THE POLITICAL ARENA!!! Political Gladiators Inside!!

[f.sciarrillo]

Only a 312, Scott?

[Hawk]

Romney surges in Iowa.

Super PACsThe 2010 election marks the rise of a new political committee, dubbed "super PACs," and officially known as "independent-expenditure only committees," which can raise unlimited sums from corporations, unions and other groups, as well as individuals. The super PACs were made possible by two judicial decisions. First the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision by the Supreme Court, which lifted spending limits. Second the Speechnow v. FEC decision by the D.C. Circuit Court, which invoked the logic of Citizens United to dispense with contribution limits on independent-expenditure committees. The groups can also mount the kind of direct attacks on candidates that were not allowed in the past. Super PACs are not allowed to coordinate directly with candidates or political parties but are required to disclose their donors.

EXAMPLE:

Super Defection: Pro-Bachmann Super PAC switches to Romney
The Daily ^ | December 28, 2011 | Dan Hirschhorn

A political action committee which had planned to support Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign has very quietly defected to Mitt Romney — and it's spending big on his behalf.

Citizens for a Working America, the so-called Super PAC which aired TV ads against a Democratic congressional candidate last year, had indicated earlier this year that it was backing the Minnesota congresswoman in the GOP nominating contest. But the group instead made a $475,000 Iowa ad buy on Christmas Eve in support of Romney, according to Federal Election Commission data published today.

The so-called independent expenditure was listed as supporting Romney's candidacy, and an Iowa political operative who has seen the ad confirmed to The Daily that it's a 30-second positive spot about the former Massachusetts governor that doesn't mention any other candidate.

EXAMPLE: of a super pac controlling the minds of the average voter who makes decisions based on advertising. Surges are controlled by the Super Pacs.

Des Moines, Iowa (CNN) - As Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum aims for a late surge in Iowa, a super PAC backing his candidacy is up with a new television ad calling him the "real conservative" in the GOP race.

MOST MONEY WINS - THE END
Super pac spending will control the outcome. The super pacs with the most money wield the most control. Not the voter. Sucks...



Super Pac money choosing the Republican candidate as MOST of the Super Pac Spends it's money on Romney (Not Newt or Paul, but it's own puppet).

Doesn't it bother Liberterians that Super Pac will keep Paul out of the White House ? Why ? He can't be bought. That's right Joe, I don't like super pac money buying TV for or against any candidate affiliated with any political party.

[Banned]

Do you have any indication that I like the current political situation?

[songsmith]

You know who else has never shown me his birth certificate?
Bigfoot.
I mean, I don't expect him to carry it around with him... in all the photographic footage of Bigfoot, I never see pockets. But you'd think he'd have a laminated pass, or an old phone bill or something to prove he exists.
You know who else has big feet?
Obama.
Ergo, Obama is a Bigfoot.
Problem solved.

It's called a job requirement. I don't know why it's so hard to produce for someone with his stature. I'm sure he's needed it for college, I'm sure he used it to get the foreign student aid. Anyway, he said his administration was going to be transparent....so much for that.

The requirement is for the President to be born in the US. Proof was given. More proof was given. Birthers still grasp at fantasies, because their partisan media heroes tell them to.
We could spend millions on an investigation, ala Ken Starr, and still find nothing out of the ordinary, like Ken Starr, and the only thing it would do is give Fox News and the Talkshow Fan Club more to wonder about.
Bigfoot is a myth. Orbs on photographs are dust particles at the lens' focal point. The Raystown Lake monster is a wink-wink from the local tourist promotion agency. The Tooth Fairy was your Mom.
Sometimes reality doesn't go the way you want it to, but it's how it is.

[songsmith]

You know who else has never shown me his birth certificate?
Bigfoot.
I mean, I don't expect him to carry it around with him... in all the photographic footage of Bigfoot, I never see pockets. But you'd think he'd have a laminated pass, or an old phone bill or something to prove he exists.
You know who else has big feet?
Obama.
Ergo, Obama is a Bigfoot.
Problem solved.

Quite stupid..

You can't prove Obama isn't a Bigfoot. There's no documentation saying he isn't. Show me undeniable proof that Barack Hussein Obama is not a Kenyan-born Muslim Bigfoot.
Big feet. Walks upright. Harvard grad.
He's 'Squatch, for sure. Check his scat.

[songsmith]

How YOUR tax dollars pay CEO salaries.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45824495/ns ... _business/

Gosh, do you think Rush will talk about this today? Will Fox News do a Special Report with break-ins on this terrible abuse that will be paid for by our children's children?
Nah, not as long as one little old lady schoolteacher is still getting a pension.

[Banned]

Solyndra----how Obama's illegal government uses your tax dollars to pay half a billion dollars to a campaign fund raiser for Obama. Will MSNBC ever cover this story?

[f.sciarrillo]

I love how Johnny has been getting his info from MSNBC lately. We all know how trustworthy and unbiased they are.

Something else, you all say about spending more money this campaign and the most wins. Well, what about Obama raising a billion dollars? If he wins it will show that money can buy you anything. I wonder how much Soros is donating to him? It wouldn't surprise me if Obama makes him a a cabinet member. I mean Obama already had a meeting with the News Papers and News Channels that support him. I can't wait to see the daily Obama ass kissing and daily trash about the right. It will be a hoot. Especially seeing that Obama still has nothing spectacular to run on. Hell, his approval is still in the low 40's. I wonder how he will get that up?

I am really hoping something special happens, be it from either side, as I don't trust any of them anymore. They are all snake oil salesman and should be voted out.

[songsmith]

Solyndra----how Obama's illegal government uses your tax dollars to pay half a billion dollars to a campaign fund raiser for Obama. Will MSNBC ever cover this story?

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20 ... ment-loans

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44638883/ns ... t-hearing/

http://cartoonblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/ ... l-cartoons

They report on it all the time. Those were the first few Bing results. It's the MSN homepage, not Heritage.org, or the Cato Institute, or one of those tinfoil-hat blogs you read. I mean, I understand the line of reasoning: You need propaganda, and assume everyone else does, too. It's part of the neocon culture.
I'm not afraid of government like that, I admit when they're wrong, AND when I'm wrong... you're just sad that nobody's catching onto Solyndra as a wedge-issue. Fox and radio are becoming less and less effective every day, and it's going to get worse for them this year. They NEED a wedge-issue, a Ground-Zero Mosque or a gay marriage fight, because nothing they've tried has worked lately. The Republicans in Congress made obstructionism Job One, and public opinion of the Tea Party direction they took soured quickly. Most people think the elite should pay their fair share, and that they currently don't. The GOP prez candidate circus doesn't help. Even Fox execs are saying that people don't go to cable for news, they go for validation of their beliefs and to see what the other side is doing, which is dead-on.
Now, do you want US taxpayer money to pay executive salaries? I believe that's a 'yes' or 'no' question.

[songsmith]

I love how Johnny has been getting his info from MSNBC lately. We all know how trustworthy and unbiased they are.

Especially seeing that Obama still has nothing spectacular to run on. Hell, his approval is still in the low 40's. I wonder how he will get that up?

I am really hoping something special happens, be it from either side, as I don't trust any of them anymore. They are all snake oil salesman and should be voted out.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20 ... -moving-up

Incidentally, I went to Fox News to see what they thought Obama's numbers would look like, and the approval rating couldn't be found, only the disapproval. The last shown time they gave approval ratings was in August, when they reported Obama at 44%.
Here's the latest Wall Street Journal poll I could find, it has Obama beating all GOP candidates:
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/NBC- ... /id/417231
Newsmax is a rightwing website, so you can't really say I spun it.

[f.sciarrillo]

I love how Johnny has been getting his info from MSNBC lately. We all know how trustworthy and unbiased they are.

Especially seeing that Obama still has nothing spectacular to run on. Hell, his approval is still in the low 40's. I wonder how he will get that up?

I am really hoping something special happens, be it from either side, as I don't trust any of them anymore. They are all snake oil salesman and should be voted out.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20 ... -moving-up

Incidentally, I went to Fox News to see what they thought Obama's numbers would look like, and the approval rating couldn't be found, only the disapproval. The last shown time they gave approval ratings was in August, when they reported Obama at 44%.
Here's the latest Wall Street Journal poll I could find, it has Obama beating all GOP candidates:
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/NBC- ... /id/417231
Newsmax is a rightwing website, so you can't really say I spun it.

I looked at gallup and they have him at 43%. I don't look at rightwing or leftwing sites for that kinda stuff, gallup isn't biased.

Here is the site: http://www.gallup.com/home.aspx - Another note: http://www.Realclearpolitics.com is another good, unbiased one, to look at as well.

[lonewolf]

Solyndra----how Obama's illegal government uses your tax dollars to pay half a billion dollars to a campaign fund raiser for Obama. Will MSNBC ever cover this story?

I don't think MSNBC actually does stories. All I see them do is cover the repub presidential primary campaign. Each host gets their panel of "experts" together and they all sit around giggling.

Very amusing channel...better than Comedy Central.

[f.sciarrillo]

Solyndra----how Obama's illegal government uses your tax dollars to pay half a billion dollars to a campaign fund raiser for Obama. Will MSNBC ever cover this story?

I don't think MSNBC actually does stories. All I see them do is cover the repub presidential primary campaign. Each host gets their panel of "experts" together and they all sit around giggling.

Very amusing channel...better than Comedy Central.

I agree. They are like a group of school kids. No one on MSNBC is mature, or classy.

[songsmith]

I don't think MSNBC actually does stories. All I see them do is cover the repub presidential primary campaign. Each host gets their panel of "experts" together and they all sit around giggling.

Very amusing channel...better than Comedy Central.

I posted from the MSN homepage. I don't really watch MSNBC, I know that disappoints, but like I said, I don't really need validation propaganda.
By the way, for a real shake-your-head-in-disbelief kind of giggle, watch Fox & Friends. Vapid, yet self-righteous, and I'm not sure I've ever heard even the slimmest thread of reality. Kind of like joe with dental veneers and comp wardrobe.

Did you know that Comedy Central's Daily Show gets nearly the same ratings as Fox News' entire broadcast day? That says alot...

[f.sciarrillo]

Did you know that Comedy Central's Daily Show gets nearly the same ratings as Fox News' entire broadcast day? That says alot...

Yeah, and most of the viewers of the Daily Show are young kids who stay up late at night smoking dope. It makes me laugh when one of them says that John Stewart is a real political analysis.

[lonewolf]

By the way, for a real shake-your-head-in-disbelief kind of giggle, watch Fox & Friends. Vapid, yet self-righteous, and I'm not sure I've ever heard even the slimmest thread of reality. Kind of like joe with dental veneers and comp wardrobe. .

I can't stomach Fox & Friends. It reminds me a lot of the local stories on TV 10 Action News.

[songsmith]

Did you know that Comedy Central's Daily Show gets nearly the same ratings as Fox News' entire broadcast day? That says alot...

Yeah, and most of the viewers of the Daily Show are young kids who stay up late at night smoking dope. It makes me laugh when one of them says that John Stewart is a real political analysis.

I think the demographic for a political-comedy show isn't really young kids. I think it's college-age and older... smoking dope.
You can no longer really dismiss people who use the herb... it's a larger group than you'd think. Think of all the people in PA who smoke cigarettes (23%)... the number of regular and occasional marijuana users is only slightly less than that (about 21%), and over 50% have at least tried it.
Incidentally, Stewart is a better political observer than anyone on Fox. He doesn't cheerlead for Obama, or the left, and will skewer them if there's a laugh in it. Fox NEVER criticizes the rightwing politicians unless there's another rightie they like better at the time. And Fox is never funny... on purpose.

[onegunguitar]

At the end of the day a person has to and needs to vote for whom they feel will help get this country out of the mess we're in. Everyone of the GOP candidates have issues,none of them are perfect. I do know that things are worse since Obama has taken over. I have no desire to debate over what he has or hasn't done compared to Bush,Reagan or who the fuck ever. I don't have to listen to the news or talk radio to see and feel what's going on. Our gas and oil prices are killing the economy,period. That's just a part of it. There's a ton of shit that needs fixed and it ain't gonna happen overnight and I know Obama won't be the answer. "Hope" all you want but with him in office another 4 years,we'll get more "Change",and it won't be for the good.

[f.sciarrillo]

With Reservations, Obama Signs Act to Allow Detention of Citizens

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/20 ... -citizens/

[Hawk]

At the end of the day a person has to and needs to vote for whom they feel will help get this country out of the mess we're in. Everyone of the GOP candidates have issues,none of them are perfect. I do know that things are worse since Obama has taken over. I have no desire to debate over what he has or hasn't done compared to Bush,Reagan or who the fuck ever. I don't have to listen to the news or talk radio to see and feel what's going on. Our gas and oil prices are killing the economy,period. That's just a part of it. There's a ton of shit that needs fixed and it ain't gonna happen overnight and I know Obama won't be the answer. "Hope" all you want but with him in office another 4 years,we'll get more "Change",and it won't be for the good.

What mess ? The economy ? Bear in mind that we gave great tax cuts to the 1% and we were told that they would let it trickle down (create jobs) to the rest of us. They are currently hoarding Trillions of dollars, essentially halting any economic recovery. Are they un-American ? Or is hoarding money for the sake of "self" the American way ? You tell me. Ayn Rand’s formula, “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”


Why would they hoard like that ?

To kill organized laborers.
To lower wages of the middle class.
To wield more power.
Greatly increase their own wealth / power.
Etc.

And they are successful.

EDIT: I have nothing against anyone getting rich beyond anyone's wildest dreams.

This is what bothers me about some of the 1%:
Given the power the 1% wields (super pac and the buying of politicians) I see them as the greatest assault on our liberty. By controlling the economy (don't forget that while we keep hearing how the economy sucks they are making RECORD PROFITS - They are LOVING our economy just the way it is, so why should they want to change it or help any of you) and driving for lower wages.

[Hawk]

Nathan Hale “I only regret I have but one life to give for my country.”

Ayn Rand’s formula, “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

From David Frum (realitive to my view on making hard drugs legal):



"Only a very few Americans of the Founding generation enjoyed anything like material security. While most white Americans enjoyed a higher standard of living than European peasants, that comparative abundance was a desperately precarious state. An American who drank too much, who had too many children, who got into a fight and suffered a wound that could be infected – in short anyone who did not tightly control his impulses – risked disaster not only for himself or herself, but also for his or her loved ones. In such a world, the psychology of modern libertarianism – the desire to live unrestrained by any force outside oneself – would be seen by most as an invitation to self-destruction."

More from Frum (realitive to my thinking of the Liberterians of today who quote Jefferson and Henry):

If a libertarian is one who believes, as I suggested at the outset, that each person should be free to live as he or she thinks best, then a libertarian in 1776 would have been obliged to be an abolitionist. After all, the one-fifth of Americans who were defined as property on the eve of the revolution were obviously unfree to live as they thought best.

Yet it’s a very striking fact that the language that to our ears sounds most “libertarian” in the Founding generation tended most often to issue from those most committed to slavery. By contrast, the Founding Fathers who sound most “statist” — Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams — tended also to be most hostile to slavery.

This disjunction is more than some odd little paradox of history. It is a resounding klaxon warning of the enormous gap between the 18th century mindset and our own. Samuel Johnson jeered at the American colonists: “How is that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?” Johnson’s accusation of hypocrisy is obviously well-founded, but there is something more going on here than hypocrisy. It was precisely the intimate awareness of the horror of unfreedom — and possibly guilt for the denial of freedom to others — that inspired the passionate concern for liberty among so many slaveholders. When Patrick Henry said that he would rather be dead than share the fate of the 75 slaves he owned, he was not engaging in metaphor. But he was also not expressing 21st century libertarianism.

[Hawk]

The piece by David Frum discusses whether or not the Founding Fathers would be recognized as libertarians.

Let me toss in my 5 cents worth on the question of whether the Founders were “libertarians.”

This seems to me a question approximately as meaningful as asking whether the Founders would have preferred Macs or PCs: it exports back into the past an entirely alien mental category.

Libertarianism fuses two ideas, one political, one psychological. The political idea is that the central state should be confined within the narrowest possible limits. The psychological idea is that each person should enjoy the widest possible scope to live as he or she thinks best.

Libertarians see these two ideas as very consistent. But that libertarian perspective only feels consistent if you can accept a previous assumption: that the central state is the most important limit on our ability to live as we think best. For most people in most advanced modern democracies, that hypothesis does not ring true. For most people, it’s the bill collector, or the ex-wife, or the boss that imposes the most onerous restraints.

If this tandem set of ideas seems remote even in our modern era, back in the 18th century, each on its own would have been inaccessible, never mind both together.

Start for example with the need to confine government. Modern libertarians draw a very clear line between “the state” and private associations. I.e.: If a town council passes an ordinance requiring all houses to be painted white, that’s an outrageous violation of personal liberty, but if a condominium association adopts such a rule, that’s a reasonable exercise of freedom of association. But suppose you lived in an 18th century New England town, and the town meeting adopted such a rule. Is the town meeting more like the modern town council? Or the condo association?

That distinction, so legible to us, was not nearly so legible in the 18th century. Were the Penn family the “government” of Pennsylvania or its owners? Even at the highest level, things were fuzzy. The king of England was yes clearly equivalent to something we’d call “the state.” But Parliament? Was that “the state” also? Or was it more like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: a permanent standing body to monitor the government and with some ability to protest and block the government’s actions?

The fact is that the concept of the “state” as presented in some modern libertarian writing owes much more to 19th century German ideas than to the 18th century Anglo-American legacy. In 18th century Britain, the question of whether ministers owed obedience to the king or to Parliament was a blurry and uncertain one. In 19th century Germany and Austro-Hungary, the question was clear: ministers obeyed the monarch. Period. “The state” as experienced by Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek was something outside civil society, something that society could not reliably control, and therefore had to be contained. A John Adams might think of the king of England that way, but that’s not how he’d think of the legislature of the commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Libertarian psychology would have been even more indigestible to the 18th century mind than libertarian politics. Libertarianism argues that each individual should enjoy the widest possible scope to live as he or she thinks best. It’s an attractive ideal, one widely shared by 21st century people. Modern liberals share the libertarian commitment to “autonomy,” as this ideal is generally called – they just disagree about the institutions needed to support autonomy.

But to an American of the Founding generation, the ideal of autonomy would have contradicted four of the most fundamental physical and psychic facts of life:

•Latinity
•Calvinism
•material scarcity and
•slaveholding
Let’s take them in turn…

Elite Americans of the Founding generation were deeply shaped – not literally by Roman ideas, but by the 18th century understanding of Roman ideas. Here’s a perfect example: George Washington’s favorite play was Joseph Addison’s Cato, published in 1713. Washington adapted words from that play in his famous speech quelling the Newburgh mutiny in 1783. Patrick Henry’s “give me liberty or give me death” was likewise a paraphrase of a speech from Addison’s play. Ditto Nathan Hale’s “I only regret I have but one life to give for my country.” So – influential, right?

And what was the message of that play? That the most precious thing in life is honor. And what is honor? It is the esteem of the wise and the good. Better to die in a way that earns the admiration of others than to live without that admiration. It is hard to imagine a more radical antipode to Ayn Rand’s formula, “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

Less elite Americans of the Founding generation were shaped less by Addison and the Latin classics than by religious traditions heavily tinged by Calvinism.

If ever a religious tradition emphasized the danger of giving scope to the individual will, Calvinism was that tradition:

Man, having been corrupted by his fall, sins voluntarily, not with reluctance or constraint; with the strongest propensity of disposition, not with violent coercion; with the bias of his own passions, and not with external compulsion: yet such is the depravity of his nature that he cannot be excited and biased to anything but what is evil… (From Institutes of the Christian Religion).

It would be hard to imagine a mental outlook less conducive to the libertarian celebration of individual choice than that bequeathed by Calvinism not only to New England Puritanism but also to the “hardshell Baptists” of the South – such as for example the parents of Abraham Lincoln.

Only a very few Americans of the Founding generation enjoyed anything like material security. While most white Americans enjoyed a higher standard of living than European peasants, that comparative abundance was a desperately precarious state. An American who drank too much, who had too many children, who got into a fight and suffered a wound that could be infected – in short anyone who did not tightly control his impulses – risked disaster not only for himself or herself, but also for his or her loved ones. In such a world, the psychology of modern libertarianism – the desire to live unrestrained by any force outside oneself – would be seen by most as an invitation to self-destruction.

Libertarianism is very much a movement of post-1945 affluent society America, a society that has developed birth control and drug rehab, antibiotics and antidepressants. We are a society abounding in second chances. 18th century America was a society in which a personal misstep could easily lead to premature and unpleasant death. Self-actualization through self-expression was a concept not imaginable until GDP per capita rose many, many thousands of dollars higher than the level prevailing in 1776.

Fourth and finally: the libertarian ideal was psychologically unavailable to 18th century Americans because 18th century America was a slaveholding society.

If a libertarian is one who believes, as I suggested at the outset, that each person should be free to live as he or she thinks best, then a libertarian in 1776 would have been obliged to be an abolitionist. After all, the one-fifth of Americans who were defined as property on the eve of the revolution were obviously unfree to live as they thought best.

Yet it’s a very striking fact that the language that to our ears sounds most “libertarian” in the Founding generation tended most often to issue from those most committed to slavery. By contrast, the Founding Fathers who sound most “statist” — Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams — tended also to be most hostile to slavery.

This disjunction is more than some odd little paradox of history. It is a resounding klaxon warning of the enormous gap between the 18th century mindset and our own. Samuel Johnson jeered at the American colonists: “How is that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?” Johnson’s accusation of hypocrisy is obviously well-founded, but there is something more going on here than hypocrisy. It was precisely the intimate awareness of the horror of unfreedom — and possibly guilt for the denial of freedom to others — that inspired the passionate concern for liberty among so many slaveholders. When Patrick Henry said that he would rather be dead than share the fate of the 75 slaves he owned, he was not engaging in metaphor. But he was also not expressing 21st century libertarianism.

One last thing needs to be said to enter into the mind of 18th century Americans.

Most 18th century Americans originated on an island that had been one of the most politically unstable kingdoms in Europe. Between 1640 and 1745, the British executed one king, and sent a second into exile. The British Isles suffered three invasions backed by foreign powers: one in 1688, another in 1715, a third in 1745. They were governed by three different foreign-origin royal families (Stuart, Orange, and Hanover), plus a native military dictatorship. They had experienced a succession of radical changes in church organization, almost equally radical changes in land owning patterns.

In the years after 1689, however, that same country steadily evolved into the most stable in Europe. The dynasty established in 1714 lasts until the present day. Britain had a population only one-third that of its great power rival, France. Yet Britain built a military-fiscal state that fought and inflicted defeat after defeat upon the French.

Yes for sure there were Americans who, following John Trenchard the author of Cato’s Letters, reviewed this history and saw the creeping menace of Big Government. Some of the Anti-Federalists of the 1780s do seem to have thought this way.

But if “Founders” refers to the people who designed the government Americans actually instituted in the 1780s, then I think it’s safe to say that most of the Founders accepted these British achievements as achievements to emulate: not only Alexander Hamilton, but also James Madison. (The Bank of the United States that was destroyed by Andrew Jackson was chartered by President Madison.)

The people of the 18th century retained intense memories of what Europe had looked like before the growth of states: not a libertarian paradise, but a marauder’s free-fire zone in which dynasts and warlords despoiled the weak and disorganized. The Founding generation had absorbed the Enlightenment ideals of John Locke. But Locke had taught that the state was the vindicator of natural rights, not the enemy of those rights.

From Locke’s Second Treatise:

If man in the state of nature be so free, as has been said; if he be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest, and subject to no body, why will he part with his freedom? Why will he give up this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and control of any other power? To which it is obvious to answer, that though in the state of nature he hath such a right, yet the enjoyment of it is very uncertain, and constantly exposed to the invasion of others: for all being kings as much as he, every man his equal, and the greater part no strict observers of equity and justice, the enjoyment of the property he has in this state is very unsafe, very unsecure. This makes him willing to quit a condition, which, however free, is full of fears and continual dangers: and it is not without reason, that he seeks out, and is willing to join in society with others, who are already united, or have a mind to unite, for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estates, which I call by the general name, property

Locke did not argue against government. He argued against arbitrary government, against the divine right of kings.

Although political stability had thickened in Britain by the 1770s, the Founders had a vivid example of a stateless world before their eyes: the world of the American Frontier. That was a world of violence, not a world of freedom. They had seen in the 1780s a real possibility of the breakup of the Colonies into distinct and then warring sovereignties like those of Europe. The Constitution represented a rejection of both those futures. The Founders were state-builders, very much in the model of the British statesmen of the 18th century. And if the government they built has become too big and too expensive, if the libertarian impulse summons us to take action to contain and constrain that government, very well let us take up the task. But we can do that task without duping ourselves with a false history that denies the reality of the past and – ironically – belittles the Founders’ actual achievements by measuring them against standards they would surely have rejected, if they had ever understood them.

Originally Published on December 31, 2010.

[Hawk]

The United States needed both Jefferson's and Hamilton's influences. It was the country's good fortune that it had both men and could, in time, fuse and reconcile their philosophies. One clash between them, which occurred shortly after Jefferson took office as secretary of state, led to a new and profoundly important interpretation of the Constitution. When Hamilton introduced his bill to establish a national bank, Jefferson objected. Speaking for those who believed in states' rights, Jefferson argued that the Constitution expressly enumerates all the powers belonging to the federal government and reserves all other powers to the states. Nowhere was it empowered to set up a bank.

Hamilton contended that because of the mass of necessary detail, a vast body of powers had to be implied by general clauses, and one of these authorized Congress to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper" for carrying out other powers specifically granted. The Constitution authorized the national government to levy and collect taxes, pay debts and borrow money. A national bank would materially help in performing these functions efficiently. Congress, therefore, was entitled, under its implied powers, to create such a bank. Washington and the Congress accepted Hamilton's view -- and an important precedent for an expansive interpretation of the federal government's authority.

Source: U.S. Department of State

[whitedevilone]

It's called Decaf Bill.Check it out.You get so hyper sensitive, like a little girl when anybody questions the greatness of your ManBoy lacky in the White House.Seriously bro it's kinda creepy.....well and super funny!!

[Hawk]

Do you have any indication that I like the current political situation?

Yes, you have infered that you have no problem with super pac money.