Supreme Court Considers Overturning 1st Amendment.

[Samuari]

If you want to look at history you could go to the civel war when Abe Lincoln suspended the bill of rights. He jailed editors that disagreed with his war policies,and conficated their presses. Since hapus corpus was also suspended, these editors remained in jail untill Johnson turned them lose, never coming to trail.

 

[Moridin187]

Re: Manu

It wasn't directed at you at all. It was directed at the "oh, yeah" kiddies who have no sense of history or current events, haven't voted very much, if at all, and probably couldn't name their own states' US Senators.

Patrick Leahy and Jim Jeffords (remember Jim? The first republican to realize Dubya was gonna bring this country crashing to the ground?) And to Lost Cause, I take that crack about socialists as offensive. I'm a socialist and I love my porn, I love it to death, I love it so much I have to keep a bottle of oil and a box of tissues next to my computer at all times, just in case the urge suddenly strikes me.

As to Dubya, he's been trying to infringe on the first amendment since before he was elected. Back when he was governer of Texas he had the audacity to say that Paganism wasn't a religion. First off, nobody has a right to tell anyone else their religion isn't real. You could worship a pile of rat droppings named Felicia and that would still be a religion. Secondly, it was the start of a violation of the seperation of church and state.. I've been against him since the start, and I'll stay against him until after he finally goes overboard, which he probably should do anytime now. I'm hoping that in this next election we'll get a bunch of dems and smart republicans in congress who will politically emasculate him and tell him to go play in his office for the rest of the term and get some Real business done.

Also, has anyone noticed that Bush is bringing back Voodoo Economics? Everytime he gets congress to spend money he also tries to get them to cut taxes more. Someone please explain this to me, if you use up more and more money, and cut your income more and more, what's going to happen?

 

[Spinaroonie]

Re: Re: Manu

Someone please explain this to me, if you use up more and more money, and cut your income more and more, what's going to happen?

What has already happened. We've used up the budget.

Weren't we going to be balanced in a few years? Sigh... gone now

too many people like Bush because he's American- that's their sole reason... *sigh*

BTW, When W ran the Rangers they were awful, when he left the Rangers they won a playoff game. Coincidence?

 

[Moridin187]

Oh, another thing about Dubya I don't like..

Some of you out there may not like Clinton, maybe because of some of his policies, maybe because of the whole sex-scandal thing. But I, personally, think he was one of the best presidents I've ever seen (Although there's not a whole lot of competition in the past few years...). I went into a raging fury early in the Bush administration, if I were a person of violence, it would've been me up there on the white house lawn with the gun. Because we almost had nationalized health care. Eight years of progress towards that goal under Clinton, all destroyed in the first few months of Bush. Now for those of you who were raised rich (and I'm sure there are some of you out there) or who have never had much medical trouble (probably some of those too), this doesn't mean all that much to you. But my family has spent years paying off bills from hospitals, my mother had to have two emergency surgeries and a histerectamy, my father is still recovering from a recent quadruple-bypass, I have an asthmatic condition, chronic bronchitis, and practically no immune system. I wind up in the hospital usually once every two years with pneumonia. Also I was diagnosed with cancer when I was 10, and I was hit by a speeding truck in fourth grade. Now I'm sure not every family has this many problems, but wouldn't you be willing to pay an extra 10-15 dollars a year in taxes so you'd never have to pay another doctor's bill or pay for another perscription ever again? Yes, I'm a socialist, and proud of it!

 

[Unclebill]

Manu, I don't disagree with you. My only point there was at least the Conservatives make a feigned effort to put forward some support of individual rights. Nothing from the Democrat side has even made the pretense in many years.

As I've said many times before, there is no substantive difference between the two parties; the substantial difference is in the degree of implementation of totalitarianism.

In fact, one of Algore's campaign efforts was to "take God back" as a political issue.

I'll have to credit Clinton with a couple of embassies, the USS Cole and the WTC as casualties of his foreign policy and gross mishandling of the military. His smear campaigns managed to cow the opposition so he pretty much got what he wanted which was absolution from accountability and responsibility for his criminal behaviors and treason.

And I seem to remember Clinton campaigned on smaller government, too. Wasn't Algore the guy who reinvented government during the Clinton debacle? I seem to remember he campaigned on that briefly.

As Samuri noted, these violations go back to Lincoln and perhaps before. But since the Civil War (misnomer), the advent of statism has been a continued march by small degrees forward. And most if not all of it has been the result of government meddling in arenas where they have no business, no legitimate authority, and their actions create greater disasters. Their response, of course, has been (and very successfully, in fact) to blame the innocent victims and create a solution which is more government control of more of the everyday life of the American citizen.

The transcontinental railroad built as a government program was a first big step toward government control of private enterprise. The Sherman anti-trust act of the late 1800's was another big step. The Fed induced crash of 1929 was another step toward economic control expansion by the Fed. And since then, the encroachments have accelerated.

And there seems to be a correlation between the advent of the career politician and the suppression of freedom.

The hypocrisy of many of the people involved bothers me. They have been part of the constant increases in the size of government especially since the 60's when the Democrats started the Socialist Welfare State big time. The initial push off was by FDR during the depression and the Socialist Security program was his legacy that poisons us today.

And the greatest tool to enabling the totalitarian government is the Sixteenth Amendment. Without that, it would be far more difficult for the criminals and thieves in office to achieve the atrocities they manage now.

And part of the problem is a school system that is not teaching the values and principles on which the United States of America was founded. Instead of pointing out the amazing accomplishments of the Founding Fathers and the magnificent achievement toward establishing a free nation, they are taught how vile and evil these men were. As an example, look at the attempts to defend Clinton by dredging up the crap about Jefferson fathering a child by a black woman. The overt attempt was to equate the character of the two men which no rational, intelligent man could possibly do.

Schools, especially the institutes of higher learning (oxymoron), are now openly hostile to the ideas of dissent, diversity of opinion if it doesn't toe the liberal collectivist party line. Even since 9-11, there have been several incidents which actually made news enough for me to catch where students who wanted to stage pro-Islamic demonstration on campus were granted permits but other students who wanted to stage patriotic American supportive gatherings were denied permits.

With this kind of education system, what else can you expect? The public has been misinformed, lied to and brainwashed with collective pap to the point they don't have any concept of the idea of rights and freedoms.

There are still people who assert the idea of "states' rights" as if the concept is valid. These same people accept the idea that rights can be granted to some people and denied to others. I saw several instances of that on another thread today about automatic weapons. It's frightening that these people are voting away my rights along with theirs.

If I could be exempt from the stupid fucking totalitarian ideas and laws they support in the voting booth, I'd agree with Miles that they deserve what they get. But I don't deserve to be punished for their stupidity, ignorance, ill-informed state or evil intents and actions.

And to a degree, miles, I'll disagree with you that Americans deserve the government they get. From my perspective, Americans aren't voting for this crap that's being foisted off on us. Americans vote against anything that restricts their freedoms. It's the collectivists among us masquerading as Americans who are selling us all down the totalitarian river.

For Moridin187, I agree that being a socialist (or collectivist of any color) is an insult. But the insult is to those who value their freedom, their property, their rights and life having those who despise their values live here and try to undermine and deny those rights and freedoms. It is the collectivists who seek to subvert freedom and anyone who ascribes to a collectivist tenet is essentially a thug who wants the unearned without consequences reserved for other criminals. It's one implementation of a form of moral relativism, i. e., an act which when committed by the individual is a crime but somehow attains legitimacy when the same act is committed by a group.

And for those people who are so enamored of collectivism in any of its various forms, why don't you emigrate to any of the multitude of nations where you can find pretty much any variant you prefer? Why is it you remain here and try to destroy the freedoms of those of us who reject collectivism and the evils of its tenets?

And I see Thumper is still championing the collectivist thugs in government who are the root of far more of our problems that business could ever be. Keep championing their statist mentality. As long as all they want is control of the economic sphere, they do no harm, right? We can ignore that little glitch in 1929. Besides, they blamed that on private enterprise, didn't they? It certainly didn't have anything to do with Congress printing currency and making it freely available to the markets for speculative investments could it? Nah, Congress didn't fuck it up. That was business. What does it matter that business didn't print the currency, set interest rates, nor have any other real control over the economic and monetary system? Purely coincidental wasn't it?

It never ceases to amaze me that people are so ready to trust a politician who can force compliance with whatever bullshit idea they formulate and distrust a businessman who can only succeed in getting your money if he can get your voluntary compliance.

Everybody who talks about the Microsoft rape are so happy that Bill Gates got fucked. They don't give a thought to the idea that the government destroyed almost half the value of Microsoft stock using laws so vague and subjective that it is not possible to know beforehand what is or is not a violation. But, hey, Bill got his comeuppens and that's really all that matters, isn't it? That you might have lost a few thousand dollars of your IRA because of the stock price plummet is the price you pay for arbitrary authority in the hands of politicos and that is an extremely valuable commodity to those who favor collectivism and totalitarianism. Of course it's anathema to freedom, but who cares, huh? Aren't dichotomies wonderful tools for self-deception? And you can use them very effectively and convincingly on people who aren't well informed or who are taught to not think.

 

[Moridin187]

Thugs? THUGS??

So, you are saying that because I'm a socialist, because I believe that the government should serve the greater good of the greater number of people. That it should take care of the poor and the disabled properly, that it should pay for higher education of Anyone who seeks it, instead of reserving a good education to those whose parents are rich enough to afford it, that it should offer help to anyone who needs it, at a negligible loss to your taxpaying self I am a thug? How about those who value their personal rights and freedoms so much that they could give a shit about anyone else? You seem to be quite an admirer of the early industrialists, the monopolizers.. In fact, it seems to me like you support social darwinism quite a bit. That's all capitalism really boils down to, survival of the fittest. You know what survival of the fittest applies to? It applies to animals, to wild beasts. And even they don't take it as far as human beings can. You call the willingness to accept people not even being able to meet their necessary requirements of life as the american way. I call it barbarism. I ask you, which way is the way of the thug? The one who looks out only for himself, or the one who wants to take care of everyone who needs it? You know what capitalism leads to? Capitalism leads to this, right here, what we have now. Sooner or later, you wind up with a tiny portion of the upper echelons of the society having the huge majority of the pie. You wind up with inbred rednecks who get elected the president of the country because they've got so much goddamn money in their campaign chest from all the special interest groups who now own them.

You tell me to move to one of these other countries. These other countries you're talking about have lower crime rates, much lower poverty rates, nearly the same standard of living as the normal upper middle class american has, For Everyone! Why should I move somewhere else when I could vote and try to make this country's conditions as good as those? I love this country, I love the idea that it's founded on justice for all. What freedoms of yours do you think I want to take hm? I'm a lover of every single amendment in the bill of rights, and I stick by all of them. Just because I don't think someone should get paid millions or billions of dollars a year to sit on their fat ass while people work and slave their whole lives to make just enough to get by, you call me anti-american? You accuse me of wanting to undermine this country?

And as to the Microsoft "rape". I'm not happy about that, I think it's bullshit, I think Bill Gates got screwed. You know what I think should happen with Bill Gates? I think he should be left alone, I think he should continue to be worth 90 billion dollars or whatever. But I also think he should give a portion of that money back. I remember reading a few years ago that Bill Gates could afford to give away a million dollars a day and still be making money on pure interest alone.

Why should some people live in such utter, gross splendour without ever doing an honest day's work, when they could continue to live in that splendour, with almost no noticeable loss to themselves, and at the same time we could eliminate the horror of people, CHILDREN, being forced to live on the streets, being forced to starve to death or sleep in cars?? Why should a rich man's son get to go to an Ivy League school while a poor man's son has to work his fucking ass off just to afford a shitty education at a community college?

There are probably a thousand other points I could think of most of the time, and I would usually be much less repetitive, but I'm writing this at 3:30 in the morning and I'm goddamn tired. If you wanna bring this fight back to me tomorrow uncle bill, it's a date.

 

[shadowsource]

Not quite, Sr. Bill -

My only point there was at least the Conservatives make a feigned effort to put forward some support of individual rights. Nothing from the Democrat side has even made the pretense in many years.

Sen. Feingold of Wisconsin made a very big stink about the Patriot Act and voted against it very strenuously. He is a Democrat.

Al Gore sucks, but he never would have gone for this military tribunal crap, which will 1) screw immense numbers of green card holders 2) prevent other nations from extraditing people that we should make our highest priority of interrogating. Our allied, international effort will swiftly become a joke if Bush pursues this illegal and unnecessary path.

America is folowing a path, very specifically under Bush II, of CHRISTIAN STATISM - the worst of both worlds. This includes censorship, bogus prayer, suppression of medical marijuana clinics, oppression of Oregonians who possess a state-supported right to die if they are certifiably terminally ill, blocks against effective stem cell research, opposition to womens' rights and birth control information and access overseas, and so on.

Christian Statism. That has a certain compelling ring, doesn't it, Uncle Bill? It's related to Talibanism, and not very distantly.

One religious nihilist psycho kills 4,000 people in my city, and another leader toadying to same throws all of our rights in the toilet.

Let's pray that principaled Republicans and Democrats (not the usual lot that get busted for screwing their aides of various genders) stand up for the rights that have endured so many years.

Hey, Thumper. Missed ya.

 

[Samuari]

Bill, it is good to know that someone else actually reads history in stead of being led into what ever the journalistic trend of the day seems to be. The irresponsability of the fourth estate is prolly the the greatest disapointment of the 20th century and the praticioners of the the craft seem indisposed to returning it to the ethical standards that it once had. They don't so much report facts as 'reinvent' them, inflate the importance of their sources (or themselves), react with shock when caught, and finally engage in personal attacks when thier arguments don't hold water.

 

[Samuari]

Hey shadow baby, published any good PMs lately?

 

[Sweetcharade]

ptttth

"All the pretty things are going to hell"- David Bowie

See? This is why I'm glad I didn't become old enough to vote until April of this year. I think that in order to have an ammendment turned over there has to be a vote (I'm not sure it's been ages since Civics), and no one is going to vote to have their rights taken away. If the over bearing wannabe savior, trying to be just like his Daddy (same high school, Yale *how the HELL did he get into Yale?*, Army Reserves *at least he did something different from his dad, George Sr. wasn't that much of a pussy and was in the actual army*, oil company, Governor, President) Seriously watch the A&E Biography and you'll see, he is Mini Me. Oh yeh anybody notice that his brother is governor of Florida? I sense a rigged election. My mother and my sister voted for him, and I was completely disgusted with them, he is the epitomy of yuck. After all, Texas is one of the most polluted states, when he was governor Texas had the highest execution rate in the country, backing out of the Kyoto agreement because trying to save the environment isn't good for the economy. Please. Clinton may not have been the best as far as his sex life, but at least he was a good president. Even the elder Bush sucked, shoddy civil rights record in the 60s ~nod~ I know I'm not making much sense, and I apologize for it. If people want to keep kids from accessing porn online, then people need to be better parents and actually pay attention to what their kids are doing. Dubya is going to drag us down, and it can't be stopped. ~sigh~

 

[Lost Cause]

I did get a reply from the whitehouse! That's what I'm talking about. If you're so pessimistic, why bother trusting some non-profit "wonk" to lobby for you. My bet is their agenda is more sinister than anything our government could do. If we're going down the tube, or have never been a great nation, why not get the fuck out? Maybe you could live in China, Europe, Somalia, Bangladesh. Enjoy!
How about the other freedoms in our Bill of Rights? Or are you just concerned with the right to whine with no solutions to your bitch.
Maybe you think we need someone like, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Hussein...go ahead, pick one!
**Freedom isn't free**

 

[Sweetcharade]

Newp- Stalin- purged his own people (or am I thinking Musselini?) Hitler- his Nazi fuck goons killed half my family Hussein- dumbass n I dunno who Mao is. Oh and by the way - I am in another country, however I didn't leave because I think the people in charge of America are dumbasses, I left because my finace's here. And of course I'm concerned with our other rights in danger, what do you think I am, just some punk teenager who doesn't know what she's talking about and who needs to shut the fuck up for expressing what she thinks? I may not know what I'm talking about and I may not know exactly what's going on across the pond, but I do know that I think it all sucks. Then again what do I know? I'm just some punk teenager who left the promised land for love.

 

[Lost Cause]

Additionally, what is your plan to reconstruct America into this fuckin' socialist utopia? Have you read the federalist papers? The Constitution? The Bill of Rights? Do you have any idea why we have the government system we do? Why do you blame this country for your marxist version of envy and jealosy? Do you propose a revolution? If so, you'll find opposition from others that support the other amendments you ignore (2nd).
What country would you model us after? How much will be taken by force from me to support this utopia? How many of us will you have to slaughter to get your utopia? (name one socialist/communist/marxist country that has not had to do that)
I think I've made my point, I trust you'll attempt to make yours.
Live, Love, Laugh

 

[Sweetcharade]

Actually, I think Communisim is a good idea, it will never work, but the theory is good. My plan to reconstruct America hasn't been thought of, as a matter of fact, I have no plans. Maybe I'd try to convince Tony Blair to be in charge. As far as the 2nd Ammendment goes, I hate guns and other weapons, so yeh my "perfect" America wouldn't have any. My "perfect" America wouldn't have had any slavery ever. My "perfect" America would have more of its Natives. My "perfect" America would be non-violent, uncensored and not run by pompus assholes. I have no versions of envy and jealousy, who do I have to be envious or jealous of? And I slaughter no one. The world has been raped and pilliaged enough without my happy little ass adding to it. And I'd model America after nowhere. My "perfect" America can't be modeled from other countries, my "perfect" America exists in the dreams of anyone wanting a better life only to come and find out that its nothing like what they expected, and is filled with hardship and people who don't give a fuck about anything but themselves. So yeh my "perfect" America exists only on a really bad acid trip

 

[Lost Cause]

I'm glad your there and I'm here. My family left Scotland thanks to the good kings and queens of england, and we will never forget. The present population of America are refugees from the "civilized" european continent, so we already know how much they think of freedom.
**Those who have the guns, make the rules**

 

[Sweetcharade]

Good, I'm glad you're there, and I'm damn glad I'm here. And my mother's side of the family left England and Scotland as well. And yeh the good ol kings and queens of the past were dumb fucks, who in power isn't? And what the English kings of 400 years ago thought of freedom is bullshit compared to what England is like now. The people with guns only make the rules because they go bang bang.....

 

[Spinaroonie]

I'll have to credit Clinton with a couple of embassies, the USS Cole and the WTC as casualties of his foreign policy and gross mishandling of the military. His smear campaigns managed to cow the opposition so he pretty much got what he wanted which was absolution from accountability and responsibility for his criminal behaviors and treason.

His foreign policy that has strenthened US relationships with most conuntries? His foreign policy that got thisclose to having an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement? Plus, you can't blame the WTC attacks on clinton. Bush had been in office long enough to do the things you would now deem 'nessecary' to prevent it, but, y'know what? The towers are still down, and you'd STILL be blaming Clinton. Short of chain-ganging everybody in America together there wasn't much ANYONE could do to prevent it.

Everybody who talks about the Microsoft rape are so happy that Bill Gates got fucked. They don't give a thought to the idea that the government destroyed almost half the value of Microsoft stock using laws so vague and subjective that it is not possible to know beforehand what is or is not a violation. But, hey, Bill got his comeuppens and that's really all that matters, isn't it? That you might have lost a few thousand dollars of your IRA because of the stock price plummet is the price you pay for arbitrary authority in the hands of politicos and that is an extremely valuable commodity to those who favor collectivism and totalitarianism.

What the fuck are you talking about? Bill Gates getting fucked? HARDLY! Under Reno, the company would've been punished. Under Ashcroft, MS gets to FURTHER expand it's monopoly as a PUNISHMENT! and BRAINWASH children to using their second-rate products. Do you have any fucking idea what MS has done to the development of the Internet or the future of Netscape? Do you realize what a progressive, innovating, stock-rich company Netscape could have been had they not have been screwed over. What MS did was WRONG, everything has rules. And when you break them, you should be punished.

 

[Spinaroonie]

And as to the Microsoft "rape". I'm not happy about that, I think it's bullshit, I think Bill Gates got screwed. You know what I think should happen with Bill Gates? I think he should be left alone, I think he should continue to be worth 90 billion dollars or whatever. But I also think he should give a portion of that money back. I remember reading a few years ago that Bill Gates could afford to give away a million dollars a day and still be making money on pure interest alone.

Not true, his money is mostly theorectical, held in stock that he can't sell. His bank account reads MUCH less than his on paper wealth.

 

[Guest]

Socialism/Marxism/whateverism never killed anybody.

Tyrants and dictators did. These are people. people do things and they can do it under whatever name or idea they choose. How many Native Americans have been slaughtered in the name of capitalism? How much land was taken from them?

I was clued in on the true nature of the Ayn Rand folks last week. They had some clown on the radio from this institution that said we shouldn't trust Islam and that they are out to destroy us. Locke was his name or something.

I assume, Bill, that you are a corporate lawyer with a deep understanding of corporate law and all the ins and outs of the Microsoft case. I am not but there seems to be a very large majority of legal types that do believe Microsoft misbehaved.

As for having a decision as to where to spend your dollar. How much choice is it when every store in town is owned by the same company? Or every business is owned by the same multinational? Enron controlled about 25% of all the electric and gas energy in the country. Different names same company. The auditors didn't catch them in their lies, why? Because the auditors were also on the Enron payroll as consultants. The SEC has been warning us for decades of the dangers of conflicts of interest such as these but the industry was able to pay off the politicians to stifle regulation. It eventually blows up, as it did in this case and government is forced to react.

Regulation always comes after a problem becomes so great that the public demands action.

Love Canal...no one cared about corporations dumping toxic wastes until it bubbled up in someone's backyard. They acted irresponsibly and now they gotta pay the piper.

You are right no law ever prevented a crime from being committed. But before the EPA came along dumping toxins was not a crime. Now it is a crime and they can be held accountable.

Some of you really need to get out of the 18th century.

This ain't the land of gentleman farmers and various craftsmen anymore. If Jefferson was so perfect why did slavery thrive and women not allowed to vote?

 

[Unclebill]

Originally posted by Moridin187
Thugs? THUGS??

So, you are saying that because I'm a socialist, because I believe that the government should serve the greater good of the greater number of people. That it should take care of the poor and the disabled properly, that it should pay for higher education of Anyone who seeks it, instead of reserving a good education to those whose parents are rich enough to afford it, that it should offer help to anyone who needs it, at a negligible loss to your taxpaying self I am a thug?

Yup!

Collectivism of every strain has some fundamental tenets. One of them is the negation of rights. The individual is subjugated to the collective. The individual has no value or purpose except to benefit the collective. He has no right of any kind in the collectivist mentality; not to seek fortune, fame, pleasure, et al.

The collective owns the lives and thus the accomplishments and achievements of every individual. The honest term applicable is the individual citizens are slaves of the collective. Their earnings and the product of their minds and muscles are not theirs by right as they are in a free society.

The life and property of the citizen is the property of the collective to be used and disposed of at the desire, want, wish or whim of the collective.

But since there is no real entity of the collective, this abstraction is embodied in the person of the spokesman(men) for the collective. This means that those acting as spokesman, however they attained that position, then literally own the lives and property of these who are not. So you have two classes; the masters and the slaves. This is the societal organization you advocate and support.

Thus the collectivists cannot afford to be truthful about what they offer. It seems patently obvious that any reasonable person would reject it. Which brings us to another tenet of collectivism; truth is whatever benefits the collective. Thus their propaganda can say anything no matter how vast the lie so long as it promotes and benefits the collective.

There are essentially two classes of thug or criminal. There is the street thug who sticks a gun in your face or a knife to your throat and steals your property or takes your life. The other is the politician and his loyal cadre of voters who enact legislation to seize your property or your life.

The principles involved for both are precisely the same; absolutely no differentiation in principle. Collectivists use the dichotomy of relativistic morality to condemn an action when taken by the individual citizen but legitimize, even deify the same action when a group of thugs perpetrate it on the citizen.

Personally, I have more respect for the street thug because they have enough respect for me to be direct about who and what they are. The collectivist on the other hand, be it the politician or his advocate and supporter, don't have enough respect for me or themselves to be honest about what they are. They expect me to be stupid enough or gullible enough to believe that the crimes they perpetrate are actually beneficial. They expect me to be so naïve and gullible that I will accept the dichotomy that it is beneficial for all men to sacrifice some. Perhaps you can explain to the man who is the sacrifice so he can understand it.

That is something no rational, sane, thinking man can ever accept.

And don't bother offering me the propaganda that is supposed to differentiate Socialism from other variants of collectivism. I don't judge by the propaganda, but by the principles on which the philosophy is based and the practices of implementation.

And just as food for thought, I suppose you advocate equal treatment of all. I'd like to know how your resolve the dichotomy involved with the concept of equal treatment when the government is not doing so since it is confiscating the earnings and property of some and giving it to others.

Charity at the point of a gun, be it literally or figuratively, is NOT charity, just armed robbery.

To quote H. L. Menken, "government is a broker in pillage and every election is a sort of advance auction of stolen goods."

 

[Unclebill]

Originally posted by Moridin187
Why should some people live in such utter, gross splendour without ever doing an honest day's work, when they could continue to live in that splendour, with almost no noticeable loss to themselves, and at the same time we could eliminate the horror of people, CHILDREN, being forced to live on the streets, being forced to starve to death or sleep in cars?? Why should a rich man's son get to go to an Ivy League school while a poor man's son has to work his fucking ass off just to afford a shitty education at a community college?

First, perhaps the people who have the fortune earned it. I understand that's a difficult if not insurmountable concept for the collectivist mind, but it happens.

Second, no amount of theft will erase poverty. Since the "War on Poverty" implemented by LBJ under his Great Society, almost SIX TRILLION dollars has been stolen from those who created and earned that wealth and given to those who didn't. The result is that today we have the same and some say a greater percentage of Americans living in poverty than at the beginning of that debacle.

So the reality that life is not fair is justification for criminal actions on the part of individuals and government? Because that's the implicit message you're shouting.

This nation was founded on the principles of freedom, individual rights and personal responsibility. That does not include stealing from those who have because they have and you don't and it is no more legitimate if the government does it.

 

[Manu]

Note for Bill.

Hi Again Bill -

Just a quick note to let you know that Harry Browne just published an article basically calling Bush and Ashcroft anti american criminals.

He says, most notably, "It's only a matter of time until every new oppression applies to all Americans."

Here is the article: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25456

I know you, and probably some other people here, are Browne fans so I wanted to post the link when I saw the column. Hopefully the smart people in this country can unite against the religious fanatics and we can take back the country.

 

[miles]

Manu

My experience here with many Liberals is that they go totally ballsitic when it comes to Libertarians, like we are some weird hybrid who can't decide if we are Liberals or "Right Wingers" (usually prefixed by "extreme"). They are baffled by the concept of freedom and have made it PC to use it interchangeably with "security". "Rights" are things they decide people are entitled to because they say so, regardless of the law of the land.

Zip up your mac, Uncle Bill. here come the tomato tossers.

 

[Problem Child]

Y'all may disagree with UnkaBill, but you can't tell me he's not one of the sharpest tools in our little shed.

 

[miles]

uncle bill

And to a degree, miles, I'll disagree with you that Americans deserve the government they get. From my perspective, Americans aren't voting for this crap that's being foisted off on us. Americans vote against anything that restricts their freedoms. It's the collectivists among us masquerading as Americans who are selling us all down the totalitarian river.

Wrong you are, Liberty Bell breath. (no offense...couldnt resist)

Who is re-electing these dickheads? Who buys into their class warfare bullshit?

Sorry, bucko. They lie, cheat, and steal, and they get re-elected every time.

To say Americans vote against anything that restricts their freedom is absurd. If that were the case, how do so many tax and spend politicos. liars, cheats, get re-elected?

How many votes does anyone here think Gary Condit will get when he runs again?

10,000....50,000....100,000...do you think he could get re-elected?
Let's say he draws only 25% of the vote. Does that frighten you?
If they are dumb enough to do that, what else might they be incapable of?