RD,there wouldn't be the FREEDOM to have such discussions
I fear it will not be long.
I can remember when US citizens had property rights.
Drip by drip.
Just get a good set of DOGS, cause "dogs rule".
But cats win
Posted 10 February 2007 - 03:19 PM
RD,there wouldn't be the FREEDOM to have such discussions
I fear it will not be long.
I can remember when US citizens had property rights.
Drip by drip.
Posted 10 February 2007 - 03:23 PM
Things like this have gone back and forth several times over the last 200 plus years...it all depended on who was on the Supreme Court bench and the circumstances of the time. It's sort of like all of the "scientific" facts that "force us" to change our life styles (eggs, butter, coffee, etc.), or attempt to make us feel guilty (global warming and cooling), and 20 years later, we later learn of the "mistake" and go back to what is reasonable.I can remember when US citizens had property rights.
Better to ignore me than abhor me.
“Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it” - Benjamin Franklin
"Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance" - George Bernard Shaw
Demagogue: A leader who makes use of popular prejudices, false claims and promises in order to gain power.
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Posted 10 February 2007 - 03:36 PM
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Boy I was hoping someone besides myself would make this statement.Note: We have grown accustomed to hearing that the USA is a democracy; such was never the intent. The form of government entrusted to us by our Founders was a republic, not a democracy. Our Founders had an opportunity to establish a democracy in America and chose not to. In fact, the Founders made clear that we were not, and were never to become, a democracy.
A pure democracy operates by direct majority vote of the people. When an issue is to be decided, the entire population votes on it; the majority wins and rules. A republic differs in that the general population elects representatives who then pass laws to govern the nation. A democracy is the rule by majority feeling (what the Founders described as a "mobocracy"); a republic is rule by law.
This is also why the Electoral College was set up - to keep the majority from having their way with the minority - to provide balance to the voting system.....and it has continued to work just fine in spite of what many have thought with the last two Presidential elections.
In fact, if the United States were not set up as a Republic, there wouldn't be the FREEDOM to have such discussions that are embedded in this thread without possibly being taken away under such laws as the Sedition Act of 1918.
Fib
Edited by James Quillian, 10 February 2007 - 03:40 PM.
Posted 10 February 2007 - 04:41 PM
This is the basic ebb and flow of US politics going all the way back to Thomas Jefferson and part of the Constitutional freedoms given by the Bill of Rights. Without these same freedoms, there would be no shifts in political public opinion based on the environmental conditioning of the times. Unfortunately though, we only have a finite life span in which makes us feel that this time is different from anything else we've seen in the past. But if you take the time to review the history of this nation, you will find many instances where the "characteristics of a democracy" have always attempted to break these same Constitutional rights, while at the same time, you will also acknowledge that such attempts eventually swing the pendulum back in the other direction with equal and opposite force. Just like the three branches of the US Government, these same freedoms provided additional "checks and balances" so that the country would provide reasonable equilibrium of ALL of its people and still remain within the context of the "magnum opus" written by the founding fathers.The U.S. was indeed set up as a republic. In recent years it has taken on more and more characteristics of a democracy.
Better to ignore me than abhor me.
“Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it” - Benjamin Franklin
"Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance" - George Bernard Shaw
Demagogue: A leader who makes use of popular prejudices, false claims and promises in order to gain power.
Technical Watch Subscriptions
Posted 10 February 2007 - 05:45 PM
Posted 10 February 2007 - 06:04 PM
The same sh^t with the euro, ruble, yen and so on..., stocks. No place to hide. Right now I prefer the rubles CD, arts, gold/platinum coins and real estate better than something in the greenbacks....
Posted 10 February 2007 - 06:21 PM
Not only European, but world wide as well. In fact, we still see this today in many parts of the globe.Only landed males of European ancestry were allowed to vote - the idea was that this would mean only an educated group would have voting authority.
No doubt about it. The Bible is loaded with such documentation.The only problem is that of human nature. Like all systems, communist, democratic, whatever, it was gamed, as people became interested in exploiting the system for personal gain.
Actually, it wasn't so much the slavery issue that eventually led to Civil War, but like virtually every war since the dawn of time, it was economically based. In this case, cotton was the number one commodity of the time and sustained much of the Federal Government's coffers with tariffs and such, with the slavery issue a direct by-product of this same commodity and simply produced the emotionalism for the masses take sides.Largely because we have had no internal conflict since the Civil War, these sorts have been able to fully entrench all government offices for personal gain, and business has learned to do the same.
I don't know if I would go as far as to say it's "ossified". I see it more as "ever adapting" in which something like communism doesn't allow.There is nothing wrong with the US system, it has simply ossified, like the soviet union, and allowed the corrupt few to control the entire process.
Better to ignore me than abhor me.
“Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it” - Benjamin Franklin
"Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance" - George Bernard Shaw
Demagogue: A leader who makes use of popular prejudices, false claims and promises in order to gain power.
Technical Watch Subscriptions
Posted 10 February 2007 - 06:51 PM
Posted 10 February 2007 - 07:28 PM
As I say it: People are funnier than anybody.Humans, got to love 'em! Fib
Edited by Rogerdodger, 10 February 2007 - 07:29 PM.
Posted 10 February 2007 - 08:04 PM