Guard Dog

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?

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.

One other thought, to Calax and others. Do not dismiss the Tea Party movement. It is very large and has teeth. A number of very prominent politicians havew already been dispatched by Tea Party candidates and a few more will be tonight. On November 2 they will make their presence felt nation wide.

I saw a great sign at a Tea Party rally. I wrote it down: Five Undeniable Truths: You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, the nation is finished. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

I'd say indirectly to blame, but they bear a LOT of indirect blame. Following the 1929 stock market crash a lot of safe guards were put into place to help prevent that from happening again. There were several laws but the main one was the Glass-Stengal Act. Over the next sixty or so years Glass-Stengal was chipped away under several administrations but the biggest changes came under Nixon, Carter, and Clinton. Once again none of those admins were entirely to blame because each did small things that seemed inconsequential but in the aggregate were very destructive. Under Carter we got the Community Reinvestment Act (forced banks to make a certain number of loans to low income with lowered credit requirements), and the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act (In short brought all banks under control of the Fed and changed how interest rates were set). Under Clinton the CRA was revised so that more borrowers could obtain loans even if they could not afford them. Under Clinton we got the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (Repealed the part of Glass-Stengal that prevented deopsitory banks from also being investment, mortgage and insurance banks). Also under Clinton the CRA was modified so the government began guaranteeing loans by buying them through Fannie May and Freddie Mac. Under GWB the CRA was modified again lowering credit requirments even further. When the bubble burst real estate vaues tanked and billions of dollars in assets became worthless. There were a lot of bad acts by private mortgage brokers "predatory lending" and all, and LOTS of stupid business decisions by John Q Citizen but it was Uncle Sam who laid the foundation that allowed it to happen. Or more accurately removed the safeguards that prevented it from happening and then all but created the crisis by forcing banks to take risks they would not otherwise have. Thats is a vvery brief summary but you can look those laws up in Wiki and get a pretty good idea how they all combined to make a pretty foul stew. Just don't cite Wikipedia in your paper. Your instructors would laugh you out of the room. Lexis-Nexus is an excellent news search tool even if you do have to pay for it. Now on the idea of limited government and the Tea Party I could go on for pages and pages. But just to get you started here is a great article that came out just yesterday in the UK Telegraph that touched on your topic a bit, even though that was not the topic of the article. Here is an excerpt:

Interesting reading: http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/09/13/mf.nf...x.html?hpt=Sbin How about them Bucs? Nice freaking pass Freeman! Defense needs help though. If the Browns can run on our boys like that God help us in New Orleans.

I hired an editor to go over my book. I just got the manuscript back today. Can I still call it a manuscript when it's in RTF on a CD? Time to begin re-write #1. I just poured a drink (Knob Creek on ice with a spalsh of Canada Dry) time to get to work.

Now reading True at First Light. Yeah, yeah, I know. But what can I say, I'm a Hemingway fan.

Who won last year? I don't even remeber. Well we can at least make Super Bowl predictions I've got Indy over Dallas in the superbowl.