You may disagree with him, but he is probably the one politician you can't call a hypocrite. Even though, as you point out, he is from a gulf district his is not for federal disaster relief and has called for the elimination of FEMA. He has also spoken out for years against federally subsidized flood insurance, which he claims encourages people to build homes in areas that are more likely to be hit by hurricanes.
You obviously missed the part in his plan about the half a trillion or so dollars in defense department cuts, including bringing our troops home from Afghanistan, Iraq, Korea, Germany, and the 100+ other countries where we have them stationed.
My point is that prior to Vietnam a true declaration of war by Congress was the rule, and straying from this rule leads to bad things. There were certainly exceptions, another one of which was Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates, but now these exceptions are used as precedent to justify undeclared wars, occupations, and skirmishes at the whim of the President.
Let's pretend it's 1808. Do you think that the Iraq war would be seen as constitutional? If not, then what has changed? Certainly not the Constitution.
The only real and consistent way of interpreting the Constitution is to look at how the text was defined at the time that it was ratified. As far as a declaration of war, I think the answer is pretty clear. In pretty much every conflict that the United States engaged in through the Korean War, the Congress passed an official no-BS Declaration of War. This is the Congress accepting their Constitutionally-granted responsibility of taking the nation to war. Notice how this is different than dumping this hefty responsibility onto the President by passing a "if you feel like committing our troops, we promise not to impeach you" type bill.
I think history shows that we should take things like war as seriously as possible. Maybe the politicians had it right for the first 175 years or so of this country. If the branch of government that has to answer most closely to the people took responsibility for declaring the wars, maybe we wouldn't make as many mistakes.
Looking back, abundant data exist from states like Connecticut and Massachusetts to show that by 1840 the incidence of complex literacy in the United States was between 93 and 100% wherever such a thing mattered.
According to the Connecticut census of 1840, only one citizen out of every 579 was illiterate and you probably don't want to know, not really, what people in those days considered literate; it's too embarrassing. Popular novels of the period give a clue: Last of the Mohicans, published in 1826, sold so well that a contemporary equivalent would have to move 10 million copies to match it.
If you pick up an uncut version you find yourself in a dense thicket of philosophy, history, culture, manners, politics, geography, analysis of human motives and actions, all conveyed in data-rich periodic sentences so formidable only a determined and well-educated reader can handle it nowadays. Yet in 1818 we were a small-farm nation without colleges or universities to speak of. Could those simple folk have had more complex minds than our own?
Also:
By 1820, there was even more evidence of Americans' avid reading habits, when 5 million copies of James Fenimore Cooper's complex and allusive novels were sold, along with an equal number of Noah Webster's didactic Speller -- to a population of dirt farmers under 20 million in size.
In 1835, Richard Cobden announced there was six times as much newspaper reading in the United States as in England, and the census figures of 1840 gave fairly exact evidence that a sensational reading revolution had taken place without any exhortation on the part of public moralists and social workers, but because common people had the initiative and freedom to learn. In North Carolina, the worst situation of any state surveyed, eight out of nine could still read and write.
In 1853, Per Siljestromm, a Swedish visitor, wrote, "In no country in the world is the taste for reading so diffuse as among the common people in America." The American Almanac observed grandly, "Periodical publications, especially newspapers, disseminate knowledge throughout all classes of society and exert an amazing influence in forming and giving effect to public opinion." It noted the existence of over a thousand newspapers.
Re:Govt. should NOT be paying for this
on
Blogspace vs. NPR
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· Score: 1
When was the last time you heard a pro-life argument on NPR? How about an opinion piece arguing against gun control? I have never heard either although I have heard many with the opposite views. Bill O'Reilly has said that he could not find one NPR station that would allow him to come on and promote his book. Now, I don't particularly care of O'Reilly, but he is a pretty popular figure. I guarantee NPR would be begging Dan Rather to come on and promote his book. I'm not the only one suggesting that NPR slants to the left. There was recently a debate in the House as to "whether the taxpayers should continue to subsidize NPR's left-wing propaganda".
It is my belief that most major television news channels, including the major networks, are slanted left. Bernard Goldberg recently explored this in his book. I think that FOX news is relatively unbiased. They always seem to attempt to present both sides of an issue. CNN has gotten much better also, they probably felt pressure by FOX's surge in the ratings.
Re:Govt. should NOT be paying for this
on
Blogspace vs. NPR
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· Score: 1
PBS kills commercial TV? I couldn't disagree more. Practially all that I watch on TV is news and educational programming. I will occasionally watch a program on PBS, but most of the time I watch the "commercial" educational channels. I've got about 5 History channels, 5 Discovery channels, The Learning Channel, The Biography Channel and more. Between all of them I think they pretty well fill that PBS niche.
My problem with NPR (other than my belief that the government should stay out of the media) is that they are so blatantly liberal. Almost every opinion segment I have ever heard on NPR promotes the leftist viewpoint. If they are going to accept government money, they should at least be unbiased.
Govt. should NOT be paying for this
on
Blogspace vs. NPR
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· Score: 1
Commercial television sucking so bad is definately not a reason for govt funded TV and radio. I can't think of one thing that the govt has gotten involved in that doesn't suck really bad.
All of us can choose for ourselves if the "diverse and broad cable" (or satellite) is worth the cost. The government should not be taking my tax money so that you don't have to pay for the Discovery Channel.
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You may disagree with him, but he is probably the one politician you can't call a hypocrite. Even though, as you point out, he is from a gulf district his is not for federal disaster relief and has called for the elimination of FEMA. He has also spoken out for years against federally subsidized flood insurance, which he claims encourages people to build homes in areas that are more likely to be hit by hurricanes.
You obviously missed the part in his plan about the half a trillion or so dollars in defense department cuts, including bringing our troops home from Afghanistan, Iraq, Korea, Germany, and the 100+ other countries where we have them stationed.
My point is that prior to Vietnam a true declaration of war by Congress was the rule, and straying from this rule leads to bad things. There were certainly exceptions, another one of which was Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates, but now these exceptions are used as precedent to justify undeclared wars, occupations, and skirmishes at the whim of the President.
Let's pretend it's 1808. Do you think that the Iraq war would be seen as constitutional? If not, then what has changed? Certainly not the Constitution.
The only real and consistent way of interpreting the Constitution is to look at how the text was defined at the time that it was ratified. As far as a declaration of war, I think the answer is pretty clear. In pretty much every conflict that the United States engaged in through the Korean War, the Congress passed an official no-BS Declaration of War. This is the Congress accepting their Constitutionally-granted responsibility of taking the nation to war. Notice how this is different than dumping this hefty responsibility onto the President by passing a "if you feel like committing our troops, we promise not to impeach you" type bill.
I think history shows that we should take things like war as seriously as possible. Maybe the politicians had it right for the first 175 years or so of this country. If the branch of government that has to answer most closely to the people took responsibility for declaring the wars, maybe we wouldn't make as many mistakes.
In 1998, eighty-one million copies of Ulysses were sold--not worldwide, but in the United States alone.
Umm. Sure...
Looks like you didn't even comprehend the link that you posted. I'm guessing you were educated in government schools...
An excerpt:
Also:
When was the last time you heard a pro-life argument on NPR? How about an opinion piece arguing against gun control? I have never heard either although I have heard many with the opposite views. Bill O'Reilly has said that he could not find one NPR station that would allow him to come on and promote his book. Now, I don't particularly care of O'Reilly, but he is a pretty popular figure. I guarantee NPR would be begging Dan Rather to come on and promote his book. I'm not the only one suggesting that NPR slants to the left. There was recently a debate in the House as to "whether the taxpayers should continue to subsidize NPR's left-wing propaganda".
It is my belief that most major television news channels, including the major networks, are slanted left. Bernard Goldberg recently explored this in his book. I think that FOX news is relatively unbiased. They always seem to attempt to present both sides of an issue. CNN has gotten much better also, they probably felt pressure by FOX's surge in the ratings.
PBS kills commercial TV? I couldn't disagree more. Practially all that I watch on TV is news and educational programming. I will occasionally watch a program on PBS, but most of the time I watch the "commercial" educational channels. I've got about 5 History channels, 5 Discovery channels, The Learning Channel, The Biography Channel and more. Between all of them I think they pretty well fill that PBS niche.
My problem with NPR (other than my belief that the government should stay out of the media) is that they are so blatantly liberal. Almost every opinion segment I have ever heard on NPR promotes the leftist viewpoint. If they are going to accept government money, they should at least be unbiased.
Commercial television sucking so bad is definately not a reason for govt funded TV and radio. I can't think of one thing that the govt has gotten involved in that doesn't suck really bad.
All of us can choose for ourselves if the "diverse and broad cable" (or satellite) is worth the cost. The government should not be taking my tax money so that you don't have to pay for the Discovery Channel.