AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

@nimh,

No, I didn't duck it. I chose not to be politically correct and say what you wanted to hear. One of my many failings is not to ingratiate myself to people who demand that I be like them before I can be acceptable.

I refused to allow you to assign to me a moral judgment based on the words of another member that I didn't hear in the same way as you did. And thus far you have 100% ignored what I told you I did hear and you have been 100% willing to consider that I might have a point.

Among other things, the First Amendment provides the unalienable right of the people to express an unpopular opinion, to criticize or complain about their leaders and government, or to promote whatever they are inspired to promote short of violating anybody elses rights or inciting to riot or insurrection.

Quote:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

My point is that the phrase CJ used, the phrases Ican uses, or the phrases I or anybody else might use are violating nobody's rights. You have every right to complain and object to whatever terminology or characterizations are used. You have no right to demand that I complain and object to what you think I should complain and object to and you are as bad as anything you are accusing others of when you presume judge me by what you presume I consider acceptable or not acceptable. Those speaking untruths about other members or dishonestly attempting to diminish people or misrepresent them in the eyes of others are absolutely violating those members' rights.

Do you think Sonia Sotomayor should be kept off the Supreme Court for saying that she thinks a smart Latina woman would make a better judge than a white male? Some think that is a disqualifying statement. I don't. Do you? Why?

2 Replies

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

No, I didn't duck it. I chose not to be politically correct and say what you wanted to hear.

okay. then let me ask it.

do you personally want to be associated, as a conservative republican, with a person like david duke? do you agree that everyone that voted for barack obama is a traitor to the united states?

you can answer both questions with one word in the affirmative or the negative and kill 2 birds with one stone.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

You have not answered Joe's question.

As much as it is your right not to answer Joe's question, it is the right of other posters to note that you have not answered the question.

Political correctness, the First Amendment and Sonia whoever don't come into. It's a question of honesty.

Whether you didn't answer because you didn't want to or because you didn't understand the question, you didn't answer the question.

1 Reply

@Debra Law,

Debra, thanks for the link:
http://laws.findlaw.com/us/297/1.html

I found this one also:

Quote:

http://www.tourolaw.edu/patch/Butler/
...
Since the foundation of the nation, sharp differences of opinion have persisted as to the true interpretation of the phrase. Madison asserted it amounted to no more than a reference to the other powers enumerated in the subsequent clauses of the same section; that, as the United States is a government of limited and enumerated powers, the grant of power to tax and spend for the general national welfare must be confined to the enumerated legislative fields committed to the Congress. In this view the phrase is mere tautology, for taxation and appropriation are or may be necessary incidents of the exercise of any of the enumerated legislative powers. Hamilton, on the other hand, maintained the clause confers a power separate and distinct from those later enumerated is not restricted in meaning by the grant of them, and Congress consequently has a substantive power to tax and to ap- [297 U.S. 1, 66] propriate, limited only by the requirement that it shall be exercised to provide for the general welfare of the United States. Each contention has had the support of those whose views are entitled to weight. This court has noticed the question, but has never found it necessary to decide which is the true construction. Mr. Justice Story, in his Commentaries, espouses the Hamiltonian position. 12 We shall not review the writings of public men and commentators or discuss the legislative practice. Study of all these leads us to conclude that the reading advocated by Mr. Justice Story is the correct one. While, therefore, the power to tax is not unlimited, its confines are set in the clause which confers it, and not in those of section 8 which bestow and define the legislative powers of the Congress. It results that the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution.

But the adoption of the broader construction leaves the power to spend subject to limitations.

As Story says: 'The Constitution was, from its very origin, contemplated to be the frame of a national government, of special and enumerated powers, and not of general and unlimited powers.' 13

Again he says: 'A power to lay taxes for the common defence and general welfare of the United States is not in common sense a general power. It is limited to those objects. It cannot constitutionally transcend them.' 14

That the qualifying phrase must be given effect all advocates of broad construction admit. Hamilton, in his [297 U.S. 1, 67] well known Report on Manufactures, states that the purpose must be 'general, and not local.' 15 Monroe, an advocate of Hamilton's doctrine, wrote: 'Have Congress a right to raise and appropriate the money to any and to every purpose according to their will and pleasure? They certainly have not.' 16 Story says that if the tax be not proposed for the common defense or general welfare, but for other objects wholly extraneous, it would be wholly indefensible upon constitutional principles. 17 And he makes it clear that the powers of taxation and appropriation extend only to matters of national, as distinguished from local, welfare.

I think that taxes paid for the specific welfare of individuals are NOT taxes paid for the general welfare of the United States. They are infact taxes paid to individuals that diminish, or in many cases destroy, the responsibility of the individual for himself. Therefore, I conclude that the redistribution of wealth from those who have lawfully earned it to those who have not lawfully earned it, is a violation of the Constitution, because such redistribution does not contribute to the general welfare of the United States. It actually reduces the general welfare of the United States by diminishing individual responsibility for individual accomplishment.

1 Reply

@ican711nm,

ican711nm wrote:

I think that taxes paid for the specific welfare of individuals are NOT taxes paid for the general welfare of the United States. They are infact taxes paid to individuals that diminish, or in many cases destroy, the responsibility of the individual for himself. Therefore, I conclude that the redistribution of wealth from those who have lawfully earned it to those who have not lawfully earned it, is a violation of the Constitution

This claim, again, can be easily tested against founding-era documents. Let's look up the word "welfare" in the first edition of Webster's Dictionary (1828):

In 1828, in the first edition of his Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster wrote:

WELFARE, n. [well and fare, a good faring; G.]

1. Exemption from misfortune, sickness, calamity or evil; the enjoyment of health and the common blessings of life; prosperity; happiness; applied to persons.

2. Exemption from any unusual evil or calamity; the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, or the ordinary blessings of society and civil government; applied to states.

Granted, reasonable people can disagree to what extent a welfare state is a blessing. But beyond disagreement is the fact that welfare states, are now ordinary in societies and civil government, are financed by progressive taxes, and provide social services to the poor. Indeed, almost every civil society, in any industrialized country, today has a welfare state as generous as the USA's, or even more generous than it. That's how ordinary the blessings of the welfare state are. By Webster's founding era usage of English, applied to the realities of industrial countries today, America's welfare state is clearly covered under the term "general welfare". Hence it is plainly constitutional.

2 Replies

@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

You have not answered Joe's question.

As much as it is your right not to answer Joe's question, it is the right of other posters to note that you have not answered the question.

Political correctness, the First Amendment and Sonia whoever don't come into. It's a question of honesty.

Whether you didn't answer because you didn't want to or because you didn't understand the question, you didn't answer the question.

Well now is this you ehBeth? Or Setanta again?

I believe I did answer Joe's question. I don't expect Joe or any of you to admit that I did, but I did.

I didn't answer it perhaps the way you would have answered it, not that you have ever answered a direct question put to you from me that I can recall. I didn't answer it the way Joe would answer it. I didn't answer it the way MysteryMan answered it. And the reason I didn't is that there is no one single answer for the question if one is intellectually honest. You guys have never needed a reason to dislike me, but you can add the fact that I do see nuances in situations that should be considered and those do not always lend themselves to the answer being solicited.

So, do you think Sonia Sotomayor's comment that Latina women would make better decisions than white men to be a disqualifying statement? Some think that it is. I don't. Do you?

1 Reply

@DontTreadOnMe,

DontTreadOnMe wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

No, I didn't duck it. I chose not to be politically correct and say what you wanted to hear.

okay. then let me ask it.

do you personally want to be associated, as a conservative republican, with a person like david duke? do you agree that everyone that voted for barack obama is a traitor to the united states?

you can answer both questions with one word in the affirmative or the negative and kill 2 birds with one stone.

If David Duke was still promoting the KKK, no I would not. But that wasn't the question. The question was would I accept anybody with conservative views no matter what he or she said? (Not that I consider David Duke a MAC as racism is NOT a MAC value.) I have already said that I would not accept anybody no matter what he or she said, but I also qualified that as to what kind of speech would not be acceptable, and what kind of speech I think must be allowed. As the target in this case was CJ, the poor guy wound up being the illustration. They couldn't stand that because they had already chosen to make themselves judge, jury, and hangman, and decided to just skip any trial.

I have already also clearly said that I don't believe those who voted for Barack Obama are traitors at least by virtue of their vote. But what our self-appointed judges, jury, and hangmen decree is that CJ said that. I don't believe he did and I am not going to judge him unless he confirms their assumed judgment of him.

You'll note that not one has acknowledged or made any attempt to discuss the wider issue of whether words should be the condemning factor re any person or whether it is their actions that should be judged.

So do you think Sonia Sotomayor saying Latina women would make better decisions than white men is a disqualifying statement for a Supreme Court Justice? I don't. Do you? Why?

2 Replies

Thomas wrote:

Granted, reasonable people can disagree to what extent a welfare state is a blessing. But beyond disagreement is the fact that welfare states, are now ordinary in societies and civil government, are financed by progressive taxes, and provide social services to the poor. Indeed, almost every civil society, in any industrialized country, today has a welfare state as generous as the USA's, or even more generous than it. That's how ordinary the blessings of the welfare state are. By Webster's founding era usage of English, applied to the realities of industrial countries today, America's welfare state is clearly covered under the term "general welfare". Hence it is plainly constitutional.

I DISAGREE:

Now, people may call the following a "rant". Some are too cowardly to read it and respond to it. But even if one person reads it, it will stand out as the truth.

The famous American Philosopher, Mortimer Adler, in his book, "Haves without Have-Nots" wrote:

"Enactments as the inheritance tax, the graduated income tax, ownership by the state instead of private corporations of certain economic agencies, establishment of national banks amd credit facilities and the other welfare entitlements by which the national income is REDISTRIBUTED--all these have moved PRIVATE-PROPERTY CAPITALIST SOCIETIES IN THE DIRECTION OF SOCIALISM>"

Now:
'
Some may label this statement by a leading American Philosopher --"A rant"

Others, like the pusillanimous fraud, Joe from Chicago, will ignore it since he will be unable to respond to it.

Others will not read it.

BUT SOME WILL AND WILL GAIN FROM IT SINCE IT IS THE TRUTH.

The US under the crypto-Socialist Obama is clearly heading into Socialism.

Notice what Professor Adler listed as enactments leading to Socialism.

A. Ownership by the state instead of private corporations of certain economic agencies.

B. Establishment of national banks and credit facilities

SOUND FAMILIAR????

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

When asked to give single word yes/no answers, you become very flexible Fox.

Teflon Foxfyre. Nothing sticks, you can't be held accountable for anything you say or do if you just makes what you say and does too vague or too contrary.

The irony here is that you're being very poltically correct. The poltically correct thing to say is that you value the constitution and people have the rights to free speach etc. The politically incorrect thing to say is:

Screw these jerks. I don't want anything to do with them... unless you do.

T
K
O

2 Replies

Thomas wrote:

In 1828, in the first edition of his Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster wrote:
WELFARE, n. [well and fare, a good faring; G.]

1. Exemption from misfortune, sickness, calamity or evil; the enjoyment of health and the common blessings of life; prosperity; happiness; applied to persons.

2. Exemption from any unusual evil or calamity; the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, or the ordinary blessings of society and civil government; applied to states.

******************************************************************

Wrong and extremely misleading definition---

Welfare State is what we are talking about not the more generic term-welfare.

Welfare State-- A state in which the welfare of the people, in such matters such as social security. HEALTH, education, HOUSING AND WORKING CONDITIONS IS THE responsibility of the government>

0 Replies

Ican wrote:

t the adoption of the broader construction leaves the power to spend subject to limitations.

As Story says: 'The Constitution was, from its very origin, contemplated to be the frame of a national government, of special and enumerated powers, and not of general and unlimited powers.' 13

Again he says: 'A power to lay taxes for the common defence and general welfare of the United States is not in common sense a general power. It is limited to those objects. It cannot constitutionally transcend them.' 14

That the qualifying phrase must be given effect all advocates of broad construction admit. Hamilton, in his [297 U.S. 1, 67] well known Report on Manufactures, states that the purpose must be 'general, and not local.' 15 Monroe, an advocate of Hamilton's doctrine, wrote: 'Have Congress a right to raise and appropriate the money to any and to every purpose according to their will and pleasure? They certainly have not.' 16 Story says that if the tax be not proposed for the common defense or general welfare, but for other objects wholly extraneous, it would be wholly indefensible upon constitutional principles. 17 And he makes it clear that the powers of taxation and appropriation extend only to matters of national, as distinguished from local, welfare.

Absolutely correct and this section of Ican's argument was totally ignored by Thomas.

1 Reply

@genoves,

Then, by your definition of the word socialism and Noah Webster's definition of the word welfare, it is constitutional for Congress and the President to move the United States towards socialism -- if that's where voters want their representatives to move them.

If you have a problem with that, convince the American people to give the Republicans a new chance in 2010. But if you can't pull that off, don't look to conservative judicial activism for bailing out your failed political agenda.

0 Replies

Joe from Chicago has not responded to this. Some call it schoolboy insults. They call it that BECAUSE THEY CAN NOT RESPOND TO IT.

Joe from Chicago is full of **** and again PROVES that he is a charlatan.

He wrote:

The Florida Supreme Court has the final say when it comes to interpreting Florida law, and the recount was purely a state matter.

Now, Joe from Chicago is scared to death of me since I wiped the floor with him several times a couple of years ago, but I invite anyone to read the **** he wrote and then to consider the following:

The Florida SupremeCourt DOES NOT have the final say when it comes to interpreting Florida Law if that interpretation leads to errors which deprive citizens of their right to have their votes counted.

Joe from Chicago has obviously not read the literature on Bush Vs. Gore very carefully. His "recount purely a state matter' does not address the fact that the Florida Supreme Court made repeated errors.
They should not have extended the deadline for hand recounting that had been fixed by the Secretary of State

They should not have reversed Judge Sauls' dismissal of the council proceedings.

They should have not ignored the discretionary authority that the election code gives to state and local election officials.

They should not have authorized relief in a contest proceeding on the basis merely that the election was close.

They should not have credited Gore with the Broward and the partial Maiam-Dade recount results, or ordered a statewide recount of undervotes but not overvotes.

They should not have condoned iconsistent and subjective criteria in hand recounting.

It is clear that in all of these respects, the FSC was flluting the state's election code. Had Gore been declared the winner on the basis of the recount ordered by the FSC on Decemebr 8, he would have owed his victory to LEGAL ERROR.

**************************************************************

Joe from Chicago does not know this. He gets all his legal opinions from Classic Comics.

0 Replies

@genoves,

If you could show that the federal government has displayed local favoritism in the way it has appropriated money, you might have a case against the constitutionality of what it does. But I have seen seen no showing of such favoritism. I shall be happy to be corrected.

0 Replies

You are correct, Thomas when you write:

Re: genoves (Post 3667080)
Then, by your definition of the word socialism and Noah Webster's definition of the word welfare, it is constitutional for Congress and the President to move the United States towards socialism -- if that's where voters want their representatives to move them.

If you have a problem with that, convince the American people to give the Republicans a new chance in 2010. But if you can't pull that off, don't look to conservative judicial activism for bailing out your failed political agenda.

*******************************************************************

You are, I am sure, familiar with the aphorism --"Rob Peter to pay Paul".

Now, when there are more Pauls than Peters, Peter will be left, dazed and bleeding on the sidewalk with his wallet torn from his pocket.

I am sure you will not agree with the following, Thomas but I am quite sure that I can marshall evidence to show it is correct.

l. Obama DID NOT win the White vote in the election of 2008. He got about 48% of the vote.

2. Obama is getting a great deal of resistance from Democrats concerning his schemes( I can, of course, document this exhaustively)

3. Obama gained a great many votes from crooked organizations like ACORN. (I can also document this)

4. When Obama served on Boards in Chicago, he was in a position to funnel thousands of dollars to ACORN. He did this.( I can document this)

5. Since a great many African-Americans and new Hispanics cannot read an editorial page, many of them voted for a face and a slogan--NOT A PROGRAM.

********************************************************************

We will see what happens in 2010. Some people think there are only three cities in the USA--New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. There are many more and, if the Unemployment Rate is still at or above 10% in early 2010( as I am sure it will be) those "centrists" who voted for Obama in 2008 will desert him.

The left wing had better pray( I am sorry, I know most of them do not) that Americans ( especially in the USA) are not the target of a fanatic Muslim attack which kills many). If that happens, Obama and his programs are toast.

The PRIMARY duty of any President is to keep the citizens safe. The cringing cowardly approach utilized by Obama( almost Chamberlain-like) is certain to embolden the fanatics.

0 Replies

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

ican711nm wrote:
I think that taxes paid for the specific welfare of individuals are NOT taxes paid for the general welfare of the United States. They are infact taxes paid to individuals that diminish, or in many cases destroy, the responsibility of the individual for himself. Therefore, I conclude that the redistribution of wealth from those who have lawfully earned it to those who have not lawfully earned it, is a violation of the Constitution

This claim, again, can be easily tested against founding-era documents. Let's look up the word "welfare" in the first edition of Webster's Dictionary (1828):

In 1828, in the first edition of his Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster wrote:
WELFARE, n. [well and fare, a good faring; G.]

1. Exemption from misfortune, sickness, calamity or evil; the enjoyment of health and the common blessings of life; prosperity; happiness; applied to persons.

2. Exemption from any unusual evil or calamity; the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, or the ordinary blessings of society and civil government; applied to states.

Granted, reasonable people can disagree to what extent a welfare state is a blessing. But beyond disagreement is the fact that welfare states, are now ordinary in societies and civil government, are financed by progressive taxes, and provide social services to the poor. Indeed, almost every civil society, in any industrialized country, today has a welfare state as generous as the USA's, or even more generous than it. That's how ordinary the blessings of the welfare state are. By Webster's founding era usage of English, applied to the realities of industrial countries today, America's welfare state is clearly covered under the term "general welfare". Hence it is plainly constitutional.

The problem with your argument here is that you are using a dictionary definition for welfare when the operative term is the 'general welfare'. And that was defined by the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution and lobbied passionately for its passage among the various states of that time.

But one on line dictionary definition of the 'general welfare':

Quote:

The concern of the government for the health, peace, morality, and safety of its citizens.

Providing for the welfare of the general public is a basic goal of government. The preamble to the U.S. Constitution cites promotion of the general welfare as a primary reason for the creation of the Constitution. Promotion of the general welfare is also a stated purpose in state constitutions and statutes. The concept has sparked controversy only as a result of its inclusion in the body of the U.S. Constitution.

The first clause of Article I, Section 8, reads, "The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States." This clause, called the General Welfare Clause or the Spending Power Clause, does not grant Congress the power to legislate for the general welfare of the country; that is a power reserved to the states through the Tenth Amendment. Rather, it merely allows Congress to spend federal money for the general welfare. The principle underlying this distinction"the limitation of federal power"eventually inspired the only important disagreement over the meaning of the clause.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/General+Welfare

Your argument seems to be that our government has already moved from the Founding Fathers' concept of the General Welfare to allowing Congress to distributing the people's money for the privilege and/or advantage of special classes and we should just accept it as the way it is.

Do you believe we should just accept things for the way they are in all cases? Illegal immigration? Graffiti? Subsidies to certain industries? Failing education? A crumbling manufacturing base?

Do you see the only role of government to be one of adding spending, programs, initiatives, taxes, welfare, etc.? Is there no place in the equation to roll back these to a time when we did it better?

1 Reply

Mr. Thomas. It is not a question of how the government has appropriated money. It is a question of how it will spend( redistribute) it.

Now, you may be all in favor of the proposed tax rate boost pressed by Obama.
I am not. I am not because it is certain to stifle the investments made to create more jobs.

Obama is following the path laid out by FDR. FDR introduced a tax during the depression--the undistributed profits tax---Businessmen decided to wait FDR out and hold on to their cash.

Those on the left who do not know History or do not read Economics labor under the delusion that Corporations put their money under the mattress.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. When the future of an economy is auspicious, they build more factories, open more shops, create more projects.
That means more jobs.

Obama has convinced those whose taxes will be raised that there is no point to investment--Law firms all over the country are reporting that Mergers and Acquisitions are happening at a very meager rate.

This is what Obama, the community organizer from the Chicago ghetto who worked under the acolytes of Saul Alinsky, the Socialist, has done to the business climate.

1 Reply

@Diest TKO,

Diest wrote: When asked to give single word yes/no answers,you become very flexible Fox.

What an absurd comment. Anyone who has been in a debate and knows the rules is aware that anyone who answers a complex question with a Yes or No is very foolish.

Here is a question for you, Diest.

Did you ever **** in your diaper when you were an infant, Diest?

0 Replies

@genoves,

genoves wrote:

Quote:

This is what Obama, the community organizer from the Chicago ghetto who worked under the acolytes of Saul Alinsky, the Socialist, has done to the business climate.

Making claims without any supporting evidence is worthless rhetoric. What exactly has Obama done to the business climate during the past five months?

Please give examples of factual information.

0 Replies

Eh Beth wrote:

As much as it is your right not to answer Joe's question, it is the right of other posters to note that you have not answered the question.
It's a question of honesty.

Whether you didn't answer because you didn't want to or because you didn't understand the question, you didn't answer the question.
********************************************************************

You are correct, Eh Beth but you really don't read well, do you.

What you are objecting to is that Foxfyre did not answer the question as you wish she would have answered it. She did respond. At least she is not like

Joe from Chicago

or Santana who practically soil themselves in fear when they see one of my posts. They choose not to respond. Very well. But where I grew up, if some
one repeatedly urinates on your shoes and you walk away, you are a sniveling coward. No matter. Some will read my posts and note that I continue to urinate on their shoes.

0 Replies

AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

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