Thanks, I am perfectly aware of what conservatives and libertarians mean when they say "big government." I just think their philosophies are incoherent.
Obviously, you are not aware, you just tried to argue with me that my interpretation of government roles being within the big government argument was wrong. Now if it is incoherent to you, it's because you have glossed over it without taking a slightest bit of time to retain any of the information or even understand it. It's not some complicated ideology that only brilliant people can get.
The United States of America was the bare minimum compromise that could get the agreement of most of the state delegations. It's full of bullshit.
What exactly is bullshit? I'm willing to bet it's either something that you think is in the constitution, something the courts have implied was in the constitution, or something you have no idea about.
Well, you do seem to act like one of those people who doesn't like the second amendment.
What's the justification for representing states rather than people?
Com'on.. This is elementry education stuff here. Nonetheless, it should have been covered in your high school government and civics class. Did you not take that or something? The reason for representing the states is because the federal government was originally supposed to be a unified front for foreign relations and each state was to retain all sovereignty that wasn't surrendered to the union. In other words, we were to become one country of many separate countries working to a common goal while keeping out independence. This is pretty much implied in the US constitution where it specifically bars the states from doing what it surrendered to the federal government to do.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, (yea that right, the lieing cheat who brought us the new deal) probably said it best when explaining this when he said
"As a matter of fact and law, the governing rights of the States are all of those which have not been surrendered to the National Government by the Constitution or its amendments. Wisely or unwisely, people know that under the Eighteenth Amendment Congress has been given the right to legislate on this particular subject1, but this is not the case in the matter of a great number of other vital problems of government, such as the conduct of public utilities, of banks, of insurance, of business, of agriculture, of education, of social welfare and of a dozen other important features. In these, Washington must not be encouraged to interfere."
at a speech pertaining to the Volstead act. This speech in it's entirety was printed in the New York Times, March 3, 1930 This was also two years before he became president and ignored his very own words starting the new deal.
What's the justification for bicameralism? It was a compromise between more and less democratic visions of republican governance, so they could get the less populous states on board.
And what's wrong with that? The problem was that there were more smaller states but the larger states have more of a population. This compromise which had the people represented directly by delegates elected by the people in the house of representatives and delegates appointed by the states represented in the senate. The idea was to ensure the people had a say in their foreign affairs and what little affairs congress had a right to enter in. But if the will of the people damaged the country, the senate's composition would counter it.
Unfortunately, it stopped being about the country and about the party a long time ago.
I understand that the Constitution says things, and we have to follow them. That doesn't mean they are good ideas. That's why I'm talking about political philosophy. Is there a first-principles justification
I hate to tell you this, but the interpretation of the 14th amendment never changed in either of those cases. In Plessy v. Ferguson it said separate but equal was fine. In Brown v. Board of Education, you couldn't produce an equal enviroment as shown by several other cases. Brown v. Board of Education the court determined that separate schools were ipso facto unequal. In both, they held that the 14th amendment required equal opportunities or access. In the first, they said if you could get separate but equal, that would be fine. In the other, they determined that separate was inherently unequal so you couldn't get to the equal part.
Neither case altered the interpretations of the 14th amendment at all. All they did was say one vehicle used to make that happen could be constitutional if it could be equal and the other said the vehicle due to forces in practice outside anyone's control could never be equal. But in both cases, the vehicle used to get the 14th amendment was at issue, not the 14th amendment itself.
First of all, our reply shows how ignorant you really are. It's not a law, it's a constitutional requirement. If it's out dated and unnecessary, then amend the constitution. Your argument that it's pointless to keep honoring the constitution because you somehow rationalized it away is the exact same mechanism that brought us indefinite detentions after being labeled an enemy combatant and warrant-less wiretaps on domestic communications.
Do you really think it's advantageous to the country on the whole, to start rationalizing away and ignoring specific requirements on the US constitution? I mean "congress can make no law" can be rationalized away just as easily. Is this something you want to encourage or is this just something you neglected to consider?
I'm not sure I'm into the advanced stuff, but I certainly do not want to get stuck in the basics. Missionary style for 10 years while married is enough for me.
And I think your understanding of "big government" is silly. The whole concept of "States' Rights" exists because the Constitution as originally written left states themselves unconstrained, for the most part. What is the philosophical justification for allowing one level of government to abuse people in a way that another level of government is prohibited? I don't believe there is one; I think your objections are pragmatic, which means we're not talking about abstract principle anymore. You're talking about government action you like vs. action you don't like. Action you don't like tends to come from the federal level, and the federal government is the most constrained, but action you do like tends to come from the state and local level, which is less constrained.
Maybe you should learn a little more about what you are attempting to talk about. Perhaps you should look into what the US government was actually created for. And no, it wasn't created as some omnipotent government entity with total control over the nation. In fact, it was create as exactly the opposite as any basic high school civics class should have clearly instructed you.
Ever hear the phrase "there is a time and place for everything"?
If we're talking about political philosophy, either the state has some power or the state does not have that power. There's no first-principles reason to even have federalism, just a pragmatic one.
Actually, there is a constitutional reason and that should be enough.
All I'm saying about Constitutional interpretation is that most sentences don't have only one clear canonical meaning. The meaning of words changes over time, and pieces of text do as well. If we literally refuse to consider any meaning outside of the understanding of the authors of the Constitution's minds, how can we decide any legal questions that require knowledge outside their narrow frames?
And I'm saying that if you can wrangle an interpretation different from what the framers intended at the time, then anyone can, in short, we have no constitutional limits on government- even when it's obvious.
If something doesn't work or fit, the answer is an amendment, not running with whatever political or intellectual will of the day might be.
For example, what did "general welfare" mean to them, and what does it mean to us? I bet those are very different things.
This has already been hashed out in the courts, but it was clearly argued by Jefferson and Hamilton. Originally it was mean that congress could make laws concerning the powers ascribed to it by the constitution to provide for the general welfare of the country. In other words, they were supposed to only exercise the power to make those laws when it would benefit the country to do so. This was common in theme with the original limited government theme. It has since them been expanded in the courts to mean more.
Can the federal government regulate the practice of medicine? The Constitution doesn't say it can, but I would say that falls under "general welfare." Another person might disagree. James Madison probably had different ideas.
Actually, no it it doesn't have the authority to regulate medicine. However, this is a prime instance where a good idea sidestepped the constitution and an amendment would have been providable. States don't really have the resources to regulate medicine, and it would be a pain in the ass to get 51 approvals for every medication (50 states plus federal territory). This is obviously an area that most everyone agree the feds should be involved in, so an amendment would be easy to get and give them the authority.
speaking of authority, I noticed you jumped to the general welfare clause. When the feds took started regulating medicin
All he has to do is release a copy of his birth certificate underacted. That is not an inordinate amount of time. In fact, it seems that it would have taken more time to blacken out the parts of what he has released in order to make it unverifiable.
The only reason Obama isn't releasing the entire birth certificate, is because he doesn't want this conspiracy stopped. Well, that or this is more then a conspiracy and the full release would expose it.
You can make all sorts of excuses, but none of them negate that.
Wow.. down modded for discussing the truth. And I wasn't even complaining about Obama, I was discussing others complaining about him.
Well, Slashdot moderators have really struck another low. Fortunately, they aren't very smart. They up-modded the comments I was replying to which means they will stick out and point to my down modded comment. It kind of defeats the purpose of down modding someone to bury the comment.
1. When the small/large government argument turns to what level of government is permitted to restrict activity in what area, you're not even playing on the same field anymore. Now you're talking about pragmatism rather than principle.
No, the term big government is classically defined as the US federal government taking on the role of the state and local governments. This is why states rights arguments almost always coincide with big government complaints. Big government is classically government bigger then it's constitutional role which a small government is classically defined as a constitutional one.
They are not all government in general. This is why you find people complaining about big government on a federal level and requesting the expansion of state or local government at the same time with a strait face. They are not hypocrites in any way.
2. I didn't say our present understanding should have no consideration for what the authors thought; I said that we shouldn't privilege a centuries-old interpretation over a plausible interpretation just because some old dudes said so. They lived in a world where interstate commerce was something sufficiently different from commerce, where some commercial activity in one state could be said to have no effect on commerce in another state. We don't live in that world.
And I am saying that if you do not limit it to what some old dude says so, there aren't any effective limits on it at all any more. If you can find a plausible interpretation of it that isn't what those old drunken, racists, hillbillies meant (the old dudes, AKA the founding fathers), then anyone can do the same. You agreeing with it doesn't matter because the only way you can object at that point is by saying those old dudes said so and you already proved that not to be important. Those old dudes however, weren't infallible and they knew it. That's why there is an amendment process that allows for changes as society does. But you can hardly say the government has the consent of the governed, when what is written in black and white is subject to change to the creativity of a relatively small group of people depending on their political whims of the time. I mean it would be absurd for congress to pass a law and you could only find out the true meaning of it when you are in court and a judge is attempting to justify his own plausible meaning of it that is different then what congress considered when passing the law. Right?
We do, however, live in a world where the right to be protected from unreasonable search and seizure is important. We understand the long history of law enforcement overstepping their authority. We can look at the founders' supposed intentions, and we can look at our interpretation of the text, and we can look at what happens in practice. There's no reason to constrain our sources of information to the old dudes who wrote it.
Ok, I'll bite. So what is the reason stopping me from petitioning the federal government to create a law specifically stopping you from communicating with me or replying to any of my posts and them doing it? The intentions of some old dudes who wrote the US constitution which is what the US government derives it's power from.
You see, our interpretations of the text can only be as it was intended. Not however you want to interpret it today because someone can change that tomorrow and the next day and the next day. But if we find that it's coverage isn't sufficient or that the powers of the government legitimately need expanded or constrained, there is a process called an amendment which allows that.
What you are arguing for is an amendment without the hassle of an amendment. You want the ability to change the US constitution, the ability to alter it's meaning without amending it. I'm saying that if you can do that, anyone can do that and it has no meaning or limitations. You are right, we do
Yes because we all know that only gullible people can discern between fact and fiction whereas those who are not gullible cannot?? How is that logic working for you?
I think maybe you are assuming something that isn't publicly available here. Perhaps you can explain this a little further.
And for that matter how are the state, the hospital and government all able to hush people since his BIRTH and get them ALL to cooperate for the last 45 years? EVERY SINGLE ONE!!! LOL!
And when, since his birth has anyone at the state, the hospital, or anywhere else been concerned with his specific birth or situations surrounding it. Generally the state requires a birth certificate for a drivers license (not so much any more as illegals are permitted to get them), but do they actually track them down and make sure they are valid? And that's only if you do not already have a valid form of ID that negate the need for a birth certificate. You don't need a birth certificate to get a social security number. So when would the state or the hospital every be required to check the validity of the claim over the last 45 years? You mean when his citizenship was not just challenged. But challenged as a specific type of citizen and those record have been tucked and seal away from people attempting to get them other then Obama or specific high ranking state officials?
This is quite a bit less insidious or ridiculous then you claim. The truth of the matter is that no one would have really care to check until it was near impossible for them to check. Has anyone came forward claiming they were the nurse or doctors that delivered or took care of him when he was born? Even if they could realistically remember that one particular birth, are they even still alive? And until he ran for president, it was only checked to see if he was a citizen, not a natural born citizen according to the law. Some of the claims are that he because a citizen by law as a condition to his circumstances but that wouldn't qualify him as a natural born citizen.
Thats the thing about conspiracy theories... you have to believe that every single person can pull it all off together when we all know that people are incompetent and they continually screw up. How did he pull this off for 45 years if this is FALSE and get hundreds of government and state officials to go along with it not to mention everyone who every knew him. Its preposterous and people like you who pose this are laughable buffoons! Oops... typo. I meant laughable BABOONS!
Well, you are partially right. The vast majority of conspiracies have to be so complex that it isn't practical to exist. The problem or thing that differentiates this conspiracy is that Obama holds the key to negate it entirely and refuses to do so. This doesn't necessarily validate the conspiracy, but it extends the presumption of it by creating the concept that it can't be invalidated when the ability is actually there.
Whether you like it or not, Obama wants this conspiracy to be there for whatever reason. Otherwise, he would have already released an underacted original birth certificate that could be verified not only to be real, but to have been issues at the time it's claimed to of been issues making his natural citizenship no longer any question. His refusal to do this when he has publicly released by statements- the contents of the entire original certificate otherwise (outside the serial number) can only been seen as he wants this to continue for whatever reason.
You can't call people absurd, gullible, stupid, or otherwise compare the situation to something like a flat verses round earth when whom the conspiracy is about is keeping it alive intentionally. Whether his actions are within his right or not is entirely a different discussion (I believe they are), but they are intentionally encouraging this conspiracy to exist.
Well, what amazes me is that simply releasing his birth certificate underacted can solve this problem once and for all but for some reason, it's not happening. It seems that with all the people claiming it's real, he is a citizen and not in violation of the US constitution, that Obama himself is attempting to keep this particular conspiracy alive and thriving by not publicly releasing the underacted document.
So even though you are probably correct in claiming it's a dumb argument, it's actually somewhat encouraged by the man himself for reasons that are secretive enough to invite a host of other dumb conspiracies. I fault Obama as much as I do the people believing in them.
This discussion is getting sidetracked. The point is, segregation required government just as much as ending it required government; some of the major policy battles of the last half century don't have a clear more/less government axis.
You seem to be able to not distinguish between government and government. You see, different levels of government are allowed to do certain things while other levels are not. Big government, while it generically deals with the size of government, also specifically deals with the expansion of government in areas not constitutionally provided for. Being against big government is not just the size of government, it's being against the government overreaching with it's powers. The only way it can do that is to take freedoms away.
What this does is shows a compete difference between the feds doing something it isn't constitutionally allowed to do (no matter how good of an idea it might be) and what the state and local governments are constitutionally allowed to do. When the government acts within it's constitutional limits, it's not so much a problem of big government. So you see, comparing something that is allowed and available to everyone to something that isn't allowed by a specific part of government does create an distinct difference.
Also, why shouldn't our current understanding of the Constitution and government authority be different from the understanding of a bunch of white dudes who didn't even have electric lights and shit outside?
Why should the constitution be binding in anything then? Why should the bill of rights be binding on the government if they can simply convince people that due process is something outdated and sitting in jail for 10 years before being charged is fair and equitable for certain crimes?
Here is the problem. The white dudes, most likely all drunk up on Rum and seeing by candle light, knew that times would change and so would the needs of the people. They built this thing called an amendment process within the constitution and anything except for two things could be amended as needed by society at will, given that enough of society agreed. Not following the constitution as written and understood by these drunken hillbillies completely sidesteps the amendment process and creates the situation where the government does something that the majority of the people, or even a large portion of the majority of the people don't agree with.
And while you may think this is fine for what you like the government doing, there are a lot of things that it can backfire on you for. Lets take the right to be free of unwarranted searches and seizures. Since there was no electricity when these drunken, racist, hillbillies created the constitution, then the cops can pull you over on your way to work (cars didn't exist along with electricity), confiscate your laptop and cell phone at will, take it and derive any information they want from it, even using that information against you. But you may say, hey, I have rights, it's in the bill of rights, you need a warrant and probably cause to stop and search me, I have rights to due process and all. But if our current understanding of the constitution and government authority is different from intended and understood by the founding fathers, who is to say that those rights apply? You or the expanded unconstitutional authority of the US government?
Fortunately for us, the way the founding fathers intended the constitution was known. The 4th and 5th amendment was talked about plenty and we have a solid grasp on what it meant to them. Because of this, your interpretation of having rights that preclude the cops from stopping you and taking your possessions and snooping through them is accurate because they expected you to be secure in your person and possessions and anything allowing or extending your person or possession created afterward would automatically be consumed within the same protections guarant
And when the scam artist comes into your neighborhood and hoodwinks you out of your entire retirement because he shows you documents you can't confirm yourself to be valid, refers you only to his friends and stops you from getting any other information from any other way, I'm going to laugh.
I'm not saying Obama is not a US citizen, I'm saying that his hiding information from certain people critical of his citizenship is a valid cause continuing the line of thought from the birthers. I'm also saying that something that has been completely openly debunked is nowhere near the same as something that is purposely behind shielded to some degree like Obama's birht certificate.
Now you can laugh or make jokes all you want. Hell, you can personally remain that gullible and trusting in every over thing you do in life and get completely scammed by everyone out there attempting to work an angle on you. For the rest of us, we know when someone is trying to scam us, and Obama has purposely attempted to make this appear as a scam for whatever reason.
Some sound arguments have been made that the earth is flat too. Does it make them any less ridiculous?
Until there is proof that it isn't, YES. You are starting with an absurd premise here, that something that has been proven to pretty much all is somehow comparable to something that hasn't been proven to all.
The rest of your comment is worse garbage that that so I won't comment.
Well, simple posting an image of the birth certificate underacted would be enough. This would allow the validity to be examined pretty easily. I guess the big problem with the certificate available is that the serial number is missing or blackened out so you can't look up to see if it was issued around the time it was claimed to have been.
Anywyas, as for Reagan or McCain's birth certificate, that's sort of in a different legue here. Reagan's natural citizenship was not in question and McCain's was answered by legal documents about his birth while his father was in the US navy and stationed overseas.
As for people who have personally examined his birth certificate. Well, Obama is actually continuing this problem on. You see, I could show ten idiots and 20 people who want to believe me, something as proof of what I say. All of those people could very well believe me and none of them have to be right. When someone doubts me, if I want it to go away, I only have to prove to the doubters that I'm correct, and it ends there. The complaint about what is publicly available about his birth certificate considering that it's been locked up and normal people can't access it, is that the one shown has important verification items blacked out. The serial number for instance, if it's too new, or too old, it could mean that A: it isn't actually his, B:he's not a natural citizen but one by extension of law after the fact, C: that it belongs to someone else or D: he is a natural citizen ands constitutionally empowered to run for and sit as the president of the United State of America.
What fuels this rabid speculation is that Obama himself is seen as hiding key elements that could ultimately confirm he's a legit president which makes it appear that he's hiding that he isn't. An alternative explanation for this is that he wants the controversy to use as political fuel to his advantage and that's why he is keeping it alive.
As for the write up in the local paper, you can submit those and have them printed. It's not proof that someone was born at a certain place or time, it's only proof that it was reported that way. If you were born in a cab on the way to the hospital, when your parents informed the papers of that, your birth would be in the paper too. It might be accurate, it might not be. What would be accurate is an actually birth certificate with an intact serial number that could show if it was someone else' or if it was issued at the time it was claimed (IE, if 1929 and 1931 was issued in 1933 and 1930 was being claimed it was issued in 1954, we would know a problem existed). And personally covering up that number seems to confirm suspicions more then anything.
Well, according to the law at the time, or how it has been presented by the birthers, according to Obama's own books, his mother was living outside of the country too long for automatic citizenship to kick in.
I don't know how true that is, I don't really care. What I do know is that Obama does have the ability to put all this to rest in a single motion by releasing his underacted birth certificate (which by his own hand is all public knowledge anyways assuming he's telling the truth) to which he refuses for some reason. Now the birthers seem to think it would show he wasn't a legally naturalized citizen by birth, other conspiracy buffs think it's because he can use the opposition as political fuel to his advantage.
Anyways, the point is really that there is ample evidence that he "may" have been born someone other then where common assumption is. And as long as that's there, counting someone as being wrong for drawing lines or conclusions to other birth places isn't an incorrect answer.
PS, I may have the birther thing a little wrong, as I said before, I'm not a birther. I just don't summarily discount their concerns because it doesn't agree with me. I think it's important to understand other people more so then to ignore them because you don't agree.
First of all, you were not specific about which laws you were referring to.
Well, sure, that's because I didn't think it was important to distinguish between a federal law that we were talking about and a city ordinance which we weren't talking about. But hey, thanks for letting me know I have to do this in the future.
Second of all, there certainly are examples of federal laws which can be willfully violated with no ethical issue; take marijuana law as an example.
Like I said before, you can make good arguments why the law is a bad idea, but you can't make arguments on how it's ethical to violate them.
Would you claim that there is an ethical problem with a cancer patient who uses medical marijuana?
Umm.. Yes I would. Using Marijuana and a drug for treatment in medical cases is no different then someone claiming tea tree oil will cure or help with cancer treatments. there simply isn't any medical testing that meets FDA approval standards indicating the truth of that.
I will ask you again: When did the law become the definition of ethical behavior?
The law didn't ever become the definition of ethical behavior. but violating the law without justifying how the law made something worse so it was necessary is an ethical problem.
show me where any ethics course or theory claims that violating the law for the sake of doing it is ethical.
Whats more interesting is that this concept is no different then you having the same ability to remove or restrict any of the same or more from trespassing onto your property or remaining there against your wishes.
If you don't want black people in your yard and they have no other right to be there, you can use state and local law enforcement to remove/exclude them.
what the op was forgetting is that the US constitution allows the State and local government's to make laws simular to the civil rights act, but more importantly, it also allows the state and local government to be used in a way described. What it doesn't do is allow the federal government to encroach that area without emending the constitution first.
If a large number of any people not wanted attempt to persist where they are not welcome, everyone has the right to use the police to remove them from where they are not wanted (as long as they have some right of control over the property). In other words, a police presence is not different then what is offered to you, a private citizen wanting trespassers off your property. If they take something you are refusing to sell, even if they throw the money to pay for it on the counter, it's no different then ME going into your house unwanted, throwing the costs of your TV on your coffee table and walking out with it- a police presence is warranted for that type of action.
The big difference is that there is a right to protect your property and the government doing the protection on your behalf will be the local government which you have the most ability to control and interact with who is also constitutionally empowered to make that possible. It's no different then any other application of law already in place and available to anyone.
Instead of skipping the constitution, they should have amended it. It's really that simple. Even this health care problem we have now wouldn't be a problem if an amendment to the constitution was made allowing the government the authority.
A case in point would be American Health Care, which is a minimum of 50% more expensive than the equivalent health service in any other country. In this cases countries where government plays a large role in health care, may have increased the individual's freedom from work, by decreasing their freedom of choice in health insurance providers.
Wow, where to start.
The reason US health care is more expensive then others is because the government got involved in the first place. But they didn't just get involved, they only got part of the way involved and created a few very detrimental practices that caused this to happen. First, the government started directly covering certain patients but wouldn't pay more for those patients even though their age added complexity to them. This encouraged costs to everyone to increase to provide services for these complexities without additional charges that wouldn't' be reimbursed by the government. The second problem is that they divided the country up into groups, these groups were then averaged for similar services and the type of payout is based around the average in the area for the service. So it creates an inventive for prices to be raised in order to increase the government payout. This is compounded when the government found it was spending too much for this service and started paying a percentage less then 100% for them. So the costs are jacked up again to raise the average to cover the expected treatment costs.
In provider insurance is typically more realistic in seeing the true costs of health care as it is steeply discounted. The health industry is not providing these services at a loss so you know it's all being covered. However, when calculating what Americans spend on health care, the actual costs of procedures, not the discounted costs are used. The reason why this happens is because Medicare law states that they have to be billed a true representation of costs. The loophole to this is trading discounts for commitments of services which is what insurance does when it acquires an in plan provider. If you have a hospital bill from before and after you inform them of who your insurance provider is, you will see a stark difference in costs.
What this essentially means is that health care in the US is inflated specifically because government has entrenched itself and attempted to limit costs.
Now this differs from health care in other countries as the government has controlled most to all the costs to reflect and actual cost over the last half century. and while that caries from country to country, the non-covered medical expenses billed to foreigners visiting those countries are comparable to the in plan insurance reimbursements in the US. In fact, my sister broke a leg while in India and her US insurance covered the entire thing because it was 10% less then similar costs in the US for the same services.
But it doesn't just stop there. In other countries, they disqualify people for treatment that simply cannot be done in the US. IF a US doctor refuses to treat a patient for a stoke beyond basic life saving procedures because the patient is a smoker, that doctor will get sued for malpractice. If a UK doctor makes that call, it's considered a sound medical call. In the US, a lot of money is spent keeping the patient alive a few more months/years, in government health countries, the focus or more on making the patient comfortable while dieing.
So you can't really directly compare the health care in a lot of the countries anyways.
Maybe you are confusing Fox News with the programs on Fox News. The news portion of Fox News is not very biased at all. At least is wasn't the last time I saw it. I have been cable free for years now so I only watch it at someone's house or a bar or something.
I mean seriously, some pretty sound arguments can be made that Obama wasn't born in Hawaii and plenty has been done to insinuate a cover-up like not allowing the birth certificate to be viewed or presenting a document with all identifying numbers blackened out so it can't be verified as valid or only allowing a certain few to see the damn thing in the first place.
I'm not a birther, but I do understand why a large amount of people think Obama wasn't born where and when he says so. And outside the coverage of the people filing lawsuits over obama not being qualified to be president based around his natural citizenship that was thrown out, not on the basis of the complaint or available evidence but on the grounds that the person filing couldn't show standing and the case couldn't go on, on fox news. I'm not aware of anyone on there actually making the claim that Obama isn't or wasn't born in Hawaii outside guests within the news.
Also, I'm betting this poll is being purposely misinterpreted just like the last one they referenced. That one didn't say Fox viewers were more stupid, it said more stupid people watch fox news. And that correlated completely with the larger viewership and demographics.
I read this story and just wanted to go around yelling "freedom fries".
But then I was reminded that our government not only has attempted to get this in the past, they have manipulated ICANN to seize domains and pressured businesses into dropping services to sites they don't like.
I was attempting to make a joke on the GP's assertion that "Time magazine basically made it look like Einstein was the brain child" by saying he was, I read it in "Time magazine".
Then to imply sincerity, I called the GP the dolt (in the comedic way of idiots claiming others smarter then them are idiots).
It was funny in my mind. Well, until I had to explain it. Now maybe it's not so funny after all.
Well, parking your car in a handicapped spot when your not entitled to, is a serious ethics problem. But hey, while I'm concentrating on federal laws and you are bringing up examples of city ordinances, we all know that we are talking about the same things and it's all transferable right? At least the handicapped parking spot violation is generally a state law forced by a federal mandate.
If the rest of your reasoning is remotely the same, attempting to show the absurdity of something on a federal level by pointing to city ordinances instead of laws with comparable authority, then I understand why these people ask you not to talk to them ever again. And BTW, it's not because you have some brilliant idea that forces them to surrender something they hold dear.
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Obviously, you are not aware, you just tried to argue with me that my interpretation of government roles being within the big government argument was wrong. Now if it is incoherent to you, it's because you have glossed over it without taking a slightest bit of time to retain any of the information or even understand it. It's not some complicated ideology that only brilliant people can get.
What exactly is bullshit? I'm willing to bet it's either something that you think is in the constitution, something the courts have implied was in the constitution, or something you have no idea about.
Well, you do seem to act like one of those people who doesn't like the second amendment.
Com'on.. This is elementry education stuff here. Nonetheless, it should have been covered in your high school government and civics class. Did you not take that or something? The reason for representing the states is because the federal government was originally supposed to be a unified front for foreign relations and each state was to retain all sovereignty that wasn't surrendered to the union. In other words, we were to become one country of many separate countries working to a common goal while keeping out independence. This is pretty much implied in the US constitution where it specifically bars the states from doing what it surrendered to the federal government to do.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, (yea that right, the lieing cheat who brought us the new deal) probably said it best when explaining this when he said
at a speech pertaining to the Volstead act. This speech in it's entirety was printed in the New York Times, March 3, 1930 This was also two years before he became president and ignored his very own words starting the new deal.
And what's wrong with that? The problem was that there were more smaller states but the larger states have more of a population. This compromise which had the people represented directly by delegates elected by the people in the house of representatives and delegates appointed by the states represented in the senate. The idea was to ensure the people had a say in their foreign affairs and what little affairs congress had a right to enter in. But if the will of the people damaged the country, the senate's composition would counter it.
Unfortunately, it stopped being about the country and about the party a long time ago.
I hate to tell you this, but the interpretation of the 14th amendment never changed in either of those cases. In Plessy v. Ferguson it said separate but equal was fine. In Brown v. Board of Education, you couldn't produce an equal enviroment as shown by several other cases. Brown v. Board of Education the court determined that separate schools were ipso facto unequal. In both, they held that the 14th amendment required equal opportunities or access. In the first, they said if you could get separate but equal, that would be fine. In the other, they determined that separate was inherently unequal so you couldn't get to the equal part.
Neither case altered the interpretations of the 14th amendment at all. All they did was say one vehicle used to make that happen could be constitutional if it could be equal and the other said the vehicle due to forces in practice outside anyone's control could never be equal. But in both cases, the vehicle used to get the 14th amendment was at issue, not the 14th amendment itself.
First of all, our reply shows how ignorant you really are. It's not a law, it's a constitutional requirement. If it's out dated and unnecessary, then amend the constitution. Your argument that it's pointless to keep honoring the constitution because you somehow rationalized it away is the exact same mechanism that brought us indefinite detentions after being labeled an enemy combatant and warrant-less wiretaps on domestic communications.
Do you really think it's advantageous to the country on the whole, to start rationalizing away and ignoring specific requirements on the US constitution? I mean "congress can make no law" can be rationalized away just as easily. Is this something you want to encourage or is this just something you neglected to consider?
Even if that is so, it's completely the opposite of what you said before.
And yes, that was the word I was looking for. In fact, that was the word I thought I wrote. Must have fat fingered it or something.
Will it restrict the type or porn I find?
I'm not sure I'm into the advanced stuff, but I certainly do not want to get stuck in the basics. Missionary style for 10 years while married is enough for me.
Maybe you should learn a little more about what you are attempting to talk about. Perhaps you should look into what the US government was actually created for. And no, it wasn't created as some omnipotent government entity with total control over the nation. In fact, it was create as exactly the opposite as any basic high school civics class should have clearly instructed you.
Ever hear the phrase "there is a time and place for everything"?
Actually, there is a constitutional reason and that should be enough.
And I'm saying that if you can wrangle an interpretation different from what the framers intended at the time, then anyone can, in short, we have no constitutional limits on government- even when it's obvious.
If something doesn't work or fit, the answer is an amendment, not running with whatever political or intellectual will of the day might be.
This has already been hashed out in the courts, but it was clearly argued by Jefferson and Hamilton. Originally it was mean that congress could make laws concerning the powers ascribed to it by the constitution to provide for the general welfare of the country. In other words, they were supposed to only exercise the power to make those laws when it would benefit the country to do so. This was common in theme with the original limited government theme. It has since them been expanded in the courts to mean more.
Actually, no it it doesn't have the authority to regulate medicine. However, this is a prime instance where a good idea sidestepped the constitution and an amendment would have been providable. States don't really have the resources to regulate medicine, and it would be a pain in the ass to get 51 approvals for every medication (50 states plus federal territory). This is obviously an area that most everyone agree the feds should be involved in, so an amendment would be easy to get and give them the authority.
speaking of authority, I noticed you jumped to the general welfare clause. When the feds took started regulating medicin
Are you not paying attention?
All he has to do is release a copy of his birth certificate underacted. That is not an inordinate amount of time. In fact, it seems that it would have taken more time to blacken out the parts of what he has released in order to make it unverifiable.
The only reason Obama isn't releasing the entire birth certificate, is because he doesn't want this conspiracy stopped. Well, that or this is more then a conspiracy and the full release would expose it.
You can make all sorts of excuses, but none of them negate that.
Wow.. down modded for discussing the truth. And I wasn't even complaining about Obama, I was discussing others complaining about him.
Well, Slashdot moderators have really struck another low. Fortunately, they aren't very smart. They up-modded the comments I was replying to which means they will stick out and point to my down modded comment. It kind of defeats the purpose of down modding someone to bury the comment.
No, the term big government is classically defined as the US federal government taking on the role of the state and local governments. This is why states rights arguments almost always coincide with big government complaints. Big government is classically government bigger then it's constitutional role which a small government is classically defined as a constitutional one.
They are not all government in general. This is why you find people complaining about big government on a federal level and requesting the expansion of state or local government at the same time with a strait face. They are not hypocrites in any way.
And I am saying that if you do not limit it to what some old dude says so, there aren't any effective limits on it at all any more. If you can find a plausible interpretation of it that isn't what those old drunken, racists, hillbillies meant (the old dudes, AKA the founding fathers), then anyone can do the same. You agreeing with it doesn't matter because the only way you can object at that point is by saying those old dudes said so and you already proved that not to be important. Those old dudes however, weren't infallible and they knew it. That's why there is an amendment process that allows for changes as society does. But you can hardly say the government has the consent of the governed, when what is written in black and white is subject to change to the creativity of a relatively small group of people depending on their political whims of the time. I mean it would be absurd for congress to pass a law and you could only find out the true meaning of it when you are in court and a judge is attempting to justify his own plausible meaning of it that is different then what congress considered when passing the law. Right?
Ok, I'll bite. So what is the reason stopping me from petitioning the federal government to create a law specifically stopping you from communicating with me or replying to any of my posts and them doing it? The intentions of some old dudes who wrote the US constitution which is what the US government derives it's power from.
You see, our interpretations of the text can only be as it was intended. Not however you want to interpret it today because someone can change that tomorrow and the next day and the next day. But if we find that it's coverage isn't sufficient or that the powers of the government legitimately need expanded or constrained, there is a process called an amendment which allows that.
What you are arguing for is an amendment without the hassle of an amendment. You want the ability to change the US constitution, the ability to alter it's meaning without amending it. I'm saying that if you can do that, anyone can do that and it has no meaning or limitations. You are right, we do
I think maybe you are assuming something that isn't publicly available here. Perhaps you can explain this a little further.
And when, since his birth has anyone at the state, the hospital, or anywhere else been concerned with his specific birth or situations surrounding it. Generally the state requires a birth certificate for a drivers license (not so much any more as illegals are permitted to get them), but do they actually track them down and make sure they are valid? And that's only if you do not already have a valid form of ID that negate the need for a birth certificate. You don't need a birth certificate to get a social security number. So when would the state or the hospital every be required to check the validity of the claim over the last 45 years? You mean when his citizenship was not just challenged. But challenged as a specific type of citizen and those record have been tucked and seal away from people attempting to get them other then Obama or specific high ranking state officials?
This is quite a bit less insidious or ridiculous then you claim. The truth of the matter is that no one would have really care to check until it was near impossible for them to check. Has anyone came forward claiming they were the nurse or doctors that delivered or took care of him when he was born? Even if they could realistically remember that one particular birth, are they even still alive? And until he ran for president, it was only checked to see if he was a citizen, not a natural born citizen according to the law. Some of the claims are that he because a citizen by law as a condition to his circumstances but that wouldn't qualify him as a natural born citizen.
Well, you are partially right. The vast majority of conspiracies have to be so complex that it isn't practical to exist. The problem or thing that differentiates this conspiracy is that Obama holds the key to negate it entirely and refuses to do so. This doesn't necessarily validate the conspiracy, but it extends the presumption of it by creating the concept that it can't be invalidated when the ability is actually there.
Whether you like it or not, Obama wants this conspiracy to be there for whatever reason. Otherwise, he would have already released an underacted original birth certificate that could be verified not only to be real, but to have been issues at the time it's claimed to of been issues making his natural citizenship no longer any question. His refusal to do this when he has publicly released by statements- the contents of the entire original certificate otherwise (outside the serial number) can only been seen as he wants this to continue for whatever reason.
You can't call people absurd, gullible, stupid, or otherwise compare the situation to something like a flat verses round earth when whom the conspiracy is about is keeping it alive intentionally. Whether his actions are within his right or not is entirely a different discussion (I believe they are), but they are intentionally encouraging this conspiracy to exist.
Well, what amazes me is that simply releasing his birth certificate underacted can solve this problem once and for all but for some reason, it's not happening. It seems that with all the people claiming it's real, he is a citizen and not in violation of the US constitution, that Obama himself is attempting to keep this particular conspiracy alive and thriving by not publicly releasing the underacted document.
So even though you are probably correct in claiming it's a dumb argument, it's actually somewhat encouraged by the man himself for reasons that are secretive enough to invite a host of other dumb conspiracies. I fault Obama as much as I do the people believing in them.
You seem to be able to not distinguish between government and government. You see, different levels of government are allowed to do certain things while other levels are not. Big government, while it generically deals with the size of government, also specifically deals with the expansion of government in areas not constitutionally provided for. Being against big government is not just the size of government, it's being against the government overreaching with it's powers. The only way it can do that is to take freedoms away.
What this does is shows a compete difference between the feds doing something it isn't constitutionally allowed to do (no matter how good of an idea it might be) and what the state and local governments are constitutionally allowed to do. When the government acts within it's constitutional limits, it's not so much a problem of big government. So you see, comparing something that is allowed and available to everyone to something that isn't allowed by a specific part of government does create an distinct difference.
Why should the constitution be binding in anything then? Why should the bill of rights be binding on the government if they can simply convince people that due process is something outdated and sitting in jail for 10 years before being charged is fair and equitable for certain crimes?
Here is the problem. The white dudes, most likely all drunk up on Rum and seeing by candle light, knew that times would change and so would the needs of the people. They built this thing called an amendment process within the constitution and anything except for two things could be amended as needed by society at will, given that enough of society agreed. Not following the constitution as written and understood by these drunken hillbillies completely sidesteps the amendment process and creates the situation where the government does something that the majority of the people, or even a large portion of the majority of the people don't agree with.
And while you may think this is fine for what you like the government doing, there are a lot of things that it can backfire on you for. Lets take the right to be free of unwarranted searches and seizures. Since there was no electricity when these drunken, racist, hillbillies created the constitution, then the cops can pull you over on your way to work (cars didn't exist along with electricity), confiscate your laptop and cell phone at will, take it and derive any information they want from it, even using that information against you. But you may say, hey, I have rights, it's in the bill of rights, you need a warrant and probably cause to stop and search me, I have rights to due process and all. But if our current understanding of the constitution and government authority is different from intended and understood by the founding fathers, who is to say that those rights apply? You or the expanded unconstitutional authority of the US government?
Fortunately for us, the way the founding fathers intended the constitution was known. The 4th and 5th amendment was talked about plenty and we have a solid grasp on what it meant to them. Because of this, your interpretation of having rights that preclude the cops from stopping you and taking your possessions and snooping through them is accurate because they expected you to be secure in your person and possessions and anything allowing or extending your person or possession created afterward would automatically be consumed within the same protections guarant
And when the scam artist comes into your neighborhood and hoodwinks you out of your entire retirement because he shows you documents you can't confirm yourself to be valid, refers you only to his friends and stops you from getting any other information from any other way, I'm going to laugh.
I'm not saying Obama is not a US citizen, I'm saying that his hiding information from certain people critical of his citizenship is a valid cause continuing the line of thought from the birthers. I'm also saying that something that has been completely openly debunked is nowhere near the same as something that is purposely behind shielded to some degree like Obama's birht certificate.
Now you can laugh or make jokes all you want. Hell, you can personally remain that gullible and trusting in every over thing you do in life and get completely scammed by everyone out there attempting to work an angle on you. For the rest of us, we know when someone is trying to scam us, and Obama has purposely attempted to make this appear as a scam for whatever reason.
Until there is proof that it isn't, YES. You are starting with an absurd premise here, that something that has been proven to pretty much all is somehow comparable to something that hasn't been proven to all.
The rest of your comment is worse garbage that that so I won't comment.
Well, simple posting an image of the birth certificate underacted would be enough. This would allow the validity to be examined pretty easily. I guess the big problem with the certificate available is that the serial number is missing or blackened out so you can't look up to see if it was issued around the time it was claimed to have been.
Anywyas, as for Reagan or McCain's birth certificate, that's sort of in a different legue here. Reagan's natural citizenship was not in question and McCain's was answered by legal documents about his birth while his father was in the US navy and stationed overseas.
As for people who have personally examined his birth certificate. Well, Obama is actually continuing this problem on. You see, I could show ten idiots and 20 people who want to believe me, something as proof of what I say. All of those people could very well believe me and none of them have to be right. When someone doubts me, if I want it to go away, I only have to prove to the doubters that I'm correct, and it ends there. The complaint about what is publicly available about his birth certificate considering that it's been locked up and normal people can't access it, is that the one shown has important verification items blacked out. The serial number for instance, if it's too new, or too old, it could mean that A: it isn't actually his, B:he's not a natural citizen but one by extension of law after the fact, C: that it belongs to someone else or D: he is a natural citizen ands constitutionally empowered to run for and sit as the president of the United State of America.
What fuels this rabid speculation is that Obama himself is seen as hiding key elements that could ultimately confirm he's a legit president which makes it appear that he's hiding that he isn't. An alternative explanation for this is that he wants the controversy to use as political fuel to his advantage and that's why he is keeping it alive.
As for the write up in the local paper, you can submit those and have them printed. It's not proof that someone was born at a certain place or time, it's only proof that it was reported that way. If you were born in a cab on the way to the hospital, when your parents informed the papers of that, your birth would be in the paper too. It might be accurate, it might not be. What would be accurate is an actually birth certificate with an intact serial number that could show if it was someone else' or if it was issued at the time it was claimed (IE, if 1929 and 1931 was issued in 1933 and 1930 was being claimed it was issued in 1954, we would know a problem existed). And personally covering up that number seems to confirm suspicions more then anything.
Well, according to the law at the time, or how it has been presented by the birthers, according to Obama's own books, his mother was living outside of the country too long for automatic citizenship to kick in.
I don't know how true that is, I don't really care. What I do know is that Obama does have the ability to put all this to rest in a single motion by releasing his underacted birth certificate (which by his own hand is all public knowledge anyways assuming he's telling the truth) to which he refuses for some reason. Now the birthers seem to think it would show he wasn't a legally naturalized citizen by birth, other conspiracy buffs think it's because he can use the opposition as political fuel to his advantage.
Anyways, the point is really that there is ample evidence that he "may" have been born someone other then where common assumption is. And as long as that's there, counting someone as being wrong for drawing lines or conclusions to other birth places isn't an incorrect answer.
PS, I may have the birther thing a little wrong, as I said before, I'm not a birther. I just don't summarily discount their concerns because it doesn't agree with me. I think it's important to understand other people more so then to ignore them because you don't agree.
Well, sure, that's because I didn't think it was important to distinguish between a federal law that we were talking about and a city ordinance which we weren't talking about. But hey, thanks for letting me know I have to do this in the future.
Like I said before, you can make good arguments why the law is a bad idea, but you can't make arguments on how it's ethical to violate them.
Umm.. Yes I would. Using Marijuana and a drug for treatment in medical cases is no different then someone claiming tea tree oil will cure or help with cancer treatments. there simply isn't any medical testing that meets FDA approval standards indicating the truth of that.
The law didn't ever become the definition of ethical behavior. but violating the law without justifying how the law made something worse so it was necessary is an ethical problem.
show me where any ethics course or theory claims that violating the law for the sake of doing it is ethical.
Whats more interesting is that this concept is no different then you having the same ability to remove or restrict any of the same or more from trespassing onto your property or remaining there against your wishes.
If you don't want black people in your yard and they have no other right to be there, you can use state and local law enforcement to remove/exclude them.
what the op was forgetting is that the US constitution allows the State and local government's to make laws simular to the civil rights act, but more importantly, it also allows the state and local government to be used in a way described. What it doesn't do is allow the federal government to encroach that area without emending the constitution first.
But you are missing the point of reality.
If a large number of any people not wanted attempt to persist where they are not welcome, everyone has the right to use the police to remove them from where they are not wanted (as long as they have some right of control over the property). In other words, a police presence is not different then what is offered to you, a private citizen wanting trespassers off your property. If they take something you are refusing to sell, even if they throw the money to pay for it on the counter, it's no different then ME going into your house unwanted, throwing the costs of your TV on your coffee table and walking out with it- a police presence is warranted for that type of action.
The big difference is that there is a right to protect your property and the government doing the protection on your behalf will be the local government which you have the most ability to control and interact with who is also constitutionally empowered to make that possible. It's no different then any other application of law already in place and available to anyone.
Instead of skipping the constitution, they should have amended it. It's really that simple. Even this health care problem we have now wouldn't be a problem if an amendment to the constitution was made allowing the government the authority.
Wow, where to start.
The reason US health care is more expensive then others is because the government got involved in the first place. But they didn't just get involved, they only got part of the way involved and created a few very detrimental practices that caused this to happen. First, the government started directly covering certain patients but wouldn't pay more for those patients even though their age added complexity to them. This encouraged costs to everyone to increase to provide services for these complexities without additional charges that wouldn't' be reimbursed by the government. The second problem is that they divided the country up into groups, these groups were then averaged for similar services and the type of payout is based around the average in the area for the service. So it creates an inventive for prices to be raised in order to increase the government payout. This is compounded when the government found it was spending too much for this service and started paying a percentage less then 100% for them. So the costs are jacked up again to raise the average to cover the expected treatment costs.
In provider insurance is typically more realistic in seeing the true costs of health care as it is steeply discounted. The health industry is not providing these services at a loss so you know it's all being covered. However, when calculating what Americans spend on health care, the actual costs of procedures, not the discounted costs are used. The reason why this happens is because Medicare law states that they have to be billed a true representation of costs. The loophole to this is trading discounts for commitments of services which is what insurance does when it acquires an in plan provider. If you have a hospital bill from before and after you inform them of who your insurance provider is, you will see a stark difference in costs.
What this essentially means is that health care in the US is inflated specifically because government has entrenched itself and attempted to limit costs.
Now this differs from health care in other countries as the government has controlled most to all the costs to reflect and actual cost over the last half century. and while that caries from country to country, the non-covered medical expenses billed to foreigners visiting those countries are comparable to the in plan insurance reimbursements in the US. In fact, my sister broke a leg while in India and her US insurance covered the entire thing because it was 10% less then similar costs in the US for the same services.
But it doesn't just stop there. In other countries, they disqualify people for treatment that simply cannot be done in the US. IF a US doctor refuses to treat a patient for a stoke beyond basic life saving procedures because the patient is a smoker, that doctor will get sued for malpractice. If a UK doctor makes that call, it's considered a sound medical call. In the US, a lot of money is spent keeping the patient alive a few more months/years, in government health countries, the focus or more on making the patient comfortable while dieing.
So you can't really directly compare the health care in a lot of the countries anyways.
Maybe you are confusing Fox News with the programs on Fox News. The news portion of Fox News is not very biased at all. At least is wasn't the last time I saw it. I have been cable free for years now so I only watch it at someone's house or a bar or something.
Here is the problem. The truth according to whom?
I mean seriously, some pretty sound arguments can be made that Obama wasn't born in Hawaii and plenty has been done to insinuate a cover-up like not allowing the birth certificate to be viewed or presenting a document with all identifying numbers blackened out so it can't be verified as valid or only allowing a certain few to see the damn thing in the first place.
I'm not a birther, but I do understand why a large amount of people think Obama wasn't born where and when he says so. And outside the coverage of the people filing lawsuits over obama not being qualified to be president based around his natural citizenship that was thrown out, not on the basis of the complaint or available evidence but on the grounds that the person filing couldn't show standing and the case couldn't go on, on fox news. I'm not aware of anyone on there actually making the claim that Obama isn't or wasn't born in Hawaii outside guests within the news.
Also, I'm betting this poll is being purposely misinterpreted just like the last one they referenced. That one didn't say Fox viewers were more stupid, it said more stupid people watch fox news. And that correlated completely with the larger viewership and demographics.
I read this story and just wanted to go around yelling "freedom fries".
But then I was reminded that our government not only has attempted to get this in the past, they have manipulated ICANN to seize domains and pressured businesses into dropping services to sites they don't like.
Maybe I should just yell "potato sticks" instead.
I was attempting to make a joke on the GP's assertion that "Time magazine basically made it look like Einstein was the brain child" by saying he was, I read it in "Time magazine".
Then to imply sincerity, I called the GP the dolt (in the comedic way of idiots claiming others smarter then them are idiots).
It was funny in my mind. Well, until I had to explain it. Now maybe it's not so funny after all.
Well, parking your car in a handicapped spot when your not entitled to, is a serious ethics problem. But hey, while I'm concentrating on federal laws and you are bringing up examples of city ordinances, we all know that we are talking about the same things and it's all transferable right? At least the handicapped parking spot violation is generally a state law forced by a federal mandate.
If the rest of your reasoning is remotely the same, attempting to show the absurdity of something on a federal level by pointing to city ordinances instead of laws with comparable authority, then I understand why these people ask you not to talk to them ever again. And BTW, it's not because you have some brilliant idea that forces them to surrender something they hold dear.