indeed. If there is one policy that has made the United States a worse place to live, it's public education. /rolls eyes
If you buy a product and it kills you, and kills a thousand other people, word will get out
This is a statement of perfect information, and it is exactly what I reject. *Sometimes* (perhaps often, but not always) word will *partially* (perhaps widely, but not universally) get out, but the economic theory is predicated on the notion that word will *always* get out to *everybody*. That doesn't happen, and it's one of the several reasons that free-market theory doesn't match reality.
So, non-free market theory might be closer to describing reality. Obviously, supply and demand to interact to help set prices; obviously competition and information move markets; but people who rely on that competition or information for market regulation are, in my well-considered not-so-humble opinion, naive.
Thus, market theory is fine, but free market theory is hogwash.
Free markets are like perfect circles: nice to think about in textbooks, but they cannot exist here in the real universe. We are foolish when our policies are based on free market theory.
Good story. I can one-up you. A guy who bullied me in junior high school went to jail because he and his stupid little wanna-be gang MURDERED THEIR LANDLORD AND DRANK HIS BLOOD IN SOME KIND OF RITUAL. Holy shit.
That's a true story, and I'll even tell you his name: Nick Marsh, from Anchorage, Alaska. He acted hard, but I bet he wept all during his first months in prison.
Agreed. I joined the frat with the reputation for being nerds, Jews, band members, CS majors, gay, nice guys, and a few other stereotypes. There were only forty of us so it was hard to live up to all those at the same time (but we sure tried). And yet, my fraternity at other colleges, one the few occasions I visited them, was often populated with guys that I was rather not fond of, so I'm not trying to defend all fraternities. Some are good, some are bad, on a continuum.
Like I said the first time, for marijuana I am sympathetic. For marijuana, you and I probably agree that smoking the dope is just fine, but "taking over governments" and other violence is the problem. So, you example doesn't compare people committing the same crime.
So, say, a small theft ring is when a couple guys break into a house and steal some cash. A large theft ring is when eleven thieves break into a casino and make off with millions of dollars. In both cases they have committed pretty much the same crime, at different degrees of magnitude, and no, I wouldn't want to excuse the small ring just because it isn't so large as the big ring. In both cases there was a conspiracy, a break-in, and a theft.
I'm with him. Removing files in Unix should move them to a trash directory. The trash directory could be configured to delete immediately (parallel the traditional behavior), or delete after a waiting period (five minutes, five days, five months), or delete when hard drive space is needed, or whatever.
Basically, the idea is that dangerous operations should be undoable when possible, and in this case it's easily possible.