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Thread: The purpose of government
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02-01-2008, 09:38 PM #51
It's not. I didn't say it was. I just said that socialism yes or no is not the biggest problem the USA is facing.
My main criticism to your government is about its foreign policies.
What you do internally is of course your own business.
We have socialism (partially) and I am happy with it.
I think it is the best way to run things like healthcare, but I don't think the US should adopt it (or that it should not). It is none of my business how the US is run internally.
To me the only issue is foreign policy. Since I am at the receiving end of that, I think it is not unreasonable to express my views.
But since the first posts also discussed the elections, I threw in my 2ct about that as well.Til shade is gone, til water is gone, Into the shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath.
To spit in Sightblinder’s eye on the Last Day
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02-01-2008, 09:44 PM #52
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02-01-2008, 09:46 PM #53
I guess I'm still not clear is it the federal or the local governments we are talking? Clearly it's about US.
There are few governments that do not collect taxes and it seems quite unlikely that the US federal government can 'protect the freedoms of the citizens' by getting funded through charitable donations.
However I don't think that the constitution was ever intended to be the only document governing the federal government. It is a framework that sets the basics, but the elected government officials are the ones who decide what the role of the government actually is. The way it's set by the constitution your freedom affecting the way government works is the freedom to vote those officials.
So, the fact that the government does what it does is just a reflection on what the majority (in the loose sense of the word) of the voting population wants.
I think the system that was set up is reasonably good, but I don't think anybody will disagree that it's not perfect. The people that came up with this framework are long dead, and the society is quite different now than back then (women and blacks have the right to vote), so the government is also quite different.
The point is that the original constitution is not good enough. So far there are 27 amendments, 18th and 21st of which establish and repeal the prohibition, 13th is the abolition of slavery - were the slaves not people with the same self evident rights/freedoms before that?
But again are all current federal government programs all bad? We may not be able to make this postings if the US government hadn't collected money at the point of the gun from US citizens and developed DARPAnet and then released it to the public. If the federal government didn't spend some of the money it collects at the point on the gun to give it away as forced charity to students the US will not have the technological position it has right now. And if you think that the businesses can do or will do the innovations from government funded research on their own if only the government just left them the money, you can't be more wrong.
BTW my country has gone through 3 or 4 completely different constitutions over the last 130 years. And some of them were apparently quite good, yet only the current reflects the current society.
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02-01-2008, 09:50 PM #54
And suddenly this thread travels back in time.
the last posts are from yesterday, even though they were only posted an hour ago.
Still something wrong with the forum time it seems...Til shade is gone, til water is gone, Into the shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath.
To spit in Sightblinder’s eye on the Last Day
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02-01-2008, 10:23 PM #55
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02-01-2008, 11:00 PM #56
I really wonder where you guys come up with what the constitution says.... Don't you read it? The first article establishes the legislative branch which is in charge to make more federal laws. If the US federal government was meant to be governed only by the constitution there would be no need for the legislative branch, unless when it's time for amendments.
You are mistaking 'majority (in the loose sense of the word)' for mob rule. I put the clause so that I don't have to add two more sentences. Yes it is representative democracy but as I said the rules are made by certain majority of the elected representatives (2/3 is enough to pass anything) so they do reflect in a loose sense the majority of the voters who elect them. Not in the mob rule sense, of course.
I did not say that education is impossible w/o the government's interference. What I said was that w/o the government's interference US will not be the world's technological leader. Proof - impossible. You will find that there are + and -, I believe the + far outweight the -. As you said any private business can do their own unaffected research as long as they don't take money from the government (well, I'm not sure if cloning humans is legal or should be, or that it isn't done anyways). Yes if the government would take less money from them to then use for whatever research they want, the business would have more money to spend on the research they want, yet as I said I think the government's role is on average positive, not negative.
Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
- army, navy, militia covered, yet airforce isn't and neither is NASA - we ought to go by the spirit then, not the letter, unless there are to be put amendments for everything
- science, arts, technology are mentioned, but only as far as providing copyright/patents
- to establish roads and post offices
- to borrow money and pay the debts
There's an explicit authorization to collect taxes at the point of the gun for these purposes, the structure of which taxes is left arbitrary as long as it's uniform across the states. There is no explicit authorization to spend these taxes on anything that's not mentioned, but you will note that this is not an exclusive list, just the one that seemed appropriate at that time.
So yeah, I've read the US constitution several times and it's interesting document, but often it seems as inspired and inspiring as the book of Numbers in the Bible.
It's not a holy document and it seems the Founding Fathers are quite racist by our current standards, as they seem to recognize the obvious rights/freedoms only when they refer to white people. They established a very progressive system for the time and a mechanism to improve on it as the society evolves. If a year from now 70% of the elected members of congress feel that providing some form of national health insurance counts as a 'general welfare of US' then that's what's going to happen, and whoever doesn't like it can either suck it up and start figuring out how to convince enough people in the opposite so that it can be changed in the future, or they can pack their bags and find another free country that's willing to accept them. That's just how things work.Last edited by gugi; 02-02-2008 at 12:19 AM. Reason: ...
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02-02-2008, 04:59 AM #57
For anyone who cares to read:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/T...imulus_package
Justin
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02-02-2008, 05:22 AM #58
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02-02-2008, 05:31 AM #59
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02-02-2008, 05:51 AM #60
Are you trying to be insulting? I don't remember reading anywhere anyone trying to tell you what the constitution says. The closest anyone came was DEwey and this is what he said: " You know, that is exactly what it is. It is the law of the land that chains the government from encroaching into areas unintended by the founders. It is not a flexible, changin thing. If it were it would be called a Suggestion and not a Constitution which is supposed to be very strict." This I read as saying that the constitution encapsulates the guiding principles by which the government should run and not deviate from, and any changes must fit with the basic principals behind these principles! The original article which got this thread started had to due with our declaration of independence which states the core ideas and beliefs which motivated our forefathers and guided their every thought and action, in other words, the principles behind the principles! the point to this thread are these guiding principles which guided the writing of the constitution!