lol
The main point was to get that off my chest. Its not that long, give me a break. Anyone could read it in less than five minutes. The documentary by Walter Williams I posted is the only thing that would take a bit of time to look at. I just hope a few would be willing to look at it.
People can respond to some points I make. I don’t expect anyone to go point by point responding to everything I posted. All I want is a sincere critique of some of what I wrote (or agreement with what I said) rather than name calling. I know there are some intelligent people here.
This shows you live in a manufactured world completely divorced from reality. How will Denny’s, Pizza Hut, Abercrombie & Fitch, Texaco, Kodak, Coca-Cola, Lockheed Martin, Fed-Ex, Big Lots, Walgreens, Albertsons, AIG and Xerox survive now that the public knows they discriminate based on race? Surely these companies are in dire financial situations due to the huge public backlash and nationwide boycotts.
There is a real world outside of your philosophical canon. I suggest you come join us some time.
If you really cherished freedom, you wouldn’t demand that we spend our Sunday slogging through all that.
I think you’ll be surprised at how some of those things or beliefs can also be held by liberals, or conservatives, or BOTH. They are not the sole property of libertarianism, or liberalism, or conservativism. There is a lot of “common property” or “cross pollenation”. I also don’t think a rejection of any one item is clearly along “party lines” either.
Oh yeah, about property rights …
I’m pretty liberal, and you wanna talk property rights??? Let’s talk about that “decision” that said eminent domain includes taking my property and handing it over to a god damn company, to make a profit off of. According to that supreme court ruling, Chuck E FuckingCheese or Colonel FuckignSanders can go to the politicians and take my land. So yeah, just get me started on THAT one and see how it goes.
Okay, I will take much of that back. I have nothing against anyone who simply disagrees with me. It is the tone people take and the thought they put into their response which is at issue. Some posters here are very intelligent. I should have made that more clear.
By the way, most of what I was talking about (in reference to “metal midgets”) was directed at our Mainstream Media, not the posters of this forum. And I have to admit that reading the other thread about Rand Paul’s appearance on Rachael Maddow discouraged me and provoked a certain tone with this post that perhaps was unwarranted.
So, to all those intelligent posters, I am not talking about you. In fact, why not prove your capacity for intellectual thought and debate by responding to the points I raised in a thoughtful, thorough manner?
The tone was just an effort to encourage people to think before they post. Nothing more.
Does he support a Constitutional amendment to enumerate this power to the federal government, prior to legislation?
Let’s see, you are proposing a political system that has never been used anywhere, and is in direct contradiction to our experience as a nation when we saw that unregulated businesses and local govts were not to be trusted, and you expect us to have the burden of proof to show why it’s a bad idea?
Please point to an example of a Libertarian govt, anywhere, anytime, that worked.
You wouldn’t object to it if you didn’t hate America!
In that spirit I take back the snark I used in my previous post. What evidence do you have that people will boycott and picket a business that discriminates based on race? Are you extending the Don Imus fiasco to the rest of society?
People will (and do) picket and boycott. It’s just not effective.
Yeah, but Rand Paul is more educated in economics, US history, Middle East history, and all applicable knowledge to bring a positive, rational voice to the US Senate for a change.
Palin displays “tactical political insight”? Perhaps. But there is a big difference between knowing how to “play the game” and understanding the issues and standing on principle for what you believe in.
When people say that Rand Paul is stupid or ignorant not only is it an insult to him, it is an insult to his father, an insult to me, and an insult to all the great libertarian thinkers throughout the centuries. Trust me, from someone who has extensively studied these issues, the great libertarian intellectuals, including Rand’s father, are vastly more knowledgeable and capable of leading this nation that the people who make up the Republican and Democrat parties. Its like a College Professor lecturing to a bunch of sixth graders. Not just normal sixth graders, but sixth graders who hold a vastly undeserved sense of accomplishment and elitism.
Here’s what you need to understand. Obama has been bred and pampered for this job for a long time. I would never claim that Harvard is not a good school, but it as well as Princeton and Yale are merely political stepping stones for power in this country. Bush went to Harvard, for Christ’s sake! All presidents go to one of these three schools. Nearly all Supreme Court justices do. And many members of Congress and the Senate as well.
The point is, there are many other good schools in the world. We need to break away from the notion that the reigns of political power are funneled through a very narrow and tightly controlled channel in the Ivy Leagues. Many of these people were born with a silver spoon in their mouths. It doesn’t make them brilliant, it makes them privileged and out of touch.
Obama understands Constitutional Law? That is laughable. How can you explain his actions since becoming president?
Here are just a sampling of the blantantly unconstitutional acts the president has committed since becoming president:
**How unconstitutional is Barack Obama? I’ve begun to count ways.
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Bailouts
The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to spend the taxpayer’s money. Without the consent of Congress, the President cannot legally spend taxpayer money.
No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law.
Two Presidents had a hand in the auto industry bailout: -
President G. W. Bush by using TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) money authorized by Congress and
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President Barack Obama, not using TARP funds, but declaring that he would use monies from somewhere, and do so with the authority and power of the Executive Branch. At the time, CNSNews.com correspondent Fred Lucas asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs where President Obama derived his authority to use taxpayer funds to bail out GM and Chrysler.
I think the determination has been made both by the previous administration and the current administration that this assistance is legal, and our goal is to ensure that the taxpayers in any instance when this is used feel confident that it’s being done in a transparent and accountable way,” Gibbs said.
President Bush’s use of congressionally approved TARP funds is suspect also, although the money was “legislated” by Congress. The bug in the ointment is that the TARP funds were authorized only for use by the Treasury to purchase “troubled assets” from “financial institutions.” The auto industry does not qualify as a “financial institution.”
CNSNews.com once again seeks an answer, this time from House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer:
The administration clearly believes it does have the authority to use some of the remaining TARP funds for the automobile industry,” Hoyer told Fred Lucas of CNSNews.com.
I don’t know, technically. I would be kidding you to mouth some words on that, because I don’t know technically where that authority would be,” said Hoyer. “But my own view is that if it is perceived they don’t have that authority and it is perceived by the Congress they need to have that authority, the Congress would probably be willing to give that authority. But I don’t know technically the answer to that question.
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass) introduced a Bill in the House to give the President Constitutional authority for the bailouts. Sixty Senators were required to vote for the legislation to overcome a Senate filibuster. Those votes were not there and the legislation was dead.
Then comes the Time of Obama. There was no attempt to get the Senate Banking Committee to introduce the needed legislation.
Rep. Barney Frank washed his hands of all responsibility of the administration’s trampling the Constitution. Again, when CNSNews.com asked Frank about Obama’s intentions to do the bailout without Congressional approval, Frank allegedly said:
It’s an administration situation so I’m not very well informed on it,” Frank told Fred Lucas of CNSNews.com
Then the correspondent asked Frank if Obama’s promised guarantee of the auto warranties for GM and Chrysler needed “legislative authority,” Frank was even clearer in his answer:
Do the words ‘I’m not very well informed on it’ have any meaning to you? Am I speaking a language you don’t understand?”
It’s not something I’m focused on,” said Frank. “The committee, which I chair, keeps me busy. I have not had a chance to look at that. I do not have an informed opinion on it. It’s not my understanding that Congress is going to get to vote on it. So I tend to focus on things that are under the jurisdiction of the committee and that we’ll have to vote on. When things are neither, I don’t have a very well-informed opinion.
So much for constitutionally-mandated Congressional oversight.
Back in October 2008, the CATO Institute looks at the constitutionality of the auto bailouts. After exploring the fact that the government “created this crisis with everything from artificially low interest rates to political pressures for affordable housing, quick loans for bad credit risks, and the subsidization of agencies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Nevertheless, CATO Institute’s chairman, Robert A. Levy, says, no, the bailout is not constitutional.
The federal government has no constitutional authority to spend taxpayers’ money to buy distressed assets, much less to take an ownership position in private financial institutions. And Con gress has no constitutional authority to delegate nearly plenary legislative power to the Treasury secretary, an executive branch official.Congress can proceed only from legitimate authority, not from good intentions alone. That means we must find a constitutional pedigree for each proposed law.
Levy then discusses the rationale of using the commerce clause to legitimize the spending, but he clearly decides that any reasoning for this position is a misinterpretation.
Moreover, it is not a commerce clause argument to say that Congress created the mess and, therefore, Congress can do whatever it wants to fix the mess. Legislators’ misdeeds do not ipso facto justify the socialization of private banks, brokers, mortgage companies, and insurance companies-and who knows where it stops.
Even if Congress could defend the bailout as a means of preventing interstate impediments to commerce, that would not legitimize any and all means.
Under the sub-heading No Intelligible Principle, Levy says (snippets):
Indeed, the bailout quite clearly violates the Constitution’s separation-of-powers principle-in particular, what has become known as the nondelegation doctrine, which states that Congress may not delegate its legislative power to any other entity, including the Cabinet departments of the executive branch….A plain reading of that text shows that lawmaking is for the legislative branch, which does not include the Treasury Department. Yet when Congress authorized the bailout package, it gave Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. unprecedented power to act as a super-legislature.
But Congress itself, not an executive official, must be accountable for the consequences of laws that Congress puts in place. That tenet has been a cornerstone of our Constitution for more than two centuries. John Locke got it right in his Second Treatise of Civil Government (1690): The separation-of-powers principle means that “the legislative [branch] cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands.” The legislative power, wrote Locke, is “to make laws, and not to make legislators.”
Despite that sound advice, the Treasury secretary is now the one calling the shots as he partially nationalizes a significant sector of our economy.
Here’s the link again to Mr. Levy’s article. -
Supreme Court
President Obama has expressed his desire to see his Supreme Court nominees embrace “empathy” in their decisions and opinions. Nevermind the the oath that a Justice swears to:
I, [NAME], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as [TITLE] under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.”
There is no room for empathy when justice is blind and the poor and the rich have equal rights in the sight of the law of the land. While the U.S. Constitution does not provide the oath for a Supreme Court Justice, it does state that others “shall be bound by an oath or affirmation to support this constitution.”
Additionally, if the President keeps his oath of office, he will not require a Justice who uses “empathy” to decide a case, because empathy is unconstitutional and unfit for the U.S. Supreme Court:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Appointing activist Judges to the Supreme Court is an avenue to interpreting the Constitution as a “living, breathing” document…an avenue for a Judge to insert personal opinion, maybe “empathy,” which is unlawful. The only way for the Constitution to take a breath is through an amendment. There is no other way. Outside of amendments, the Constitution is ageless, and it awaits it’s use as a service to all Americans, but not at the whim of an activist Judge.
Interpreting the Constitution as a “living, breathing document without amendments, renders it practically impotent, because it no longer has the power to protect our rights. Eminent domain is an excellent example. -
The Czars
The appointment of the many “czars” by the Obama administration are unconstitutional. There’s the Car Czar, The Pay Czar, The Great Lakes Czar, a Cyber Czar, a Drug Czar, an Energy Czar, a Health Reform Czar, an Intelligence Czar, and a Tech Czar. The Czar Czar, of course, is Barack Obama. What is Obama’s Cabinet members doing these days? They’ve all been demoted and they know it and there’s not a thing they can do about it.
Here’s the problem with Czars. They report to no one but Barack Obama. They have far reaching powers and Congress cannot stop a single decision they make. What has happened to our egotistic Congress who has been so willingly hypnotised into giving up their grasp on EVERYTHING? Maybe it’s something in the water. So much for checks and balances. Barack Obama reigns.
Even Senator Robert Byrd, the longest-serving senator in history, hates the idea of Czar appointments. It’s dangerous he says. It gives the president too much power.
In a letter to Obama on Wednesday, Byrd, a Democrat, said that the czar system “can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances,” Politico reported. Byrd added that oversight of federal agencies is the responsibility of officials approved by the Senate.
As presidential assistants and advisers, these White House staffers are not accountable for their actions to the Congress, to cabinet officials, or to virtually anyone but the president,” Byrd wrote. “They rarely testify before congressional committees, and often shield the information and decision-making process behind the assertion of executive privilege. In too many instances, White House staff have been allowed to inhibit openness and transparency, and reduce accountability.
The wildly liberal CBS News, at the end of the article on Byrd, says:
These days, however, Byrd’s comments have less force as he is no longer the chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee.
What does Byrd’s chairmanship or the lack of it have to do with the fact that it is unconstitutional to have presidential appointees making decisions about taxpayer monies without congressional oversight? -
Government ownership in private business
The seizure of ownership of private business is unconstitutional. The government ownership of GM is unconstitutional. We’ve beat this horse to the ground. No need to say more. -
Redistribution of Wealth
Engineering the redistribution of wealth in the GM stock debacle is unconstitutional. I’m not sure I have the latest figures, but nevertheless, it’s not good for shareholders who I believe end up with 10 percent of their investment or five cents on the dollar. The government gets 50 percent of the stock, about 87 cents on the dollar. The Unions get 40 percent ownership, plus $10 billion in cash – about 76 cents on the dollar. Doesn’t this make you want to throw-up and then find a quiet spot and grieve for our country? -
Health Care
Obama’s health care plan is unconstitutional. The first thing that comes to mind is his plan to pay for his health care plan by taxing the wealthy to pay for it. Redistribution of wealth is unconstitutional in America. Then there’s the fact that he plans to put private business out of business to achieve his goal, which is simply power over all of us.
In the fall of 2008, Obama told Tom Brokaw that health care “should be a right for every American.” The Constitution says nothing about guaranteeing health care. BUT, Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. has introduced H.J. Res. 30 which calls for a Constitutional Amendment to establish “the right of citizens of the U.S. to health care of equal high quality.” -
Interpreting the Constitution as a “living, breathing” document
The only way to make the Constitution take a breath occasionally is to amend it. The Constitution limits government, and to expand government, that expansion must be appropriate under the document,**
Constitutional law scholar my ass. Ron Paul is a constitutional law scholar. Obama is a pampered, Wall Street financed pitchman to continue detrimental policies which will deteriorate our economic system, continue illegal overseas wars and systematically destroy personal liberties in this country.
You know this is 2010 right? Many valuable cites are YouTube videos. I didn’t post a ton, anyway. The series I did post could be watched in thirty five minutes. Or you could just watch the first one and see if it is interesting. Its your choice.
Yes.
I never said I didn’t want people who disagree with me to post. That is far from the truth. I don’t event mind sarcastic tones as long as there is some thought involved. Like I said, if anybody will actually respond with intelligent counterpoints and cites and links, I will critique them carefully and thoroughly. I just want a reasonably civil and intellectual debate when I post on this forum.
Not too much to ask I don’t think.
You need to narrow the scope of your discussion. The medium of the message board does not lend itself to such sweeping declarations.
You also need to add in discussion about SCOTUS decisions related to these topics, whether or not you agree with those decisions, and why. You seem to be making a ton of assumptions that few people on this MB are going to take at face value.
I take it all back, I didn’t realize you were up there with all the “great libertarian thinkers”. That, and your bold use of bold.
The OP suggested picketing and boycotting on a large scale, with effective results. So I would like to see examples of this. I am not asking for examples of 6 people standing in front of a store with a couple signs.
The grape boycott by the UFW was very widespread, how effective it was is debatable.
This is a very valid point and one that many libertarians disagree about. But there are plenty of Pro Life libertarians. I think Rand Paul’s position on abortion is similar to his fathers in that he believes the Federal government should stay out of the issue entirely.
I am personally Pro Choice, but this issue is not that important to me because I know nobody is going to touch Roe v Wade.
Honestly, this is just something politicians have to talk about to different demographics to get elected. But nothing will change.
Out of all the issues facing the country, I don’t think abortion should be occupying our time or energy. I would vote for a Pro Choice candidate or a Pro Life candidate if they were right about the bigger issues.
I suggest you do the same.
I think Rand is trying to play nice with the Republican establishment. He is saying he would force a debate on Afghanistan and if they decided we needed to stay and defined the mission, they are required by law to declare war. Like his father Ron Paul who pushed for a vote on a declaration of war in Iraq, even though he opposed the war and would vote against it.
I cannot believe that the son of Ron Paul, who is so vehemently anti war, would be a complete war hawk. I believe he is trying to satisfy the Pro Defense wing of the Republican Party and not appear weak.
The Republican Party will tolerate libertarians on matters of fiscal discipline and the constitution. But Rand is smartly avoiding the still divisive issue of the War on Terror.
He is playing more politics than I would like, but I will take what I can get. Politics is a messy game.
I don’t think anybody that disagrees with me is ignorant, uneducated or stupid.
I DO think that anybody who thinks Rand Paul is a racist is profoundly ignorant and probably stupid. There is simply nothing to back up this baseless smear.
Well if those are the rules we have to play by, consider yourself insulted.