Text 9053, 227 rader
Skriven 2006-09-24 15:26:00 av Robert E Starr JR (9549.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: My presidential pick
================================
* * * This message was from gabiks to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.m * * *
* * * and has been forwarded to you by Lord Time * * *
-----------------------------------------------
@MSGID: <1159133128.349593.184410@m7g2000cwm.googlegroups.com>
@REPLY: <WoqdnfkHJckJHo3YnZ2dnUVZ_tidnZ2d@comcast.com>
Vorlonagent wrote:
> This got back-burnered due to life.
no worries, i'm experiencing a bit of that myself at the moment.
>
> Never pass congress no matter what party was running it. :)
>
Does it need to pass congress? there are numerous government and
private agencies dedicated to helping the poor and much government and
private money being spent. Most of the time these groups work
independently of each other. Perhaps we need a 'poverty czar' to
coordinate efforts both public and private. This would be the macro
part of doing what needs to/can be done at the micro level. Creating a
federal framework to facilitate and encourage community/private/state
efforts and finances would be, IMHO, a giant leap forward.
We touched on it a bit with housing for the elderly. In most instances
people entering a nursing home sign over their entire material wealth.
If there is a house involved perhaps an alternate solution may be to
sign over the house to a management agency that puts a person in every
bedroom and coordinates care according to the residents needs.
Medicare could be expanded to cover this type (and other forms of)
'in-home' care. Money may also be made available through the
Americans with disabilities act to cover any remodeling expense needed
to bring the home to 'code.' Habitat for humanity could be
enlisted to do the work, 'food on wheels' programs to do the
cooking, hospitals to provide medical and hospice care, etc.
co-ordination is key.
>
> Then who picks the crops?
>
The assumption being there would be a shortage of crop pickers as a
result? Last time I checked there were plenty of Mexicans still in
Mexico.
> What do the pickers do when they're not picking those crops?
>
Learn to speak, read and write English perhaps?
>
> FUBU?
>
> If they'd be glad to do it, why aren't they?
>
they do :^)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FUBU
> > Can you give me an example of this, I'm not sure I follow.
>
> An example of social change in its proper contect would be the Civil Rights
> Act of 1964. The Legislature governs how society operates by defining the
> law.
>
> An example of social change from the Judiciary: The Mass Supreme Court
> legalizing gay marraige.
>
> This has nothing to do with the issue at hand (gay marriage) whatsoever. I
> am referring exclusively to the way it was legalized, which boils down to
> judicial decree. I don't believe this is how the judiciary was intended to
> be used.
>
> The federal judiciary is the mold state judiciaries are (mostly) cast from.
> The only checks on the federal judiciary are the fact that justices are
> nominated by the Pres, confirmed by the Senate. There is no check on the
> function of the judiciary itself. If the Supreme Court errs, there is
> nobody but the Supreme Court to set things right. The executive branch
> can't challenge a ruling. Congress can alter laws to end-around a decision,
> but cannot overrule one. Justices can be impeached, but not for the
> occasional bad decision.
>
> By comparison, the prez can veto legislation he opposes. Congress holds the
> purse strings can can refuse to fund an inititative from the Prez. The
> Framers built up a good process of executive and legilative branch
> interaction.
>
> The Judiciary gets almost no defintion from the Constitution. Congress
> passed laws that set up the Supreme Court with 9 justices. They set up the
> entire federal judiciary. The Constitution doesn't even define things as
> far as assigning final interpretation of itself to the Judiciary. The
> Supreme Court did that itself with a very early ruling (Marbury vs. Madison
> in 1803).
>
>
> In some states, such as CA, judges must go before the voters every 10 years
> or so, but they are often rubber-stamp confirmed. Who knows enough about a
> given justice to vote against them? People have to be really upset with the
> courts for a justice to lose, but it does occasionally happen. Some CA
> Supreme Court Justices lost in, I believe, the 70's somewhere. IIRC, Chief
> Justice Rose Bird and some other extremely anti-death-penalty judges were
> voted from office over the way the CA Supreme Court dealt with death penalty
> cases.
>
I'll continue with civil rights and gay marriage as examples because
I think they're good ones.
the framers of the constitution were all about an individuals rights.
Denying a person their civil rights is un-constitutional, legislating
laws that reflect this is a simple thing. there is no established
framework for entities consisting of more then one individual
(boy-girl(or not), parent-child- as the governments relationship is
with individuals), hence the desire by some to amend the constitution
with a definition of marriage.
I hear you when you say the judiciary seems to operate somewhat removed
from the checks and balances enjoyed by the executive and legal
branches. But I'm not sure this isn't by design. I think the
framers tried very hard to find the right balance between following the
letter of the law and understanding the spirit of the law. Trial by
jury is a good example of this. The fudge instructs a jury in the
letter of the law. Being tried by a jury (a group of ordinary
citizens-- your 'peers') mitigates extenuating circumstances. It
allows for interpretation, mercy, what ever you want to call it. The
intent may have been for the citizenry to check the judiciary, at least
at the state level.
Accordingly, because we are not married at the federal level, the state
level may well be the most appropriate place to determine the rules of
engagement for group entities, partnerships of a familial type (and by
this I don't mean incestuous :^) I think the only reason roe vs wade
has been upheld by the supreme court for as long as it has is because
an embryo/fetus has no legal rights under the constitution/federal law.
> Hezbollah is not an arm of the lebanese government. Nor would they have
> access to money from the Lebanese treasury. Hezbollah is funded in large
> part by Iran. Still plenty of money theroetically available but we have no
> idea what the size of Iran's "hezbollah" line-item is. If for any reason
> Iran doesn't want to pay for construction in south lebanon or the Hezbos
> just want to save money, counterfeiting is a great way to make your real
> money go further. I mean why not? How likely it is that they'd be caught?
>
Not at the moment, no. but they are headed that way. Peeling off
thousands of US dollars (counterfeit or not) has a lasting impression
on the population. I'm willing to bet they will increase their
presence in the Lebanese government with each election. Should they
reach a majority they will in fact have full access to the treasury.
Hezbollah will not concede to be beholden to others to further its aims
forever. They have figured out that an effective way to overthrow a
government is to be elected to do so.
> I fail to see where US importing oil from Iraq is a problem. We're buying
> it, right?
>
> And, yes, "liberate" is the correct word.
>
> The US's reasons for choosing Iraq as the next battlground of the War on
> Terror is a bit more involved than just the WMD thing. IMHO, Bush
> over-emphasized that particular aspect because Iraq's violations of UN
> resolutions and the creasefire from the first Gulf War were his pretext for
> the invasion. WMDs were neither the only reason for the invasion nor the
> most important one.
> Bush cannot invade Iran without a draft, something he does not have the
> political capital to do. The volunteer military simply doesn't have the
> people to invade and occupy Iran.
>
> I wish we did.
>
And given how splendidly we've be able to do this in Iraqi you still
believe that's our job to do? What do we gain by invading iran?
>Nowhere would a "war about oil" be more appropriate than Iran. Iran has
> massively abused the wealth its oil exports bring. It has simultaneously
> let conditions for its own people deteriorate while funding terroism and WMD
> research. Simply put, the current government does not deserve its toys, so
> I have no problem if someone came along to take them away. Just so long as
> that somebody gave those toys back to a responsible Iranian government.
>
> The article you cite notes that 40% of the world's oil exports run through
> the Strait of Hormuz, which has Iran on one bank. Recent history also tells
> us that Iran is not above shooting missiles at passing tankers. It is not
> just in the US's intertest to keep the Strait open, but in the interests of
> India, Japan, and probably Europe. If Iran wanted to close the Strait
> tomorrow, the only powers that could dispute Iran would be the US, Britain
> and maybe Russia. The free-flow of commerce on the seas is what having a
> navy is all about.
>
Oh good. I knew I could count on you to read the whole thing. yes,
iran is strategically located to reek havoc on the world economy. And
that, IMHO, is what the war on terrorism is really about. Economics-
global in scale. If this government is going to ask its citizens to
risk their lives in war and commerce it owes it to them to be honest.
I agree there is never just one reason for doing anything. And for
this reason, especially when lives are at risk, I feel the government
must sight all of them, not just the ones that sound pretty. Again,
the government's relationship is primarily with individuals. If the
government edits the facts (and fictions) to further it's own agenda
it has violated the most basic tenant of its foundation. Our troops
have a right to know (as do we) what they are fighting for.
>
> I consider Iran's proposed change to do business in euros to be a strategic
> move to nourish the wedge between the US and europe. It is an economic
> bribe. And if Continental Europe's cheating on Iraq sanctions and
> Oil-for-Food corruption are any judge, Europe is very bribe-able.
>
> Don't assume for a second that the US is the only country with
> self-centered, money-obsessed motives on this planet. Nor should you assume
> that those motive are always why the US takes a major action.
>
Bride? Sure. the establishment of the euro itself is an attempt by
European countries to effectively (collectively) compete against the
dollar and the yen. As you say countries will do what countries will
do.
lg
--- SBBSecho 2.11-Win32
* Origin: Time Warp of the Future BBS - Home of League 10 (1:14/400)
|