California could solve its budget problems by seceding. If the money we fork over for federal taxes stayed in California, the budget would be well in the black. Of course, knowing this state's legislature, I'm sure they'd piss away that surplus within five years.
Hard to say. I think there will have to be someone who's arrested for non-compliance, and he'll have to go all the way through the lower courts first. The feds are very skilled at dragging out litigation against unconstitutional statutes for a very long time, because they can pretend that those statutes are valid until the supreme court says no.
The point of it is that it can be changed through amendments as changing times require changing purpose.
Yes, if the government cared at all about the rule of law, they'd be trying to amend the constitution to permit this kind of blatant power-grab. The problem is that the people let FDR get away with all kinds of things that should have gotten him hanged, and now the power-grabbers see no need to even consider the constitutionality of anything they want to do.
When someone asked Pelosi where in the constitution the authority for this monstrosity could be found, she asked "are you serious?", and then fobbed the question off with the old commerce clause excuse. The commerce clause exists to prevent the states from erecting trade barriers against each other, not to give the federal government authority over anything and everything that is bought or sold. If the commerce clause gave that kind of power, then the rest of the constitution would be moot.
It was also a way to keep England from supporting the south militarily. They had been leading the world in fighting slavery, and they couldn't jump into a war on the side that had slaves.
The truth is: both the democrats and republicans take obscene amounts of money from the health industry.
No argument there. I'm quite aware that there's only one ruling party. I mentioned Hillary and Obama because they made the most noise in the last campaign about wanting to "reform" health care.
1. America has a "free" market for health insurance/care
What in the world gave you that idea?
4. Most States have one insurer that has >40% of the insurance market
Doesn't that tell you something? It's very hard to get into the health insurance business. The biggest players have been greasing politicians for a long time. Look up how much campaign money they gave to Hillary and Obama.
These are examples where Keynsian remedies WERE NOT tried (at first).
What's your next guess?
Most of the "new deal" was continuation of Hoover's interference in the economy. Hoover was the secretary of the treasury in 1920, and he was incensed that he wasn't allowed to interfere in the depression of 1920 (which was over in about a year and a half). When the crash of 1929 came on, he got to try out all of his clever "progressive" ideas and turn the crash into an unmitigated disaster. Roosevelt then dragged it out for the rest of his life.
We didn't get out of the first great depression until 1946, when a million men were released from military service, the federal budget was cut by 2/3, and most of Hoover and Roosevelt's insane economic policies were lifted.
During the 'lost decade' Japan tried the 'fiscal conservatism' policy, by raising the interest rates and stopping the flow of money.
No, the Japanese government refused to let failed banks go out of business. They poured money into them, just as the congress did in the TARP program.
You simply don't understand economics.
Project much?
Keynes didn't understand economics, either. He understood how to curry favor with politicians by lending an air of "scientific" justification to their power-grabbing. He was the Lysenko of economics.
The "federals" also allowed slavery when the constitution was written.
They also offered to let the south keep slavery in perpetuity, if they'd rejoin the union and pay the tariffs. This offer was made several times during the war. The northern claim to moral ascendancy on the slavery issue is a load of crap.
Since when did you have a right to eat farm produce?
So, you're in favor of national health insurance, but not national lunch insurance? Not very big on consistency, are you? After all, we need lunch far more urgently than we need medical attention most of the time.
Greedy private sector taxing the employers way beyond what reasonably implemented health care really should cost... Is the real Evil.
The private sector doesn't do it alone; that's my point. It buys interference in the market from politicians. That interference is power that we never gave to the government in the constitution. It's been usurped gradually, in very small steps since the second world war.
And recent events on the world's financial markets have demonstrated that the free market evangelists are right?
As it happens, yes. They prove what the free-market economists have been saying since Ludwig Von Mises predicted the first great depression. Central banking and inflation of a fiat currency causes boom-and-bust cycles. The longer the boom is fed, the bigger the bust.
I was hoping up until this point that we could restore the republic without having to go through a collapse like the Soviets did. That hope is considerably smaller today.
Wow, the caps lock makes your arguments so persuasive.
So, if someone chooses to be a farmer, do I have the right to compel them to feed me? Also, what do you intend to do about the large number of physicians who've said that they intend to leave the profession if socialized medicine passes?
She produces entertainment, which you can choose to consume or not. Also, her grandfather produced hotel services that many people valued considerably, earning him considerably wealth and giving him the prerogative to leave a fortune to his descendants. If you don't want her to get any of your money, that's your decision. Whether she gets any money from anyone else is none of your business.
You have no more right to force another person to provide you with medical care, than you do to force them to pick your crops or clean your house. You do not gain such a right by delegating the force to a third party.
Tax and spend is an economy killer. So is "redistribution of wealth".
We should never let anyone get away with calling robbery "redistribution". Wealth isn't "distributed" in the first place; it's created, and it belongs to those who create it.
It really is quite remarkable that, in 2009, in the United States, there's still widespread debate and disagreement over the proposition that health care should not be rationed on the basis of ability to pay.
Yes, quite remarkable given the obvious failure of rationing by congestion, as you see in the UK and Canada.
where will all of those people from those industrialized nations who have been denied operations in their own countries go now
Mexico, Thailand, India, Singapore... Affordable medical care is available in many places. It's tragic that the USA is about to jump on the rationing by congestion bandwagon.
Slashdot Mirror
No charges were laid as a result of the raid.
WTF? Why didn't he file charges against them?
-jcr
So what you're saying is that it's a true Microsoft product, amirite?
-jcr
California could solve its budget problems by seceding. If the money we fork over for federal taxes stayed in California, the budget would be well in the black. Of course, knowing this state's legislature, I'm sure they'd piss away that surplus within five years.
Just sayin'...
-jcr
How long before it's challenged in court?
Hard to say. I think there will have to be someone who's arrested for non-compliance, and he'll have to go all the way through the lower courts first. The feds are very skilled at dragging out litigation against unconstitutional statutes for a very long time, because they can pretend that those statutes are valid until the supreme court says no.
-jcr
The point of it is that it can be changed through amendments as changing times require changing purpose.
Yes, if the government cared at all about the rule of law, they'd be trying to amend the constitution to permit this kind of blatant power-grab. The problem is that the people let FDR get away with all kinds of things that should have gotten him hanged, and now the power-grabbers see no need to even consider the constitutionality of anything they want to do.
When someone asked Pelosi where in the constitution the authority for this monstrosity could be found, she asked "are you serious?", and then fobbed the question off with the old commerce clause excuse. The commerce clause exists to prevent the states from erecting trade barriers against each other, not to give the federal government authority over anything and everything that is bought or sold. If the commerce clause gave that kind of power, then the rest of the constitution would be moot.
-jcr
It was also a way to keep England from supporting the south militarily. They had been leading the world in fighting slavery, and they couldn't jump into a war on the side that had slaves.
-jcr
The truth is: both the democrats and republicans take obscene amounts of money from the health industry.
No argument there. I'm quite aware that there's only one ruling party. I mentioned Hillary and Obama because they made the most noise in the last campaign about wanting to "reform" health care.
-jcr
PalmOS isn't a joke, it's just outdated. It did quite well in its time.
-jcr
The previous administration was far from perfect,
It was the worst one since Roosevelt, until the current administration.
-jcr
1. America has a "free" market for health insurance/care
What in the world gave you that idea?
4. Most States have one insurer that has >40% of the insurance market
Doesn't that tell you something? It's very hard to get into the health insurance business. The biggest players have been greasing politicians for a long time. Look up how much campaign money they gave to Hillary and Obama.
-jcr
These are examples where Keynsian remedies WERE NOT tried (at first).
What's your next guess?
Most of the "new deal" was continuation of Hoover's interference in the economy. Hoover was the secretary of the treasury in 1920, and he was incensed that he wasn't allowed to interfere in the depression of 1920 (which was over in about a year and a half). When the crash of 1929 came on, he got to try out all of his clever "progressive" ideas and turn the crash into an unmitigated disaster. Roosevelt then dragged it out for the rest of his life.
We didn't get out of the first great depression until 1946, when a million men were released from military service, the federal budget was cut by 2/3, and most of Hoover and Roosevelt's insane economic policies were lifted.
During the 'lost decade' Japan tried the 'fiscal conservatism' policy, by raising the interest rates and stopping the flow of money.
No, the Japanese government refused to let failed banks go out of business. They poured money into them, just as the congress did in the TARP program.
You simply don't understand economics.
Project much?
Keynes didn't understand economics, either. He understood how to curry favor with politicians by lending an air of "scientific" justification to their power-grabbing. He was the Lysenko of economics.
-jcr
The "federals" also allowed slavery when the constitution was written.
They also offered to let the south keep slavery in perpetuity, if they'd rejoin the union and pay the tariffs. This offer was made several times during the war. The northern claim to moral ascendancy on the slavery issue is a load of crap.
-jcr
Since when did you have a right to eat farm produce?
So, you're in favor of national health insurance, but not national lunch insurance? Not very big on consistency, are you? After all, we need lunch far more urgently than we need medical attention most of the time.
-jcr
Greedy private sector taxing the employers way beyond what reasonably implemented health care really should cost... Is the real Evil.
The private sector doesn't do it alone; that's my point. It buys interference in the market from politicians. That interference is power that we never gave to the government in the constitution. It's been usurped gradually, in very small steps since the second world war.
-jcr
And recent events on the world's financial markets have demonstrated that the free market evangelists are right?
As it happens, yes. They prove what the free-market economists have been saying since Ludwig Von Mises predicted the first great depression. Central banking and inflation of a fiat currency causes boom-and-bust cycles. The longer the boom is fed, the bigger the bust.
-jcr
The only thing that's killing jobs in Michigan are the representatives who aren't doing anything about trying to create them.
If you believe that governments create jobs, you're part of the problem.
-jcr
I was hoping up until this point that we could restore the republic without having to go through a collapse like the Soviets did. That hope is considerably smaller today.
-jcr
Wow, the caps lock makes your arguments so persuasive.
So, if someone chooses to be a farmer, do I have the right to compel them to feed me? Also, what do you intend to do about the large number of physicians who've said that they intend to leave the profession if socialized medicine passes?
-jcr
What does Paris Hilton produce?
She produces entertainment, which you can choose to consume or not. Also, her grandfather produced hotel services that many people valued considerably, earning him considerably wealth and giving him the prerogative to leave a fortune to his descendants. If you don't want her to get any of your money, that's your decision. Whether she gets any money from anyone else is none of your business.
-jcr
And yet, Keynsian economic model is the only one that works...
Except for every time Keynesian remedies have been tried, you mean?
The first great depression, the Japanese lost decade, the second great depression that we're heading into right now...
-jcr
Health care is a right.
You have no more right to force another person to provide you with medical care, than you do to force them to pick your crops or clean your house. You do not gain such a right by delegating the force to a third party.
-jcr
"Tax and spend" is more responsible than "Borrow and Spend".
Tax and spend, borrow and spend, and inflate and spend are all the same evil. They just have different time delays before the damage is apparent.
-jcr
Tax and spend is an economy killer. So is "redistribution of wealth".
We should never let anyone get away with calling robbery "redistribution". Wealth isn't "distributed" in the first place; it's created, and it belongs to those who create it.
-jcr
It really is quite remarkable that, in 2009, in the United States, there's still widespread debate and disagreement over the proposition that health care should not be rationed on the basis of ability to pay.
Yes, quite remarkable given the obvious failure of rationing by congestion, as you see in the UK and Canada.
-jcr
where will all of those people from those industrialized nations who have been denied operations in their own countries go now
Mexico, Thailand, India, Singapore... Affordable medical care is available in many places. It's tragic that the USA is about to jump on the rationing by congestion bandwagon.
-jcr