Are you scientifically literate?

[GenSeneca]

And they wouldn't have to do this if the market was so moral and upstanding that it could be trusted to police itself.

As I have said, and perhaps you missed it the other hundred times I've said it, the government DOES have a role in Capitalism, to protect our individual rights.

Now... Do you think our government is too incompetent to do that one job?

If so, then you need to explain why our government when tasked with a thousand jobs is competent to meet all of it's obligations but the same government when tasked with just one job is not.

 

[GenSeneca]

the Declaration of Independence is NOT the law of the land. The Constitution is.

Progressives, like you, have reduced the Constitution from being the law of the land to just an old piece of paper with some nice suggestions.

Progressives, like you, are all for universal healthcare but the constitution doesn't grant the federal government the power to implement such a program.

Our entire welfare state is unconstitutional but thanks to FDR, a progressive like you, threatening to stack the courts if the welfare state was ruled unconstitutional, our welfare state was created and it's currently spending us into oblivion.

 

[Gipper]

Progressives, like you, have reduced the Constitution from being the law of the land to just an old piece of paper with some nice suggestions.

Progressives, like you, are all for universal healthcare but the constitution doesn't grant the federal government the power to implement such a program.

Our entire welfare state is unconstitutional but thanks to FDR, a progressive like you, threatening to stack the courts if the welfare state was ruled unconstitutional, our welfare state was created and it's currently spending us into oblivion.

Yes, but liberals do not believe the Constitution constraints them. They merely twist some provision of the Constitution to fit their kooky philosophy.

Ask a lib where in the Constitution does the gov get the right to do anything. They will come up with an absurd answer. But, it works for them.

They want gov tyranny and hate individual liberty. They want to be dependent on government for all their needs and wants.

 

[orogenicman]

Influence is not the same thing as regulation...

What part of my post did you not understand? Do you deny the many regulations that are intended to protect us, and how they influence our behavior?

You know what else isn't a bad thing, liberty.

And what, to you, is essential liberty? Huh? The right to pollute our streams, poison our food, water, and air?

And of course that's heavily regulated by government. As Lenin said, “It is true that liberty is precious - so precious that it must be rationed”

Oh please spare me your paranoid delusions about Lenin.

Everything you named is a product that is regulated by the government. I know very well products are regulated...

In what ways does government regulate your LIFE (not the products you buy but your LIFE)?

Dude, because products are so intertwined in our lives, any form of regulation of them effects how we live (in some cases, whether we live), how we act, what is allowed and dsallowed. Have you really been walking through your life like some kind of zombie that didn't realize this?

So... Where exactly is the section of the constitution that says it's the responsibility of taxpayers to subsidize alternative energy?

You seem to think that because alternative energy is not specifically mentioned, that promoting it is unconstitutional. Good luck with that.

 

[orogenicman]

As I have said, and perhaps you missed it the other hundred times I've said it, the government DOES have a role in Capitalism, to protect our individual rights.

Now... Do you think our government is too incompetent to do that one job?

If so, then you need to explain why our government when tasked with a thousand jobs is competent to meet all of it's obligations but the same government when tasked with just one job is not.

You need to explain it; it's your argument.

 

[orogenicman]

Progressives, like you, have reduced the Constitution from being the law of the land to just an old piece of paper with some nice suggestions.

Right. When on the verge of losing an argument, paint your opponent as evil. How sad for you.

Progressives, like you, are all for universal healthcare but the constitution doesn't grant the federal government the power to implement such a program.

By all means, point out which part of the constitution forbids it.

Our entire welfare state is unconstitutional but thanks to FDR, a progressive like you, threatening to stack the courts if the welfare state was ruled unconstitutional, our welfare state was created and it's currently spending us into oblivion.

You are free to elborate on your argument that serving and protecting "we, the American people", is unconstitutional. (this should be good).

I suspect that you have taken your anti-socialist agenda so far that you even deny that human beings are social animals. Why do people live in cities, dude? Is it because the cell phone reception is better? Or is there a deeper, more important reason people gather together?

 

[orogenicman]

Yes, but liberals do not believe the Constitution constraints them. They merely twist some provision of the Constitution to fit their kooky philosophy.

Ask a lib where in the Constitution does the gov get the right to do anything. They will come up with an absurd answer. But, it works for them.

They want gov tyranny and hate individual liberty. They want to be dependent on government for all their needs and wants.

If you are going to make bigoted blanket statements such as the above, you have better some armed with the facts. The fact is that liberals do believe the Constitution restrains all of us. For instance, the Constitution makes clear that there is a wall of separation between church and state, and yet rich, white evangelical conservatives (and their pre-literate followers) would like nothing more than to tear that wall down and make Christianity the state religion, and create the world's largest theocracy. So you people have a lot more in common with countries like Iran than you realize.

 

[Gipper]

If you are going to make bigoted blanket statements such as the above, you have better some armed with the facts. The fact is that liberals do believe the Constitution restrains all of us. For instance, the Constitution makes clear that there is a wall of separation between church and state, and yet rich, white evangelical conservatives (and their pre-literate followers) would like nothing more than to tear that wall down and make Christianity the state religion, and create the world's largest theocracy. So you people have a lot more in common with countries like Iran than you realize.

Good Lord you must be kidding.

There is NOTHING in the Constitution that states anything about a "wall of separation between church and state..." NOTHING!!! No matter what the fools on MSLSD told you.

Just as the great Ronald Reagan said..."Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so." You fit this perfectly.

 

[PLC1]

Good Lord you must be kidding.

There is NOTHING in the Constitution that states anything about a "wall of separation between church and state..." NOTHING!!! No matter what the fools on MSLSD told you.

Just as the great Ronald Reagan said..."Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so." You fit this perfectly.

so, you're OK with making Christianity the official religion of the USA?

 

[orogenicman]

Thanks, Gipper, for proving my pont. I couldn't have done it better myself.

 

[Gipper]

so, you're OK with making Christianity the official religion of the USA?

Typical response for a liberal.

Most absurd.

 

[Gipper]

Thanks, Gipper, for proving my pont. I couldn't have done it better myself.

Well okay. If you mean everything you know is WRONG.

You can liberate yourself from those punishing LIBERAL shackles that prevent you from learning the truth.

Just convince yourself that whatever you currently believe, just flip it 180 and you will likely find the truth.

Good luck.

 

[orogenicman]

Well okay. If you mean everything you know is WRONG.

You can liberate yourself from those punishing LIBERAL shackles that prevent you from learning the truth.

Just convince yourself that whatever you currently believe, just flip it 180 and you will likely find the truth.

Good luck.

http://www.usconstitution.net/jeffwall.html

Thomas Jefferson was a man of deep religious conviction — his conviction was that religion was a very personal matter, one which the government had no business getting involved in. He was vilified by his political opponents for his role in the passage of the 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and for his criticism of such biblical events as the Great Flood and the theological age of the Earth. As president, he discontinued the practice started by his predecessors George Washington and John Adams of proclaiming days of fasting and thanksgiving. He was a staunch believer in the separation of church and state.

Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802 to answer a letter from them written in October 1801. A copy of the Danbury letter is available here. The Danbury Baptists were a religious minority in Connecticut, and they complained that in their state, the religious liberties they enjoyed were not seen as immutable rights, but as privileges granted by the legislature — as "favors granted." Jefferson's reply did not address their concerns about problems with state establishment of religion — only of establishment on the national level. The letter contains the phrase "wall of separation between church and state," which led to the short-hand for the Establishment Clause that we use today: "Separation of church and state."

The letter was the subject of intense scrutiny by Jefferson, and he consulted a couple of New England politicians to assure that his words would not offend while still conveying his message: it was not the place of the Congress or the Executive to do anything that might be misconstrued as the establishment of religion.

Note: The bracketed section in the second paragraph had been blocked off for deletion in the final draft of the letter sent to the Danbury Baptists, though it was not actually deleted in Jefferson's draft of the letter. It is included here for completeness. Reflecting upon his knowledge that the letter was far from a mere personal correspondence, Jefferson deleted the block, he noted in the margin, to avoid offending members of his party in the eastern states.

This is a transcript of the final letter as stored online at the Library of Congress, and reflects Jefferson's spelling and punctuation.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr. President

To messers Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. [Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from prescribing even those occasional performances of devotion, practiced indeed by the Executive of another nation as the legal head of its church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect.] Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association assurances of my high respect & esteem.

(signed) Thomas Jefferson
Jan.1.1802.

 

[GenSeneca]

Rogen, this is the last time that I will ask nicely... Please take the time to properly format your replies. Once I've asked and I know someone is capable of properly formatting a reply, for them to refuse to do it, is to me, disrespectful.

As I said, this is the last time that I'm going to ask nicely. If you refuse, there will be consequences. I'm not going to cry to the mod staff but I will see to it that making a reply to me is as labor intensive as possible for you.

What part of my post did you not understand? Do you deny the many regulations that are intended to protect us, and how they influence our behavior?

You probably consider Regulations to be the same thing as laws. Capitalists do not. There is a firm distinction between what constitutes as a regulation and what constitutes a law.

Capitalism calls for laws that ban the use of fraud and force in all of society. In this sense, laws are the governments way of saying what you cannot do - You cannot break into my house, murder me while I sleep, and rob my home on the way out the door. In short, laws ban the use of force and fraud, they passively control behavior, and the purpose of their existence is to protect individual rights.

Regulations in that same sense are government's way of saying what you must do... You must exercise 15 mins a day, you must brush your teeth before bed, you must shower at least twice a week. In short, regulations actively control behavior, that is their only purpose, they have absolutely nothing to do with protecting individual rights.

Capitalist are fine with any "regulations" that legitimately serve to protect individual rights but we prefer to simply refer to them as laws to avoid any confusion. Now maybe the next time you see a comment about "unregulated laissez fair capitalism", you will understand precisely what is being suggested and it's not anarchy.

I think this basic misunderstanding of the difference between regulations and laws is why people think that capitalism is the same thing as anarchy, when nothing could be further from the truth.

And what, to you, is essential liberty? Huh? The right to pollute our streams, poison our food, water, and air?

Wouldn't you consider such activities to be a violation of individual rights? I would. Essential liberty is being free to do anything you wish so long as it doesn't violate the rights of others. Why is the idea of a government that protects essential liberty by being strictly limited to protecting individual rights so offensive to you? The only reason I can surmise would be that you want to reserve the right to violate individual rights.

Oh please spare me your paranoid delusions about Lenin.

This is an example of an Ad Hominem. An Ad Hominem is offered in place of an argument. If you would have gone on to argue that government does not ration our liberty, the sentence preceding your argument would not have been an Ad Hominem.

Dude, because products are so intertwined in our lives, any form of regulation of them effects how we live (in some cases, whether we live), how we act, what is allowed and dsallowed. Have you really been walking through your life like some kind of zombie that didn't realize this?

This is a Red Herring followed by an Ad Hominem. I asked in what ways government regulates your life. You did not answer that question but once again pointed out that regulations on products affect our lives. Since I did not ask whether or not government regulation of products affects our lives, your reply is a red herring... Meaning you did not offer an argument in response to the one I made, making the statement that followed (zombie) an Ad Hominem.

You seem to think that because alternative energy is not specifically mentioned, that promoting it is unconstitutional. Good luck with that.

Once again, you are not offering an argument in support of your assertion that funding alternative energy with taxpayer dollars is constitutional. I say it is not constitutional because such an expenditure cannot be found authorized in the enumerated powers.

If you honestly believe that authorization for such an expenditure can be found in the enumerated powers, then all you have to do is cite the specific power and you will have won the argument.

Before you cite the general welfare clause, realize that the semicolon separating that paragraph specifies that Congress is only authorized to "lay and collect taxes" for the purposes that come after the semicolon, all of which begin with "To..." do such and such. Those are the enumerated powers, the general welfare clause is only applicable to those powers.

You need to explain it; it's your argument.

I have explained it. If a law or "regulation" has the legitimate purpose of protecting individual rights (as opposed to simply existing to control behavior without the purpose of protecting individual rights) then we Capitalists support such laws and "regulations".

Right. When on the verge of losing an argument, paint your opponent as evil. How sad for you.

If this is true, then you have been on the verge of losing this entire time... and still are. How many times have you suggested that I'm an anti-social anarchist that wants to destroy the environment, take advantage of the poor and less fortunate, and do it all for the sake of a quick buck? Even in your post to Gipper you complain about him using bigoted blanket statements only to go on later in the paragraph to make your own bigoted blanket statements:

rich, white evangelical conservatives (and their pre-literate followers) would like nothing more than to tear that wall down and make Christianity the state religion, and create the world's largest theocracy.

Besides being an appeal to ridicule, that certainly looks like a bigoted blanket statement to me. At least Gipper now knows that you resorted to such an outburst because you were "on the verge of losing an argument".

By all means, point out which part of the constitution forbids it.

This is yet another fallacy. It's like demanding that I prove there is no God. You are the one claiming that the Constitution allows it, therefore the burden of proof is on you to prove your assertion by citing the relevant section. I do not see where any of the enumerated powers would allow for such a program.

Now if you were arguing that the states were free to implement universal health programs, I could not argue because the Constitution says that any powers not specifically designated to, or forbidden by, the federal government are reserved to the states.

You are free to elborate on your argument that serving and protecting "we, the American people", is unconstitutional. (this should be good).

First I'd like to point out that you didn't argue about the fact that the welfare state is spending us into oblivion. That being the case, it would be hard for you to make the argument that bankrupting the country is "serving and protecting we the American people" when clearly it does the opposite.

Second, this is still the same fallacy as before, you may as well be demanding that I prove God doesn't exist. I can only point out that nowhere in the enumerated powers is a provision that can be construed as allowing for the creation of the welfare state on the federal level.

Again, state level, no argument from me, but on the federal level, where the powers of the federal government are explicitly enumerated by the Constitution, it is on you to prove the welfare states constitutionality by citing the relevant power enumerated to the federal government.

I suspect that you have taken your anti-socialist agenda so far that you even deny that human beings are social animals. Why do people live in cities, dude? Is it because the cell phone reception is better? Or is there a deeper, more important reason people gather together?

It is precisely because Capitalists understand that humans are social creatures that we seek to ban the use of fraud from society and that we seek to ban the initiation of force from society. The only way that society can exist in a truly civilized manner is by having a government system that equally respects and protects the individual rights of all it's citizens.

Also worth noting here is the difference between individual and human rights. Many so called "human" rights are direct violations of individual rights. The "right" to a job, or a minimum wage, or food, or shelter, or healthcare, these things are entitlements and cannot be rights.

A right does not obligate others, an entitlement does. A "right" to healthcare, for example, would mean that in order for you to exercise your "right" someone else would be obligated to provide that healthcare - such "rights" violate the individual rights of those being forced to do the providing.

 

[Gipper]

......


or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. [Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from prescribing even those occasional performances of devotion, practiced indeed by the Executive of another nation as the legal head of its church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect.] Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association assurances of my high respect & esteem.

(signed) Thomas Jefferson
Jan.1.1802.

Do you know the difference between the Constitution and a letter Jefferson wrote?

Guess not.

But just maybe, you learned something today.