In recognizing a fair-minded view you let loose your own unfairness. No, liberals don’t want people to be “dependent upon government” – liberals (in general) believe that government programs can be a large part of the solution to social ills like poverty.
Can you at least recognize that your ideological opponents mostly have honest and decent motives (even as you disagree on methods), or must you demonize them?
Just to clear up one point…
If you can show me that the phrase “in the year of Our Lord” was not used in secular documents, then yes I would.
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Ratification by Delaware(see image at top right)
Virginia’s Ratifying Convention document (scroll down to “Proposed Constitutional Amendments”)
Washington’s Farewell Address (scroll down and see bottom of last page of the document)
And one that might be the only open needed.
So, based on what you asked for, I assume you now do, in fact, concede the point. Correct?
Since the Constitution is also a secular document, I kind of set you up for failure there. But it was a very good try 
Further examples of late 18th/early 19th century secular US government documents (in this case, treaties with native American tribes) that used the phrase “In the Year of Our Lord”.
So that phrase was certainly used in a secular manner.
Wouldn’t it be pretty to think so? Unfortunately, the history of the Constitutional Convention tells a different tale, one readily available to you from many sources if you’re interested.
Your point about the extent of Northern hypocrisy on the issue is apt, certainly, but to use that as a basis for claiming abolition wasn’t even on their agenda is not. Also certainly, the northern states were never dependent on slavery for their very functioning, it was never extensive or well-entrenched in the northern economy, and there were few consequences for abolition there.
Now, are you or are you not going to address the question of why you choose the interests of the former slave states (later the Jim Crow states and the segregation states, now something more diffuse that Lee Atwater once explained to you), to deserve disproportional institutional representation? What can these threatened “regional factions’ interests” you so casually speak of but do not describe consist of? :dubious: Hint: The culture that embraced slavery has evolved but still exists.
Not following you here. Your contention was that no weight should be given to the use of “In the Year of Our Lord” because that’s the way all documents were dated. Correct?
And we now we both know that to not be the case. Correct?
Guys, you can probably debate the “is the US a Christian nation” stuff in some other thread.
What the hell are you talking about? The discussion was what was on the minds of men in the thirteen colonies. What happened after that with Jim Crow or anything else did not inform the and that wrote the DofI nor the Constitution. Time flows only one way, and it ain’t the way you think.
Yes, good reminder. I tried to move away from it once. I’ll do so more fully now.
New thread here.
Please take a look at the thread title. Or the OP. The discussion is about what today’s self-described conservatives want today. You want to maintain the principle of unequal representation that was written into the Constitution for reasons you cannot defend today. But you won’t say what *other *reasons you *will *defend, or why; just some vague handwaving about minority rights being “overrun” by the majority in a democracy.
So, please tell us, what *are *the regional factional interests you claim require special treatment? Are you telling us that one of the fundamental conservative principles you stand for is affirmative action for rednecks?
Good, back on topic. I defend the Senate because I don’t think that the only people in the country who should have a say are those who live in cities, or in the most populace states. What the framers crafted was a balance—a House that directly reflects populations and a Senate in which all states are treated equally.
The US for much of it’s history.
More recently, Canada and Australia have both moved in a fiscally conservative direction. Their economies have benefited from this, naturally.
Australia is also a good example of a country that has a much more sensible immigration policy than the US. Of course, that’s not hard to claim. Mexico has a better immigration policy than the US.
So, you do support unequal representation, you do think people in cities should have less of a say in how the country operates than people in rural areas. But you still won’t say why, or what those minority interests under such threat actually are, will you?
IOW, a legislature in which only half is an instrument of equal representation, and another which provides a minority veto. So why should a minority have a veto? What are these interests they represent that require one, and why should other interests not get that power? :dubious:
A couple more examples. Some places ban abortion, such as Ireland. I disagree with them, but it still seems like a nice country to live in. Social issues tend to be like that, which is why I don’t vote based on them for the most part. Ban abortion, legalize it. Ban religion from the public square, put up the ten commandments in a courtroom. None of these things has as much of an impact that fiscal issues does IMO. When you spend yourselves into bankruptcy that has the potential to ruin the nation in ways that don’t exist with social issues.
Two others of my list are actually practiced by just about every other country in the world. Reducing foreign aid would align the US with how most other countries are. Also, lowering corporate tax rates and closing loopholes would align the US with how most of the rest of the world is doing things.
So those two examples of what most conservatives want in the US are actually moving the country more in line with the rest of the developed world.
You seem to have something you want to say, but for some reason, choose not to say it. I don’t know what you find so difficult. Are you not aware that people who live here might have a different view of things than those who live here? Do you find that strange somehow?
I suspect people who live in wheatfields don’t vote much anyway. 
You don’t even get that you are the one being asked a question, repeatedly? Maybe that explains your lack of a reply.
I understand completely that they have different views. I have repeatedly asked you why that matters so much to you. Why cornhuskers should have more representation and more power than city slickers. What interests they have that require special protection. Why you choose those interests for special protection, but not others. Why you think affirmative action for Nebraskans, since you single them out, is a fundamental conservative principle. But you repeatedly decline to answer, and now even profess not to understand that you’re even being asked anything! Wow. :rolleyes:
The prospect of answering should not be frightening to anyone who has thought about the subject even a bit.
And you seem to ignore the fact that he already answered you, and even gave the historically correct answer. Because he wants the states to have power, and not have the more populous states control the less populous states. The concept of the tyranny of the majority was even brought up by another conservative.
Do you not know that his view is the prevailing view of the entire United States, and the basis on which our government was built?
But, no, go ahead and attack magellan because he’s magellan.
Magellon wants states to have power? How exactly does a state have power?
It’s the people who live in a state who have power. And Elvis asks a legitimate question: why should the people who live in Nebraska have more power than the people who live in Texas?
