Text 9173, 1007 rader
Skriven 2006-10-10 14:55:54 av Vorlonagent
Ärende: Re: My Presidential Pick for 2006
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From: "Vorlonagent" <nojtspam@otfresno.com>
My newreader had already disposed of your original post. So I'm lazy.
Rather than do what I need to do to resurrect it, I'm just starting a new
thread with the same name.
Vorlonagent wrote:
> > "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness" is not in the Constitution.
> > (it's from the Declaration of Independence). There is no legal right to
> > these things so much as constitutional prohibitions against common ways
> > the
> > goverment can get in your way. Marriage also has no constitutional
> > basis,
> > only a legal one. There is no cause for the judiciary to intervene here
> > and
> > create (legislate) a "right" where none legally exists.
> Yes, yes, I was being a tad flippant, invoking the spirit of things,
> you see. Taken together as a whole the declaration of independence,
> the articles of the constitution and the bill of rights, make for one
> formidable foundation. It amazes me that we have experienced so
> little internal strife as a nation. I think the framers got the
> balance of power right.
> You've confused me here a bit. Is the constitution not a legal
> document?
Of course it is. It is in fact THE legal document. It is the foundation of
the USA. What did I say that might have given you a different impression?
The constitution's centrality to US law is why it's so important to be very
clear what is and isn't a part of it. You don't treat it lightly or easily
get to inject your own idea of "what's right" into it. Nor do you get to
append other documents to the constitution without going through the
amendment process. The Framers pointedly made amending the Constitution
tough but doable to keep it from being affects by the passions of the
moment. Except for Prohibition, it worked.
The Declaration of Independence is not a part of the Constitution. Whatever
reverence I may have for it, this simple fact remains. You cannot quote to
me any part of it and expect it to carry the force of law, nor should the
Supreme Court invoke it as valid legal precedent. If you want a
*Constitutional* right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", you
need to amend the Constitution to add it, because it's not there now. You
can't just wake up one day and declare some right is enshrined in the
Constitution, because that's not how the law AS DEFINED BY THE CONSTITUTION
works.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has done exactly this.
The Supreme Court made, IMHO, a very serous legal mistake when it used a
current trend in (IIRC) Europen law to strike down a state law allowing the
death penalty to be applied to juveniles. Again, the merits of the law
aren't the issue here. What's at issue is that a constitutional precedent
was set which had no basis in the Constitution itself. The majority
Justices in effect amended the constitution by judicial decree.
This is not a power that the Framers ever intended to give them. By right
of Marbury vs Madison, the Court made itself the final arbiter of the
constitution. With this new ruling, the Court has said the Constitution
says whatever a majority of Justices want it to say. And there's no check
on this ability, except the same Court changing its mind sometime in the
future. They can add any precedent to the Constitution they see fit.
Congress can impeach a justice for bad behaviour. The Prez chooses who goes
to the bench, but that's it. There's nothing either branch of govenment can
do to challenge a ruling handed down by well-behaving Justices on the Court.
Unless I misread the Framers, they intended the Judicary to restrain the
Executive and Legislative branches. I don't think they ever considered the
possibility of a Judiciary that needed restraining. Perhaps their one
miscalculation was the assumption that long terms of office would always
insulate office-holders from the extremes of the moment. They didn't
account for the ability of people representing those extremes to become
office-holders, giving them a secure, insulated base to work from. Instead
of insulating the Judiciary from the passions of the moment, those passions
are enshrined in the legal system as a long as the individual holding those
passions serves as a judge.
> > > > Unfortunately, we as a predominantly homophobic nation are
> > > > unable to have a conversation at that level. So it's fallen to the
> > > > states to determine for themselves. Which may be the correct
> > > > approach. If enough states 'go pink' the conversation may come
> > > > around. I believe popular public opinion/acceptance can/does
> > > > influence the supreme court system to a degree. In that it shows the
> > > > justices how far they can go/get away with peacefully.
> > So we're homophobic. That's a black mark on us, sure. Thing is, it's our
> > country. If we want to be homophobic, we can be. No matter how
> > short-sighted and prejudiced it may be.
> Good grief!........... Yes, we're so *very* lucky. Let's hope
> democracy brings the same enlightened attitude to all the good peoples
> of the world.
I am dead-serious here.
There is a word for people who are utterly convinced of the righteousness of
their cause and who are willing to impose it on other people whether they
want it or not.
It's not a complementary word.
You want me to accept gays and gays marrying, give me a reason. You jam it
down my throat, by judicial decree or other means, I am going to fight you
all the way. That's human nature. Moreover, it's American nature. "Who
died and made you God?" is a fundamental American attitude. It's one of our
distinguishing cultural features.
(in point of fact, I support gay marriage, but think that activists have
chosen poor legalization tactics)
> > Even if banning same-sex marriage is as wrong as you or I might believe
> > it
> > to be, that quality of wrong-ness does not give the Mass supreme court
> > the
> > right or power to first overrule a ballot initiative enshrining
> > heterosexual-only marraige nor the right or power to unilaterally
> > legalize
> > gay marraiage. The Mass Supreme Court is still exceeeding its authority.
> > Again, this point remains regardless of how deserving gay marriage is of
> > legalization.
> > If you want to legalize gay marriage, convince the legislature it's a
> > good
> > idea. A decree from an imperial judiciary is not an acceptable
> > substitute.
> Perhaps not. convincing the current legislature that gay marriage is
> deserving of legalization isn't a complete impossibility. Getting W
> to sign it into law is. His power base will not allow him too. My
> personal feeling on the matter is; morality is a dish best served cold,
> as in from the grave.
??? Explain please.
> I'll say it again women and minorities in this
> country did not always enjoy the same rights under the law/constitution
> as white males. When we can talk about issues in terms of individual
> rights/freedoms only, then will the conversation turn itself toward
> resolution.
That conversation in the US must occur within the framework of the
Constitution. If you toss the Constitution aside or bypass the amendment
process and bend it to what you *know* is right, you invite everyone else to
do the same. The eventual result is anarchy.
Any resolution of perceived or actual differences in status should take
place in the Legislature. That's what it's *for*. Instead, these kinds of
conversations take place in the courtroom and the results are whatever
someone can convince a judge it is. If Liberal judges get to create and
destroy rights according to what is correct and just in their minds, who
else does when it's their turn to hold power?
This is the morbid fear behind GW Bush getting to pick Supreme Court
justices. The door has long since been opened to allow leftist sensibilites
to step though and around the need for being made law by the legislature.
What happens when a conservative Supreme Court allows conservative
sensibilites to stand at that same door? True equality under the law means
they get to do the same thing.
If you wouldn't want to give that kind of unchecked power to conservatives,
liberals shouldn't have it either.
You are coming periously close to saying that your ends ("equality" as you
define it) are justified by whatever means it takes to make it happen right
now.
> > Fair enough. Keep asking questions.
Ok, here's one. Is your dissatisfaction with the judiciary, and its
perceived imperial slant, born of the fear that our country will evolve
in ways that are outside of your comfort zone?
Yes, but not the way you are likely thinking. A likely translation of that
question is, "Do I dislike an imperial judiciary because I don't agree with
the liberal decisions it's handing down?" Are my reasons partisan? For
that translation of the question, my answer is "no". I admit that
disagreeing with many of the rulings of an activist judiciary makes its
imperial character easier to notice, but that's not whence the opposition
springs.
Do you like the legal climate in this country? We have more lawyers per
capita than any other country, IIRC. Do you like the fact that we are
encouraged to sue anytime we feel slighted?
I don't.
It's getting to the point where in order to actually get anything important
done, you not only have to get it passed by a legislature and signed by an
executive, you have to endure the ensuing welter of lawsuits from people who
don't think your important thing should happen. Because the Judiciary has
given itself the power to rewrite the Constitution on the fly, it now has
the power to not just check the Legislature but to trump it entirely. This
kind of ability destroys the Separation of Powers that makes the US
government work (or more correctly allows the Judiciary to exert
near-absolute power, something the Framers took pains to keep out of the
grasp of Presidents and congressmen and never intended to give to the
Judiciary)
I am not eager for a government of the lawyers by the lawyers and for the
lawyers.
I am not eager to see the business of the US endlessly tangled in legal red
tape. That's the direction we're headed.
> > Nor are Iraq and Afghanistan as bad as they are made out to be. Both
> > have
> > serious issues but successs gets glossed over and problems dwelled upon.
> > Whatever problems Iraq has, for example, Al Queda in Iraq has been
> > serously
> > hurt or destroyed by the death of Zarkawi and the info we pried from the
> > wreckage of his hideout.
> Parts of this are so delusional; imho, I simply can't go there.
Careful, dear. This is freindly conversation. You just made a decidedly
UN-friendly comment. (you have suggested that my point of view is
"delusional")
If you strongly disagree with something I say but don't want to discuss it,
I can honor that. But I ask you to own your disagreement and desire to not
follow up on it. Don't go calling people names.
What would your mom think? :)
> > > > While I agree with the old adage that those who fail to learn from
> > > > history are destine to repeat it, the war on terror is not WWII.
> > > > Saddam (or the president of iran, for that matter, I have no idea
> > > > how
> > > > to pronounce let alone spell his name!) is not Hitler. Iraq is not
> > > > Vietnam. and W is no FDR. Yes there is value in revisiting the past,
> > > > lessons to be learned etc. first and foremost we need to understand
> > > > our current situation, to explore how the past has brought us to the
> > > > present.....call me crazy, but I don't see the 'victory' in WWII
> > > > as this great triumph over evil.
> > Why not?
> I need to verify a few facts before I can answer that one, stay tuned.
Fair enough. Take your time.
> > Introspection is not enough. We also need to look at our opponents as
> > well.
> > There are strong elements in common between WWII and the War on Terror,
> > Nazi
> > Germany and Iran.
> Ok, I'll play. And they are?
FIRST: Repressive, authoritarian government. While Nazi Germany was a
secular in nature and Iran is religious, authoritatian is authoritatisn. I
consider the difference to be one of inflection.
SECOND: A scapegoating of jews for internal problems. Iran has few
legitimate grievances with Israel. Almost every islamic country that was
around in 1948 declared war on Israel the day it was born. You can argue
the correctness of some or even most Israeli actions, but they are not why
the islamic peoples in the Gulf have meager lives, even though they are
blamed for it.
Germany suffered a terrible depression after the end of WWI. The terms of
the armistice that the Allies imposed were brutal. Germany had heavy
reparations to pay and a lot of restrictions on it. The German economy was
a total shambles before Hitler came to power (hitler threw the Armistice out
the window). The ceasefire we imposed on Saddam in 1992 was mellow by
comprarison. Hitler's Germany blamed its condition not on the Allies or its
own actions in WWI, but on german jews.
THIRD: Both countries were/are run by the power-mad.
FOURTH: Both nations operated in defiance of the international community and
that community chose appeasement. Germany made war on its smaller neighbors
(under the banner of "uniting the German peoples") and the larger powers of
Europe (France and England) let Germany get away with it, at one point
signing an agreement allowing Germany to annex half of Czechoslovakia.
English Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who brokered that agreement,
felt very betrayed when Hitler blithely invaded and took the other half.
Chamberlain voiced sentiments that would be not out of place today:
"We should seek by all means in our power to avoid war, by analyzing
possible causes, by trying to remove them, by discussion in a spirit of
collaboration and good will. I cannot believe that such a program would be
rejected by the people of this country, even if it does mean the
establishment of personal contact with the dictators."
Chamberlain apparently never stopped to consider whether dictators would
reject "discussion in a spirit of collaboration and good will". They
frequently do, was we have seen with Germany, the Soviets, North Korea,
Saddam's Iraq, and Iran.
I can't find a quote of Chamberlain saying, "maybe Hitler will be happy with
Czechoslovakia" (or was it Germany's half of Poland?), but I'm pretty sure
he said words to that effect.
Iran is in hot pursuit of a nuclear weapon in defiance of the international
opinion. Now we hear people saying the rough equivalent of "maybe
Ahmadinejad will be happy with an atomic bomb." People like Ahmadinejad and
the Shia clerics that pull his strings are always pleased by appeasement but
never satiatated. They are, in fact, emboldened.
By doing nothing more than lots of talking, France and Germany are failing
to keep Iran from getting a nuke and telling Iran that there will be no
consequences for its anti-social actions. Just as there will be much furor
over Noth Korea's "nuclear test" over the weekend but nothing concrete will
be done.
Neville chamberlain is gone, but the mindset he governed from lives on and
will inevitably give rise to another brutal conflict. Indeed, that conflict
will amplified by the absolute aversion to war that is the centerpiece of
Chamberlain's mindset because war will be "unthinkable" until the day it is
thrust upon us in a way we can't ignore. For me, that was 9/11 but other
people don't see it that way and some others are blinded by partisan hatred
of GW Bush, who would inevitably stand to benefit from a galvinizing event
like 9/11.
(after-note on Chamberlain: He is generally vilified as all that's wrong
with "appeasement", but he was given a position of reasonable authority in
the government of his successor, Winston Churchill. To Wikipedia's report,
Chamberlain served well)
FIFTH: The League of Nations proved worthless in resolving issues with
Hitler. Just as the UN is proving worthless in resolving issues with Iran.
You want more? I think I can do more if you want it.
> > > > what I see is a 'demographic' that has been marginalized by the
> > > > 'world' economy. This demographic extends way past the mid-east
> > > > (think parts of asia, south America, Africa, mexico.) there is 'the
> > > > west' and those who serve its interests, and everyone else.
> > No they aren't marginalized *by* the world economy. They are
> > marginalized
> > *in* the world econmy because these regions have a history of autocratic
> > government and corruption that make it darn difficult to get ahead.
> once upon a time I could afford actual Egyptian cotton. Not anymore
> (even if I wanted to, it's hardly available.) Now I buy my
> 'Egyptian cotton' from china. The global economy pushes for the
> lowest cost provider. Many countries that were able to compete no
> longer can. I agree however that autocratic governments and
> corruption are part of the problem. So, both 'in' and 'by' I
> think.
"By" only fits if the global economy is victimizing someone. Egypt is a
place spinning into extremism and rife with corruption. Natrually it can't
compete with china, which is more than firmly in control of its populace.
I seriously doubt that egyptian cotton workers are paid more than their
chinese counterparts or egyptian connton producers incur higher costs
growing cotton. It's that egypt is in a massive internal muddle and china
isn't. If Mubarak got his act together, you might see egyption-egyptian
cotton again in 10 years.
A lot of countries are in a mess like Egypt. Most of the mideast is. The
entire continent of Africa is. That's why, subtracting oil, (and IIRC) the
economy of the entire arab states put together is about equal to something
like Denmark.
Don't fault globalism. It's just underscoring what's already there.
> > > > It may
> > > > be that what we're experiencing, and the prez of iran may be
> > > > heralding to a degree, is the rise of the everyone-elses.
> > That's what Hugo Chavez says too. I don't believe it.
> Hugo chavez? The only way you can think to counter this sentence is to
> suggest I have a friend in hugo chavez?
I didn't say that. I said Hugo Chaves says it's the rise of
"everybody-else" too and that I didn't believe him either. I don't think
Hugo believes Hugo, but it's important to Hugo that you, and other people
like you across the planet, do.
Hugo would say he's your friend in a heartbeat. I wouldn't believe him, but
he would say it with much enthusiasm and sincere-sounding conviction. Why
do you think he waxed rhapsodic about Noam Chomsky in his UN address?
> You don't by chance work for the current administration do you? :^)
What? You think I'm Tony Snow posting under a pseudonym?
> > Even if true, if everyone-else feels so nihilistic as to destroy the
> > economies that have outperformed them, they can and should expect one
> > hell
> > of a fight. I am not going to don sackcloth and ashes and cede them the
> > moral right to do so.
> Nice imagery. Nor will I. Spin the wheel, I say, and let the moral
> dice fall where they may.
> their not nihilistic. they are desperate to catch up in a race they
> just recently have come to realize they are loosing. (the long march
> toward economic entropy is well on it's way.)
Hong Kong.
A dirt-poor british-run chinese city in the 50s that got its act together,
dropped taxes to almost nothing (for a while) and the place took off. It's
now an economic dynamo whose re-absorbtion into China still leaves people
wondering if the chinese will kill the goose that's laying those golden
eggs.
Not everybody can be Hong Kong but if a country chooses to get out of the
way of business and enforce fair laws fairly, you'd be surprised what can
happen. If we don't abandon Iraq to the bad guys and it manages to kick the
corruption habit, you may see good stuff happening there besides the oil.
As it is, most poor nations are either mired in socialist doctrine or
leaders are looting the treasury. Or both. That's a reipe for failure and
poverty and that's what we see.
> > No, we're the convienent target of lazy thinking among uneducated
> > people.
> And these people are?
Anyone who deals with poverty by moaning about the US instead of trying to
fix things, or who do not have the education to see past wild conspiracy
theories.
It's a mess and the US is an easy target.
It's not the the US is sinless and blameless around the world. We have our
share of sins to attone for. Too often the united staets is considered the
sole agent of evil around the world and that simply isn't true.
> > We bear some responsibility for buying oil from people like that but
> > primary
> > responsibility rests with the people who actually govern a poor or
> > starving
> > people.
> > And we don't *take* anything. We *buy* it.
> I believe I wrote we *pay* for what we take, which equals *buy* in my
> book.
I am getting at your word choice. We "take" and "pay". It's a different
inflection than "buy".
> > We are guilty of Cold War preeoccupation with the Soviets and post-Cold
> > War
> > fatigue and disconnection, yes. We let some of this stuff fester.
> > You say we need to think forward not back, but you're also saying we
> > need to
> > go back and stake stock of the past. Which is it? Do we wallow in past
> > sins, real and imagined, or figure out what's best to do from here? I
> > vote
> > going from here.
> I'm right behind ya on the going forward part. From my perspective
> history shows us that you cannot win a war of ideologies militarily.
> Ideas outlive people
Not entirely, no. But there were fewer nazis running around the world in
1950 than 1935, which says that losing WWII militarily dealt the Nazi
ideology a serious blow. The nazi movement as a social force in Gemrany is
dead and died when Germany surrendered in 1945. After a long, military
confrontation.
The US won the Cold War not through military conflict with the Soviet Union
but through a policy of military containment and Reagan's military buildup,
which the Soviets didn't have the economy to match, ultimately imploding.
Conflict has a way of resolving issues that are intractible by peaceful
means (RE Clausweitz). War procedes to this resolution through a process of
escalating hostilities. Things get more and more intense until one side or
the other breaks. Usually, a big chunk of the ideololgy breaks too. In
defeat, people often lose faith. If one attempts to suspend that final
resolution, one gets caught in a cycle of escalating violence.
War does not promote peaceful co-existence of ideologies, but if war between
those ideologies is in the realm of possibilities, peaceful co-existence is
probably already out.
> > Bush has chosen to move forward. A stable democracy in Iraq would be a
> > powerful force for change in the mideast just by exisiting. If you want
> > the
> > #1 reason for invading Iraq, that was it.
> So, the #1 reason for invading iraq was to foster change in the
> mid-east? And who decided the mid-east needed changing? And what does
> this have to do with terrorism?
The mideast as it is is a terrorist factory.
The massive disconnect between poor and rich (and the justifiable
frustration on the part of the poor) is misdirected at Israel and the US.
Mix in a virulent, xenophobic strain of Islam and you get a fertile breeding
ground for angry young men that want to blow up airliners or pilot them into
large buildings.
Democracy and the rule of law in the mideast would foster conditions that
would give the poor there a shot at something better. The political
structure as it stands locks people into their poverty.
Who decided that this change was needed? I suppose in a way you could say
that it was bin Laden. By carrying out 9/11, he made it plain that
terrorism could no longer be considered a nuisence. Something had to give
or the US would be attacked again and again. Over time, those attacks would
escalate into chemical and biological agents. Eventually nuclear weapons
are not out of the realm of possibility.
With this as a future, it's easy to see that change was an immidiate
necessaity. Step 1 was disrupting Al Queda in particular, denying it
Afghanistan as a safe haven for planning and training. For all the problems
in the south of Afghanistan, it is not a safe haven. Northern pakistan is a
safe haven, but since we can't go in there, we can't root al Queda out.
Step 2 was choosing a centrally-located Arab country to act as the vanguard
for social change. That's Iraq. Iraq was the best choice for a number of
reasons. The US had violations of UN resolutions for a pretext. WMD issues
had simmered since 1998 when iraq threw out all the UN weapons inspectors
after endlessly harassing them. Iraq's government was secular so it would
be harder to spin it as an attack on Islam and by letting Saddam stay in
power in 1992 we gave him a lot of prestige, not to mention encouraging a
revolution in Iraq then balking when the shia rose up instead of the
military estabishment. After that abandonment, we owed a debt to Iraq's
shia. And we're paying it off.
It's worked to some degree. Elections have been held in (a now largely
Syrian-free) Lebanon and Palestine and fairer ones have been held in Egypt
and Saudi Arabia. We don't always like the results, but that's to be
expected. Sometimes there isn't a good guy in the race. But if the people
get to choose and that choice is honored, it's a start.
> > >> > Since Muslims are by the tenets of their faith the Chosen of God
> > >> > and the
> > >> > world doesn't reflect that back to them, leaders have blamed jews
> > >> > and the
> > >> > West. Just as Hitler blamed jews for Germany's post WWI woes. Thus
> > >> > us
> > >> > being us has bred a convient hatred of us. Hence terrorism.
> > > > Don't all people of faith consider themselves chosen?
> > No. I don't think you'll find that in asian faiths such as Buddhism and
> > Taoism. I don't believe it plays in Huduism or shinto but I don't know
> > them
> > that well. I'm not sure it figures in American Indian shamanic faiths
> > either.
> Ah, yes, my bad, Judeo-Christians then. (I can't remember, is islam
> lumped together in that category as well?)
It should be. There are common origins. At one time Mohammed did try to
co-opt jews and christians into Islam, but it didn't work that well.
> > >> > The War on Terror is not about money. It never was.
> > > > is too! is too! is too! (stomping feet :^)
> > Not JUST money, no.
> Yippee! (doing a 'partial' victory dance :^)
Destorying business-as-usual is THE object of terrorism after all. But
their motive for doing it isn't economic (i.e. blowing up airliners doesn't
benefit them ina any economic way), nor are we merely defending the US GDP
in opposing them.
> > >> > Europe and/or the UN often gets the assumption of high-mindedness.
> > >> > American
> > >> > is often guilty of self-interest until proven innocent.
> > >> > Neither of these stereotypes are accurate.
> > > > accurate? no, just convenient.
> > And by the very convienence promoting a un-justified moral superiority
> > of
> > Europe and the UN and an un-earned distrust of the US.
> Un-earned? Oh, no. when the basic tenant of our foreign policy over
> the years has been 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend', we've
> earned it.
How does that earn the expectation of evil on the part of the US until it
proves itself innocent? We weren't always right to do as we did over the
years, true. We backed our share of dictators during the Cold War. We were
the ones who shouldered the responsibility of dealing with the Soviets. We
did it because the Soviets were a direct threat and because it was the right
thing to so. Yet the US is assumed to be self-interested at every turn.
It's a sterotype. It's sometimes even a prejudice. It's not true,
therefore it's not earned.
Europe ACTS self-interested at every turn and nobody bats an eye. Who sold
Iran the means to refine uranium? Germany and Russia. Who was selling
Saddam's Iraq similar parts and taking oil-for-food kickbacks? France and
Germany. In my darker momnets I think that Marx WAS right, just in a limited
context. When you look at the blind self-agenda with which continental
europe handles money, I think its easy to come to think "the last capitalist
to be hung will be the rope salesman."
And he'd be surprised as hell when they came for him.
> sorry it's taken me so long to get back to this thread. but i find
> myself advocating for my children in ways i hadn't imagined.
No stress here. Take care of home first.
--
John Trauger,
Vorlonagent
"Methane martini.
Shaken, not stirred."
"Spirituality without science has no mind.
Science without spirituality has no heart."
-Methuselah Jones
--- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2
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