Guard Dog

I voted today. HUZZAH!

You know Aram, what bothers me the most about what you just wrote. When I was a kid one did not find cheat codes at web sites. All one found at web sites was spiders. I think this one comment finally launched that midlife crisis I've been flirting with.

Sluggo, ask yourself "What would Shryke do?" I think the answer is obvious, get them all together with a lot booze and have an orgy.

Wiki entry Trailer here. Anyone going to check this out? I saw the trailer for the first time today. I looks like it might be good.

Yet they continue to vote in governments that do precisely the opposite of that. It hit the news here a little while back that the Obama admin tried very hard to keep the BP Oil Spil quiet, and tyhe was slow to do anything about it or about BPs handling of it. Then it's revealed that he accepted almost $100k in capaign contributions from BP. In fact a reporter was fired for pointing that out. I laughed for a week when I heard that. Here is the "hope" and "change" everyone voted for. Hows that all working out? Like I said, we will have the government we deserve and the first step to Oligarchy comes when the ruling class no longer believes it is accountable to those they represent. In the US we passed that point earlier this year. In Eurpoe they are doing it now with the EU.

I'm not saying it will happen but it certainly CAN happen. And right off the top of my head I can think of dozens of modern exampes where individual rights are trampled in other countries without so much as a pause. Now, think this through for a moment. Suppose we were to call a Contitutional Convention today, what do you think the probable outcome of that would be? Heck Calax, if you and I were the only delegates to attend do you think that with our poltical differences we could come up with a new constitution we could both live with? I've been trading posts with you for years now and I think well of you but personal amicability does not ensure political compromise. Now take you and I out of the mix and add hundreds of strangers, many of whom are suspicious of each other for no reason other than that there politics ARE different. Not at all. You are making the same assumption that a strong central government is needed for our national idenetity. I do not believe that would be the case at all. Our national identity does not come from some joint fealty to Washington, but from our shared history, culture, language, values, etc.

I'm hearing a lot of people say "the Constitution is outdated, it does not refelect modern times, it was never intended for a nation so large and diverse". What then is the remedy? Ignore it? Discard it? Misconstrue and distort it? There has been a lot of the latter to tell the truth. All of our basic rights, endowed by our creator are affirmed in the Constitution. If it can be side stepped, distorted, or ignored then there is no law, no affirmation of rights, and I suggest you begin buying guns. I have made this argument many times over Gun Control, Free Speech, Property Rights, if even one aspect of the Constitution can be ignored does that not render the entire document worthless? Can you not then simply ignore any part of it the government of that day finds inconvienient? Yes, and yes. Even if no more than lip service it paid to it (and when you look a that travesty of justice Obamacare it did not even get that) it is all that stands between us and at best Oligarchy. At worst Dictatorship. In truth I really think that is exactly where we are heading anyway. The American people seem all to willing to surrender their heritage, their liberty, and the freedom and dignity that is their birthright for "free" healthcare, and "green" jobs and homeland security. We will have the government we deserve. If the American people are willing to become slaves to the state, the leftists, liberals, and progressives are more than willing to be masters. For my part, they will have to kill me.

I disagree with you completely here. Because the population has become so large it is more important than ever for federal power to be restrained. The larger and more diverse the nation becomes the more important local governance becomes. Big bureaucracies are by their very nature inefficient. The requirements of governing New York are not the same as Iowa; Federal power is a broadsword, not a scalpel. By helping one region it is often harming another. Which doesn't exactly conform to your particular hard line view of how the federal government should operate. It specifically says that Congress has the power to enact laws that are necessary and proper for the governing of the people, and to protect their rights. Several of the things you thought the government shouldn't have a hand in would fall under the necessary and proper clause mixed with the Bill of Rights. Actually you are misreading that. The "Necassary and Proper" clause empowers congress to enact laws requires to excecute it's enumerated powers. It does not give them the authority to take on any power not defined by the constitution. Although, historically speaking they have done exactly that. Thanks to a supreme court justice named John Marshall we have "implied powers" which congress has taken to mean that the powers enumerated to Congress are whatever the hell they say they are. But even he would be disgusted by what is happeneing in the last twenty years. Up until Obamacare the Necassary and Proper clause has been the most distorted and abused clause. Now the Commerce Clause it closing that sad gap. This is not actually codified into law in any way. Of course! In fact I have a great idea for a 28th Amendment. It should read like this: Congress shall make no law that applies to the people of the United States that does not also apply in equal measure to the members of Congress, or the President, or the Justices of the Supreme Court. Congress shall make no law that applies to the members of Congress, or the or the President, or the Justices of the Supreme Court that does not also apply in equal measure to the people of the Unites States. Ok, I did not actually come up with that but I love it.

Doh, you beat me to it.

Look what I just ordered! I'd say my reading is booked solid for the next ten years!!! http://www.amazon.com/Complete-National-Ge...mp;sr=8-1-spell

Sorry Hurlie When the Supreme Court made it's decision on Brown v Board it was the responsibility of the Federal Government to enforce the law. The US Constitution is the supreme law of the land. The federal interventions to enforce desegregations was entirly proper and if you will recall, restrianed. Mosto f the resistance was token and political anyway. Even Wallace was only trying to boost his own career with his stand in the school house door. This was not an abuse of federal power. I'm fine with it. As for slavery, that is the one great sin of our Republic. As horrible was it was, imagine for a moment that it had never happened. Suppose the founders had tackeled that issue right from the start and abolished it. Most of the African-Americans who have lived and left their mark on the US might never have been born. Suppose there had never been a Martin Luther King, or Fredrick Douglass, Carter G Woodson, Langston Huges, Billie Holiday, Clarence Thomas, I could go on. I'm not suggesting that generations of misery were a good thing but some good has come from it. We certainly would have been less than we are had we never known those names. As for Gay marriage, i really do not know where that is going. We've beaten that one to death in other threads anyway. You know where I stand on it, everyone should be completely free to live their lives as they see fit so long as they are not hurting someone else. Like I always say, if you oppose gay marriage, don't marry a gay person.

This is dead on correct. Plus is does not take into account the world events going on in the background that have a real economic impact, were we at war or peace, or any of the millions of details that can affect his example. This is not a good analogy even if his stats are correct and unbiased (cherry picked) and since he does have politcal axe to grind it would be easy to believe they are not.

I agree. That is one reason I am so happy to see the decline of the neo-cons and the religious-right in the Republicans. I am not a republican, I'm actually a card carrying member of the Libertarian Party. But I usually do vote Republican because the Democrat in the race scares the heck out of me. I have never understood how a group of people can so distrust the government on economic issues and then turn around and ask that same government to be the "moral police". And vice versa for the lefties. Ok, I think I caught up on repying to everyone.

No Big Brother building infra structure. No Big Brother putting out the fire when your house is burning. No Big Brother trying to catch the criminal that just robbed you. No Big Brother to aid you when you want to have a child. No Big Brother to aid you when your child falls ill. No Big Brother to teach your child the valuables of life. No Big Brother telling that dude in the 18-wheeler that he can't just run over your Mini. No Big Brother interfering when your investments run off to a Caribbean island. No Big Brother trying to evacuate you after your excessive Humvee driving might have flooded your state. No, you need not go on. We all realize what an ignoramus you are. You throw around that Big Brother term without actually knowing what you're talking about. A society is simply people helping each other, but I'm guessing it suits your absurd self image as some sort of Captain America Freedom Fighter to keep calling it Big Brother. Mindless parrot. You know, I can not ever remember you posting something in a thread like this that did not involve an ad hominem attack on someone. Is that the best you can do? When words fail, resort to insults. You are a much smarter guy than that mkreku.

I know you are a young man, but I still find it a little disturbing that you equate the loss of liberties and the dimishment of Federalisim with a regression of history and progress. I really do not see the coorelation at all. Someday Awesomess you are going to wake up and realize that American citizens are noticably less free than they were just twenty five years ago. Not greatly, but noticably. What will happen twenty five years from now if things are not brought back into alignment? Fifty years from now? The way we are trending there will come a time in either the near or distant future when no one could call the US a free country with a straight face. Unlike money, liberty is a zero sum commodity. Either the government has liberty over you or you have it over yourself. The more the scale slides to one side, the less it has on the other.

Well, the other night I was trying to kill my insomnia with bourbon, and I was about 1/3 of the way through a bottle when I started trading posts with you. I was finding it difficult to formulate rational arguments.

Ok folks, I'm back. This will hardly be the first time I

Hi all, I'm on the road right now... had to drive up to kentucky for a tower inspection and customer consult. Ill be back late tonight so I'll replay to whats been said then. I'm still following on BBerry. Just a preview, my ideas of what government should and should not be doing are based entirely on concept of federalisim.

As much as I'm am enjoying this, I have to leave for work in three hours. I'll pick this back up when I get home tomorrow night.

I imagine so, especially when these authority figures have opinions you disagree with or cannot refute. I never said you were arguing for unlimited government but once you begin empowering government to do things it was never meant to do, that is exactly what you will get. As for your second point, you adn I just disagree and probably always will. There is nothing wrong with that.

Jesus F*****G Christ? You actually think someone living their life as they see fit is anarchy. Are you even familiar with the definition if that word? I am. I saw it first hand in Somalia in 1993 and Kuwaitt in 1991. All I did was take your definition of freedom to its logical conclusion. After all, anarchy would indeed be the minimum amount of government interference. Your view of freedom, as you stated it, is by definition incompatible with the concept of government. If you want to reword it, go right ahead. That is the same BS you pulled earlier. If I am opposed to one extreme then I must be in favor of the other extreme

If it is smaller then it imperfections are less harmful. Ford said it the best: "The government that is big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take everything you have." And one of my favorites, Thomas Paine wrote: "That government is best which governs least."

Jesus F*****G Christ? You actually think someone living their life as they see fit is anarchy. Are you even familiar with the definition if that word? I am. I saw it first hand in Somalia in 1993 and Kuwaitt in 1991. Yes I do. And so did our foudning fathers. We are not ANTS! And we are sure as hell not communists. I did not say smoking in public places is good. If people decide they don't want it indoors fine. I don't smoke and don't want to be around it either, but I'm not about to tell someone they can't do it at all and you had better believe that is what is coming. After reading your commentsI really think for the good of it's citizens the time is coming to divide the US into two seperate countries. One can go back to being an economically free capitalist country, they other can continue the plunge into socialisim. We'll see ten years or so after which one is more prosperous.

The first step is "sin taxes" to try to discourage you from buying things. Then come outright banning. You might remember a little ting from the past called Prohibition? Even you should be able to see the obvious prallells to the way they treat tobacco, fast food, and alchocol now. Yes these things are all bad for you but so what? Try this article: http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail...-responsibility As for Napalitano, sho should have been fired, then strung up for this: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/a...wing-extremism/ Shows loud and clear what the administration thinks of veterans. I mean after all they voted for McCain by a margin of 16:1

I don't get it. If I am opposed to Keynsian top down control economics (and I am) how does that make me automatically in favor on unfettered lassiez-faire capitalisim? Especially after I just posted such nice things about the Glass-Stengal act. It is not all of one or the other. It is more of one or the other. I am in favor of something you g******d liberals seem to be coming to hate (or at least vigorously oppose): Freedom. I know the US prospers best when it's citizens are able to enjoy the maximum amount of freedom, economic as well as social. That does not mean we dispose of social saftey nets, or even reasonable government controls. Believing that obviously makes me an enemy and an object of ridicule to Obama and his ilk but as we will see in November, there are a hell of a lot of people like me who are more than a little sick of Obama and his "fundamental transformation" of America. Freedom is a term that is thrown around a lot and never really defined, especially in context. Typical. Obfuscating the obvious when you have no argument. How's this for a definition, living your life with a minimum amount of government interefernce? No Big Brother ordering you to buy health insurance or face jail time. No Big Brother helping itself to 35-50% of what you EARN. No Big Brother sabatoging your investments, telling what kind of car you can drive, telling you you cannot smoke or drink or eat what you please if you choose to. How about not having the government issuing instructions to the police to watch out for 'domestic terrorists" like returning veterans and people with Gadsen Flag sitckers on their cars. How about not worrying the government will seize your home and sell it to someone else because they could earn more tax revenue on it that way? Need I go on?