Weirdly enough, that was USAF before. Honest. The fact remains, Beef, that there are a great many facets of government which are not enumerated in the Constitution but which, none the less, are certainly something that’d be part of what I’d want any of my congresscritters to support.
Things ranging from the USAF to the GPS network to the FDA are not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. I’d sure rather that our nation not be limited to what people at the end of the 18th century could conceive of.
You’re responding to an argument that I never made.
The person I responded to implied that Ron Paul was being inconsistent by advocating a certain law on a state level, but not the federal level. And I’m saying that it’s not inconsistent at all. The division of powers between the federal government and states was supposed to be a big deal, but it’s now mostly ignored.
Would you support a federal law against murder? If not, why, are you pro-murder? If you’re not anti-murder, then your position is inconsistent!
Which is part of the reason that there’s a process available for amendment.
Along with your GPS network and FDA, you’ve got trillions of dollars in pork and corporate welfare, waste on a massive scale, Guantanamo, the Iraq war, unprecedented federal government intrusion into the lives of individuals, the effective elimination of the states as semi-sovereign entities, etc.
The federal government originally did not have the power to charge an income tax. They changed the Constitution, and now they can.
Changing the Constitution is a difficult, but practical process. It’s meant to be this way, so that major changes were possible, but had to be a really good idea in order to get enough support.
Instead of doing that, the way they’ve sworn an oath to do, they’ve just decided to ignore the Constitution altogether and create whatever powers for themselves they want at any given time. This completely negates the benefits of a constitutional system of government and allows government to inevitably grow more invasive, expensive, and oppressive.
I’m not in favor of the gold standard, but the above statement is complete nonsense. There are some very serious people who support it. This includes, ironically, Alan Greensoan, arguably the foremost expert on U.S. monetary policy.
How tricky can it be? Would you settle for a fertilized chicken egg if you wanted a Chicken for dinner? The biology of humans and other animals cannot be disputed except in a religious context. Is an apple blossom that is pollenated an apple? When you can see a human, then it is human even in utero. Not too hard to figure out.
Life started before the conception so if a man ejaculates(even when a pregnancy happens), much human life is lost, only the sperm that makes it to the egg will produce a child.
On Greenspan: Interesting. Accurate, as far as it goes. Gold is, however, irrelevant in the matter, any rare item would suffice. If stopping the confiscation of savings through inflation is your priority, Mr. Greenspan ca 1967 is correct on the issue.
That said, it completely fails to cover any concept of how we would convert back without destroying the entire world.
Also, the advantages of gold do have to be weighed against the advantages of the financial instruments we have today. I would certainly like to hear his present opinion, as 1966 is, while historically recent, over 40 years ago, and there have been some fascinating evolutions in finance since then.
For example, Dec 6, 1996, when Mr. Greenspan switched from following the gold standard… which he had been, apparently, from 1987 until then, to following the stock market.
Tracking the stock market works just as well as tracking gold, after all. It is a rare item of worth, and can be fractionalized.
Ask and you shall receive (from Google, of course). Here’s an article by Greenspan circa 1981 on some of the practical issues surrounding a re-implementation of the gold standard.
Interesting National Review article.
I barely have even a dilettante’s knowledge of economics, so I’m without a strong opinion on the matter. However, it does seem to me that the basis for our currency is ultimately arbitrary, so we may as well set up a system that we can manipulate (as opposed to one that manipulates us, via changes in the supply of and demand for the specified commodity).
It’s also part of the reason why Strict Construction isn’t the only means of interpreting the Constitution. And, I would note, why the SCOTUS has the power to strike down laws as unconstitutional.
My point was more along the lines that GPS easily falls under the mandate of supporting the armed forces and the FDA falls under the ICC.
Is there anything that’s actually in the constitution which would prohibit those, or which you believe cannot be realistic interpreted as allowing the government to spend money? I’m not trying to be flippant, but I can’t conceive of how “waste” is somehow disallowed or wouldn’t be covered under:
Can you explain your reasoning please?
Do you contend that war or internment of prisoners is not covered under the Constitution?
There is no constitutional right to privacy. Do you see the Constitution not even possibly being used to justify such measures?
How do you see that happening, and how do you believe it contradicts the Constitution?
Section 8 of article 1 was added/changed? I’m not aware of that, at what point did that occur?
You honestly believe that (almost?) every congresscritter has deliberately violated their oaths? You do not believe that it is even possible that they simply interpret the Constitution differently than you do?
If this is true, why hasn’t the SCOTUS done anything about it?
Do you believe that Strict Construction is the only possible way to view the Constitution and/or that any other interpretation is not just invalid, but somehow dishonest as well?
Ontheissues.com is an inaccurate source for this kind of information. Ron Paul voted against federal funding of adoptions by same-sex couples, as he would’ve voted against the same for straight couples if the issue came up. He’s not against adoption by same-sex couples.
He is against same-sex marriage from a religious standpoint, but he does not feel the government should be recognizing marriages in the first place. He’s fine with civil unions for both straight and gay couples, which is a remarkably ideal and mature compromise that you don’t hear from any other candidate on either side.
There’s a misunderstanding here: Ron Paul isn’t a Libertarian; he’s a conservative who agrees with the Libertarians on a lot of issues (enough to run on the Libertarian ticket, just as he’s comfortable running as a Republican despite disagreeing with the Republicans on some issues). He’s come out in favor of public schools and other government institutions; he just believes that it should be the state governments, not the federal government, running them.
He’s never voted to restrict the rights of homosexuals (any more than to restrict the rights of heterosexuals), like I said above.
:rolleyes:
Assume: Fetuses should not be considered human.
Fact: Women have right to property and right to privacy.
Therefore: Women have right to destroy fetuses.
Assume: Fetuses should be considered human.
Fact: Humans do not have right to kill humans.
Therefore: Women do not have right to destroy fetuses.
Both positions are logically valid, since they both start with arbitrary premises and use logical steps to reach a conclusion.
If you can logically explain why fetuses (biologically alive, and biologically human, and biologically distinct entities) should not be considered human, feel free to end this debate now. Otherwise accept that it’s an assumption, it’s completely subjective, and the pro-life position is logically completely sound, even if you disagree with it.
Same reason theft is a problem that’s different from one state to another. Or murder, or rape, or fraud. It’s not that the states shouldn’t be expected to have similar laws, it’s just that there’s no reason for the federal government to enforce this stuff. One size might fit all, but the smaller your government is, the more power you have over it. Majority rule in a country of 300,000,000 does not produce pretty results.
Thanks, that makes more sense.
Before this thread I really had no idea who this guy was, but now I suspect I might be able to vote for him without holding my nose. Unfortunately, over the past couple decades of voting, I’ve become convinced that anyone with whom I agree has no chance at all of getting elected and probably won’t even make it through the primaries.
The fetus may contain human life but it is not yet a human person,anymore than the sperm is a human. Biologically a human fertile egg is no more a human being yet, any more than a chicken, or any egg bearing animal is considered to be one, we do not call an egg a chicken, bird, Crocodile, turtle etc. until there is some recognization of what it will become.
The pro-choice people I know are pro-life, they are also interested in seeing the born child is taken care of and are also interested in the life of the mother and the already born children.
I’m not legally savvy enough to know exactly what “strict construction” entails. But if you have the power to “interpret” the Constitution however you wish, it’s an absolutely meaningless document.
The entire point of the Constitution was to limit governmental size and power to very specific issues. When you can “interpret” that it doesn’t actually limit anything you want to do, what use is it?
I don’t really disagree with that. GPS and the FDA are certainly not the most egregious federal programs. You could make a legitimate case that the FDA is authorized under the ICC, whereas generally the ICC is basically used the general clause cited for the federal government to do anything they want.
A government that actually followed the U.S. Constitution would be far, far smaller. I didn’t say that the government couldn’t spend money, but they certainly couldn’t spend it on the multitude of things they do now. Most social programs, excessive military spending, trillions of dollars given to the rich in the form of breaks and subsidies, the use of federal funding to control the states - all of that stuff falls far out of the scope of the Constitutional federal government.
It certainly is - the president is limited in the military actions he can carry out (there was no declaration of war), and prisoners have rights.
The Constitution does not grant rights, it protects them. The lack of specific, enumerated protection is not construable as the lack of rights.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
It also falls under “unreasonable search” as part of the fourth amendment.
And even if it didn’t violate specific prohibitions in the Constitution, there’s still simply no power granted to the federal government that covers most of the domestic surveillance activities they do.
The original intent was that the states would be semi-sovereign entities in their own right. They could decide their own policies on basically all issues that didn’t require policy to be set on the national level (such as foreign policy, trade, etc).
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
So every power not specifically given (or prohibited) to the federal government is reserved to be a state issue. Yet in modern times, state governments are almost irrelevant. The federal government is the one that takes a significant amount of your income, spends trillions of dollars, institutes social programs, etc. The federal government blatantly enforces its will on the states by the threat of withholding various (illegal) federal funds.
Amendments don’t specifically go back and rewrite earlier sections of the Constitution, so technically article 1 was not changed, but this is what I was referring to:
Amendment XVI.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
Rather than enacting an unconstitutional law, they amended the Constitution. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
Yes.
Again, the entire point of a Constitution is that it’s not subject to arbitrary interpretation. It lays out the rules under which a government functions. If you swear to uphold the Constitution, and then routinely violate it, you’ve violated the oath.
You could have a scary Orwellian state that follows the US Constitution if you can simply follow it by “interpreting” it how you wish. It becomes absolutely meaningless.
The political climate has changed so that most people favor regular, flagrant violations of the Constitution. SCOTUS isn’t supposed to serve the whims of political convenience, but practically they do.
Again, I’m not familiar enough with what exactly strict construction entails to answer that. I do believe that willfully violating what the Constitution clearly says under the name of “interpreting” is invalid, and dishonest, yes.
The sperm does contain human life,and if a human egg is not impregnated by the sperm, no person will result, human life is then destroyed with every man’s ejaculation even if an egg is fertilized. And like any egg or ova bearing animal, it gradually becomes a person.
The when life begins question comes up, when a so called “pro- life” person says one is taking a human life in early pregnancy,but would not accept the fact that a chicken or any other animal is called what it will become. A fetus is in the stage of becoming a person but like a fertile egg it is not yet developed. Some claim that the moment of conception a person is there, but would not acknowledge that a chicken, turtle, or any other egg bearing animal is that animal( or plant for that matter). Biology is what it is.
Monavis
Okok, enough about abortion, this is a Criticize Ron Paul thread, pro or anti abortion debates can apply to any candidate who has the balls to state their position.
The Trans-Texas Corridor is Governor Perry’s pet project & a very bad idea. (Pro & Con sites are linked here.) Environmentalists & foes of Eminent Domain are among the Cons. All the many candidates running against Perry were agin’ it; but there were so many of them that he was re-elected with 39% of the vote.
The plans include massive private investment (mostly from a Spanish company). Toll roads will provide the return on those investments.
But this is not a “NAFTA Highway.” As a Texan, I’ve enjoyed Ron Paul’s antics for years. Let’s hope he siphons off potential Republican votes.