I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

You shush. Have a hot dog, a beer, and a sparkler.

what_now: You shush. Have a hot dog, a beer, and a sparkler.

I don't think my homeowners association would allow something like that.

Weaver95: I don't think my homeowners association would allow something like that.

*snarf*

I see your point, but you voluntarily chose to enter into a contract..

No. Stop. this is the 4th of July thread, and it shouldn't have political fights unless you're a Tory.

Anywho, I'm off to watch a friggin boat turn around , because sometimes you do silly things to make other people happy.

Happy 4th everyone.

Weaver95: just my .02 cents.

Your two/one hundredths of a cent are quite valuable these days

;)

/doesn't feel very "free" most of the time

This got greenlit? It's a repeat from 1776.

Man, that King guy sounds like a real douchebag. I hope they voted him out of office.

Weaver95: what_now: You shush. Have a hot dog, a beer, and a sparkler.

I don't think my homeowners association would allow something like that.

Thread over.

John Adams: Mark me, Franklin... if we give in on this issue, posterity will never forgive us.

Dr. Benjamin Franklin: That's probably true, but we won't hear a thing, we'll be long gone. Besides, what would posterity think we were? Demi-gods? We're men, no more no less, trying to get a nation started against greater odds than a more generous God would have allowed. First things first, John. Independence; America. If we don't secure that, what difference will the rest make?

Sum Dum Gai: This got greenlit? It's a repeat from 1776.

I think it appeared as a newsflash in a "if Fark had existed back in ..." photoshop contest.

when i brought up the phrase "...and the pursuit of happiness" in a gay marriage debate here on fark, a fark "conservative" told me straight-faced that the key word there is "pursuit" - as in, "all y'all gheys can pursue equality all you want - but nobody's saying you're actually gonna get it!"

UNC_Samurai: John Adams: Mark me, Franklin... if we give in on this issue, posterity will never forgive us.

Dr. Benjamin Franklin: That's probably true, but we won't hear a thing, we'll be long gone. Besides, what would posterity think we were? Demi-gods? We're men, no more no less, trying to get a nation started against greater odds than a more generous God would have allowed. First things first, John. Independence; America. If we don't secure that, what difference will the rest make?

John Adams: lol

Site farked?

Like Michael Jackson, the American revolution was influential and important even if its declining years left later generations wondering what all the fuss was about.

Thomas Jefferson was a godless Commie.

But I'm happy, because I'm going to a friend's house in the middle of nowhere, and I got a shiatton of fireworks for cheap as hell (finally, an upside to the recession), her dad bought mortars, and we're grilling burgers and dogs. Promises to be a good day.

I'd like to highlight this portion of the declaration for all people out there who feel we are exceptional to the point where we can insult other countries and hate on the UN and generally dismiss all foreign criticism:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

I won't listen to anything that Thomas Hussein Jefferson has to say until I see a birth certificate.

F-bear

He got a special clause in the constitution allowing him to be president despite not being born a United States citizen.

*Except for negroes and women.

kronicfeld: *Except for negroes and women.

and the gheys
and in certain cases, mesicans, japs, chinks, wops, spics, jews, and greasers.

You have not experienced Jefferson until you have read him in the original Klingon

Weaver95

I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

In addition to the "offical" Founding Fathers, the American Revolution was fomented in large part by some men of whom most Americans have never heard. They would approve of those concepts, I think.

Here is a partial list, for any who would like to learn more:

William Livingston
William Smith, Junior
John Morin Scott
John Lamb
Alexander McDougall
Isaac Sears
Donald Campbell
Peter Livingston

And anyone who thinks our Congress is bad now should check out the Continental Congress.

/But don't bother with this today, folks, have a happy Fourth and enjoy the fireworks, assuming your town can still afford them.

You go, Tommy!

I (technically) work for Thomas Jefferson, as he is a permanent leading Rector of the institution I work for. 'course, he's been worm food for 180 years, but still.

what_now: No. Stop. this is the 4th of July thread, and it shouldn't have political fights unless you're a Tory.

God save the Queen! Never forget!

Just another blog rant from the fringe and it looks like they only got a handful of people to sign their petition.

Weaver95: I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

Here's my take. We are free. We are most likely the most "free" nation on Earth. Or, close to.

Ok, so yeah- DUI checkpoints, drug laws, permits all that- I understand you. But all of the core freedoms (speech, etc.) are in place and defended well. Yeah, its not perfect, but that's not my point...

The problem is the groundwork is there now for those freedoms to instantly be taken away. We're not necessarily becoming facist, a dictatorship, or a theocracy. But the *groundwork* is there for that to happen- over a long-ish period of time- if shiat hits the fan one of these decades.

THAT'S what the founding fathers wanted to avoid. And THAT'S what people don't understand.

Yeah, all these "protections" help us in the near-term. But the system of the government to quickly put a stop to nearly everything in the long term is scary. And people don't give a crap about that.

Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

What about reconciling a slave-owning abolitionist that was screwing one of the people he owned and fathering children by her all while believing that mixing races was a "degredation", unpatriotic, and a disservice to humanity?

At no point in our nation's history has there been some idyllic "golden-era" where everything was perfect. We are much better off than most any other country on the planet. And contrary to what you may think, the founding fathers were not perfect, nor was the time period they lived in. There are many things we can do better, and on many issues, the country regresses from time to time. But we are generally pretty well off. To complain that we are not 'free', or that somehow the founding fathers would spin in their graves at current society, is just ignorant.

YouWinAgainGravity: At no point in our nation's history has there been some idyllic "golden-era" where everything was perfect.

We came pretty close with the Era of Good Feelings.

"we'll have our cake...and eat it too!!!"

-the united states of america...1776-2009.

don't kid yourselves.

you'll never be 'more free' than you are at this moment in time.

Bauer:
you'll never be 'more free' than you are at this moment in time.

It's 'cause I'm not wearing pants.

/salutes

In case anyone was wondering, the USS Constitution is boring, and being the Navy would SUUUUUUCK, as they stack the sailors up like cordwood.


/went to see old ship
//BBQing soon.
///pleasepleasepleaspleaseplease don't rain.

this is why the 'war on drugs' and the 'war on terror' are doomed to fail.

-and they may also take america with them.

you cannot protect a free society by force without falling into apathy and oppression.

9/11 must be forgotten.

-and forgiven.

we must move on!

honor them...but do not worship them.

let's not get into the total hypocrisy that is "the american illegal drug policy".

-add shiat...and stir.

"For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:"

2 tips to lose stomach fat.

Forgot about that part.

Wow, this is really old news.



Welcome to 1776 subby.

FlashHarry: when i brought up the phrase "...and the pursuit of happiness" in a gay marriage debate here on fark, a fark "conservative" told me straight-faced that the key word there is "pursuit" - as in, "all y'all gheys can pursue equality all you want - but nobody's saying you're actually gonna get it!"

It does not say pursuit of equality, it says pursuit of happiness.

Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

/golf clap

pursuit of happiness, results are not guaranteed!

America is the best place in the world. All you stinky foreigners can SUCK IT!

penthesilea...pants are for the weak.

i agree.

-naked is...as naked does.

There's no hate like revolutionary hate.

As it is my country's 233rd birthday and my 24th birthday, I'm going to be drinking a whole lot for the both of us.

Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.
If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.
just my .02 cents.

006andahalf: kronicfeld: *Except for negroes and women.

and the gheys
and in certain cases, mesicans, japs, chinks, wops, spics, jews, and greasers.


Hey, don't forget us Micks.

Sum Dum Gai: This got greenlit? It's a repeat from 1776.

I kept looking for the joke in the headline. Realized the joke was on me. Oops...

Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

Came in to say something like this. Well said.

If I don't believe in a Creator, do I still have certain unalienable rights?

Bauer: 9/11 must be forgotten.

-and forgiven.

Forgotten? No nation should forget such an attack on their own soil. We were not at war. Civilians were killed. We need to remember what happened.

That does not mean we live our lives in fear. We remember Pearl Harbor, but I'm pretty sure we rebuilt the harbor. Not a freakin' exhorbitant, useless monument.

Forgiven? Someday, perhaps, but not today.

/rant over
//this is a July 4 thread, I know

006andahalf: kronicfeld: *Except for negroes and women.

and the gheys
and in certain cases, mesicans, japs, chinks, wops, spics, jews, and greasers.

you forgot native americans, ya know the people that were here 16000 years before the US.

buzzvert: If I don't believe in a Creator, do I still have certain unalienable rights?

well..since the Creator still believes in you, i'd say 'yes'.

What's fascinating is that the "life,liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" thing was lifted from the French, but was "life,liberty,property".

So you have no right to property in the USA, but have the right to something as vague as "the pursuit of happiness".

Happy 4th everyone!

buzzvert: If I don't believe in a Creator, do I still have certain unalienable rights?

Of course. Does the sun care whether you believe in it? It shines on the believers and nonbelievers alike.

Lord Snoopy's G.P.E.H.: There's no hate like revolutionary hate.



/happy birthday y'all

unalienable Rights

Weaver95: with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

They managed to reconcile slavery. I'm with what_now, there's 364 days for political nihilism. Today is a good day to set that aside. We've never been a perfect republic, and we never will be. Now go set something on fire.

They got Thomas Paine, we get:

Happy birthday America!

We all know our governmnent isn't perfect but that isn't for lack of effort but raher because it is made up of people who themselves aren't perfect. But we try.

For today let us celebrate who we are and what we have become. Let us celebrate our history and our future. The birth of our nation was a wonderful thing that many paid the ultimate price to accomplish. Let us remember those who died so that we may enjoy freedom and the right to pursue happiness.

With all its problems, still no place I'd rather live.

/time to get drunk on piss beer and burn things
//just like the founders would have wanted

Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

Freedom is an illusion. It's just how much they let us think we have.

Hells yeah I said that.

buzzvert: If I don't believe in a Creator, do I still have certain unalienable rights?

Apparently the Creator believes in you, so you still have the rights.

evilgreg: Of course. Does the sun care whether you believe in it? It shines on the believers and nonbelievers alike.

Well, that's the problem... the whole statement assumes the existence of a Creator, which quite frankly, can't stand up in a court of law due to lack of even circumstantial evidence.

Jefferson: *licks stamp, drops Declaration of Independence in mail box*

Slave: Do Massa want tea now?

Jefferson: *does Scooby-Do double-take* "Yoinks!"

That night--

Jefferson: "Dear France, here are my "Notes on Virginia". About that all "men" are created equal bit in the DOI? The 100 or so that I own might not quite be men after all..."

"We were not at war"

really?

our foreign policy begs to differ.

since ww2, and probably well before that...our 'foreign policy' has been to wage a covert war of conquest and empire.

where have you been?

-on the sleepboat?

it's business as usual...under the dome.

DarnoKonrad: Weaver95: with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

They managed to reconcile slavery. I'm with what_now, there's 364 days for political nihilism. Today is a good day to set that aside. We've never been a perfect republic, and we never will be. Now go set something on fire.

I have lighter fluid, charcoal in a pyramid, have been drinking for an hour, and the guests aren't showing up till 2.


If I have eyebrows on Monday it will be a farking miracle.

Mentat: what_now: No. Stop. this is the 4th of July thread, and it shouldn't have political fights unless you're a Tory.

God save the Queen! Never forget!

Yes, by all means. Save "her".

Weaver95: today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town.

Those checkpoints are mislabeled, they are really "4th amendment circumvention checkpoints", look at the stats of the people that are arrested for being under the influence vs everything else, then consider the kickbacks they get for each towed car, as well as the fines they get and everything else. Its a fund raiser and has nothing to do with drivers under the influence.

Normally to pull you over they have to have a reason (or make one up) and cannot ask you to produce documentation without probable cause. But at a DUI checkpoint those 4th amendment rules go out the window. Given how frequently they arrest people for things that have nothing to do with being under the influence I think that we should make a conscious effort to properly label them as "4th amendment circumvention checkpoints".

Some references to what I was saying (new window)

F-bear: I won't listen to anything that Thomas Hussein Jefferson has to say until I see a birth certificate.

AND he's Muslim as all hell.

006andahalf: kronicfeld: *Except for negroes and women.

and the gheys
and in certain cases, mesicans, japs, chinks, wops, spics, jews, and greasers.

¨Hey, come on now. If you kick out the gooks, the next thing, you have to kick out the chinks, the spicks, the spooks and kikes. All that's gonna be left in here are a couple of brain-dead rednecks. And what fun would that be?¨

buzzvert: If I don't believe in a Creator, do I still have certain unalienable rights?

Then you were at the very least created by your parents, and they endowed you with certain unalienable rights.

/and a very small penis

Lack of "Fascist" PITA thermometer in this thread is surprising.

what_now: I have lighter fluid, charcoal in a pyramid,

Once you get one of these, you'll never go back to hydrocarbons (new window)

Tho it's not nearly as exciting.

"self evident then?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1Txi1687wo

//best thing on tv in years

buzzvert: If I don't believe in a Creator, do I still have certain unalienable rights?

actually, YES. Not believing in a Creator IS one of your inalienable rights. Go figure.

In 2001, I went to New York City with my parents and brother for a dance convention during the week of the 4th of July. While Mom and my brother hung out with dancer-folk, Dad and I saw all the sights, including the Manhattan Library.

On display was a handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson, himself. Underlined in red were the passages cut by the Second Continental Congress. Jefferson had copied out his original and marked the cut sections like DVD extras and then mailed them out to his friends.

Even at the age I was, I could tell from these 'DVD extras' of democracy that any neoconservative touting Jefferson as their movement's godfather had clearly not read his work. Just as John Adams had moments of blazingly liberal thought and moments of near-fascist thought policing, Thomas Jefferson's range of political opinion was a wide and a varied one, marked with genius, hypocrisy and the sort of little mistakes all humans make.

The point my father made to me at the age of 15, in our nation's first makeshift capital, was that the men who founded our country were just that, men. Mortals called upon to do an extraordinary job, yes, but still men, fallible, mortal and with the capacity to hold a range of opinions such that no political faction save that of one person could hold them without disagreement in some quarter. The Federalist Papers were right in that the cure for factional politics was, simply, more factions within each us-or-them side of the oversimplified coin. I still have the copy my dad gave me that Fourth of July on the Brooklyn Bridge, where we had mistakenly gone to watch fireworks.

And it was thus, two months later when all nationalist, phony-patriotic and national-security hell broke loose, I was able to recognize that my country was still great, despite its' sudden descent into paranoia and madness. America is, after all, full of mortals, and the sooner we get past our factions to the people within, the sooner we can aspire to greatness beyond our mortality.

Bauer: -naked is...as naked does.

Dashes do not start off sentences. Capital letters start off sentences.

Please tell me you just don't know any better. The alternative would be a failure at being pretentious. Obvious ploy is obvious.

"The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom."

-John Locke (from whom Jefferson cribbed that whole "Life, Liberty, etc." business)

Weaver95: just my .02 cents.

You might be able to get a job at Verizon.

Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.


Just keep rubbing Lincoln's head on those pennies.

Y'all wanted a strong Fed and you got it.

No point whining about it now.

Bauer: "We were not at war"

really?

our foreign policy begs to differ.

since ww2, and probably well before that...our 'foreign policy' has been to wage a covert war of conquest and empire.

where have you been?

-on the sleepboat?

it's business as usual...under the dome.

Eat an M-80 and die.

I thought the original line was ¨life, liberty and the pursuit of property¨

CommiePuddin: /and a very small penis

Well it USED to be small...

Weaver95

just my .02 cents.

I'd like to disagree with you......I'd like to, but I can't.

what_now
In case anyone was wondering, the USS Constitution is boring, and being the Navy would SUUUUUUCK,

Yes, it does.

evilgreg
Not a freakin' exhorbitant, useless monument.

The USS Arizona would like to give you a big old bag to keep all your fail in.

iceeofmn 2009-07-04 01:14:08 PM
"Happy birthday America!

We all know our governmnent isn't perfect but that isn't for lack of effort but raher because it is made up of people who themselves aren't perfect. But we try.

For today let us celebrate who we are and what we have become. Let us celebrate our history and our future. The birth of our nation was a wonderful thing that many paid the ultimate price to accomplish. Let us remember those who died so that we may enjoy freedom and the right to pursue happiness."

-no.

we are a farking joke.

and you don't get it.

that's "our" problem.

too many innocent people and blind drones gave their lives for a 'concept'.

-a concept they knew little about.

a concept that knew the rules...but did not play fair from the start.

we are the united states of little league baseball.

and your snowflake sucks...but made the all-star team.

and my 'stud' of a 14 year old, didn't.

-because he's not a mexican or a hooked up coaches kid.

there's your 'america'.

Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

Amen brother.

Bauer: "We were not at war"

really?

our foreign policy begs to differ.

since ww2, and probably well before that...our 'foreign policy' has been to wage a covert war of conquest and empire.

where have you been?

-on the sleepboat?

it's business as usual...under the dome.

where is this empire that we have built? I don't see it. Where are these lands that we have conquered??

corporate mustache: 006andahalf: kronicfeld: *Except for negroes and women.

and the gheys
and in certain cases, mesicans, japs, chinks, wops, spics, jews, and greasers.


Hey, don't forget us Micks.

You also left out the Catholics.

You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.
-Abbie Hoffman

corporate mustache: 006andahalf: kronicfeld: *Except for negroes and women.

and the gheys
and in certain cases, mesicans, japs, chinks, wops, spics, jews, and greasers.


Hey, don't forget us Micks.

Does not approve

/hot like ol' T.J.'s nappy-headed side action

SpiderQueenDemon: Just as John Adams had moments of blazingly liberal thought and moments of near-fascist thought policing, Thomas Jefferson's range of political opinion was a wide and a varied one, marked with genius, hypocrisy and the sort of little mistakes all humans make.

The point my father made to me at the age of 15, in our nation's first makeshift capital, was that the men who founded our country were just that, men. Mortals called upon to do an extraordinary job, yes, but still men, fallible, mortal and with the capacity to hold a range of opinions such that no political faction save that of one person could hold them without disagreement in some quarter. The Federalist Papers were right in that the cure for factional politics was, simply, more factions within each us-or-them side of the oversimplified coin. I still have the copy my dad gave me that Fourth of July on the Brooklyn Bridge, where we had mistakenly gone to watch fireworks.

And it was thus, two months later when all nationalist, phony-patriotic and national-security hell broke loose, I was able to recognize that my country was still great, despite its' sudden descent into paranoia and madness. America is, after all, full of mortals, and the sooner we get past our factions to the people within, the sooner we can aspire to greatness beyond our mortality.

This is very well said. Someone should sponsor you for TotalFark and save you 5 bucks.

The founding fathers had the same disagreements about the role of government that we have today, and the constitution is surprisingly modern in that respect. What it says about the rights of individuals and govt. still apply to what we are doing today. Too many people are willing to pretend that the constitution is an anachronism to suit whatever political agenda they are promoting. It's not an anachronism, it's just imperfect, which is why they created a mechanism for changing it.

So if you don't like it, work to get it changed. But don't sit around demonizing or glorifying the people that created it, or trying to argue them into irrelevance. It won't work - these were an exceptional group of people who created an exceptional document that will remain so for centuries to come.

Wraithbane: Yes, it does.

Did you have to sleep in a little room with 160000 other dudes in stacks of three?

because that looks like it sucked.

/was on old destroyer from WW2.

buzzvert: If I don't believe in a Creator, do I still have certain unalienable rights?

What, you had no parents?

what_now: Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

You shush. Have a hot dog, a beer, and a sparkler.

Watch some reality tv. Do not question your leaders.

Milkbeer: That's not true, a hispanic women have better judgement than a white male.

Apparently they have a better grasp of singular vs. plural nouns.

Damn you all are buzzkills, can't we just BBQ and watch baseball and listen to Sinatra today?

Weaver95 [TotalFark] Quote 2009-07-04 10:31:06 AM
I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.


Obama and the Democrats are in power. If it is okay for them, you should unquestionably accept it. the Declaration of Independence is just a piece of paper that is outdated. Move along.

Unknown_Poltroon: what_now: Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

You shush. Have a hot dog, a beer, and a sparkler.

Watch some reality tv. Do not question your leaders.

I spend most of my employer's time questioning my leaders on this website. It's July 4th.

It's a celebration, biatches.

downstairs: But all of the core freedoms (speech, etc.) are in place and defended well.

You really believe that? Ok, lets review. The first amendment starts out with "Congress shall pass no law ..." it does not say some laws, it does not say a law that is in the interest of society, it does not say that commercial speech is allowed to be regulated, it says no law. Yet there are laws, lots of them in fact.

FCC regulates what can be said/shown on tv/radio
FDA regulates medical claims (cheerios are going to be classified a drug for saying oat lowers cholesterol even though the claim is not in dispute, its a medical claim so FDA permission must be paid for)
FTC regulates advertising
SEC regulates comments in investing related things
FBI investigates some other types of speech
prior restraint allows them to ban certain subjects entirely (popular mechanics wanted to publish how to make a nuke in the 1970s and couldnt because that is covered by prior restraint)
DEA goes after people who advertise gardening items even if those items are not illegal or advertised for illegal purposes (mainly hydroponic sellers)
Biden and Feinstein passed legislation years ago that limits the ability to discuss making fireworks (or really large fireworks which are sometimes called bombs)
You have had several failed attempts to pass the CDA
ITAR restricted the press aspect of cryptography to a great degree, now to a minor degree (electronic copies are sketchy, paper printed copies are accepted)
There are several more examples.

If you want these laws, there is a ratification section in the constitution to allow for these laws, the reality is that they are not needed. If someone advertises fradulently, then you can go after them for the underlying fraud without going after them for the speech related to the fraud. With the FDA stuff, note I was not talking about the medication only the advertisement/printed materials about the medication or a condition, and if someone is selling a medicine that can still be regulated without going after them for the speech part of it. Most of these things can be covered by other laws yet they sought to ban types of speech, so that is not entirely in check.

Look at the 4th amendment violations in DUI checkpoints (I posted a link in a few posts above this). There are other 4th amendment violations that constantly are happening.

About half the states are seizing unused gift cards and keeping the money as a fund raiser, this violates the 5th amendment "...nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

The second amendment has a lot of "infringement" in it, even though it clearly states "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".

And the 10th amendment is routinely violated, this is the one that says that the federal government is the smallest least powerful government in the nation and the states have more powers and rights than the feds do. this is of course to prevent a tyrannical government.

I have not even gotten into the other 17 amendments or the body of the constitution itself (note 21 cancels out 18 so you could say 15 others but meh).

So if those core freedoms are in tact, how much has to be taken away before they no longer are in tact? They are not followed as originally written.

rufus-t-firefly: Milkbeer: That's not true, a hispanic women have better judgement than a white male.

Apparently they have a better grasp of singular vs. plural nouns.

Not really. Listen to some as they speak.

nicksteel: Bauer: "We were not at war"

really?

our foreign policy begs to differ.

since ww2, and probably well before that...our 'foreign policy' has been to wage a covert war of conquest and empire.

where have you been?

-on the sleepboat?

it's business as usual...under the dome.

where is this empire that we have built? I don't see it. Where are these lands that we have conquered??

FlashHarry: when i brought up the phrase "...and the pursuit of happiness" in a gay marriage debate here on fark, a fark "conservative" told me straight-faced that the key word there is "pursuit" - as in, "all y'all gheys can pursue equality all you want - but nobody's saying you're actually gonna get it!"

Question from the audience: How can you tell someone "told you straight-faced" in a text chat?

saborlas...capital letters are the vanity of man.

and you can suck it.

-the way i roll...is the way i roll.

my artistic grace on fark will not cease due to your weak prose.

-so there.

sit in judgement of your own hypocrisy.

/and in the 'flavour' of the 'iranian revolutionary' threads...

when you disagree with me...you are trolling me!!!

-stop it.

neenerist: Lord Snoopy's G.P.E.H.: There's no hate like revolutionary hate.


'cause a revolutionary hate don't stop:

Bauer: saborlas...capital letters are the vanity of man.
and you can suck it.
-the way i roll...is the way i roll.
my artistic grace on fark will not cease due to your weak prose.
-so there.
sit in judgement of your own hypocrisy.
/and in the 'flavour' of the 'iranian revolutionary' threads...
when you disagree with me...you are trolling me!!!
-stop it.

Whargarrbl whargarr .... Flavour? FLAVOUR?

Hulk Smash!

jjorsett: What, you had no parents?

Note the big "C". those nitpicking the separate of church and state should probably start with this little snippet. I agree that we are all, by the very nature of our existence, due the freedoms listed... however there's a lot of people that take that "Creator" line and try to use it against Islam, against non-christians, and pretty much anyone that doesn't believe in the "Big C".

So there was a loud boom his morning and now there is a crater in the middle of the street. I'm more pissed that those kids can get better firewarks than me than the hole in the street!

"where is this empire that we have built? I don't see it. Where are these lands that we have conquered??"...nicksteel, 2009, farker.

-remember this day boys...for it will be yours for all time.

wtf!?!

i'll have what your smoking.

trixter_nl: 006andahalf: kronicfeld: *Except for negroes and women.

and the gheys
and in certain cases, mesicans, japs, chinks, wops, spics, jews, and greasers.

you forgot native americans, ya know the people that were here 16000 years before the US.

Nice try, troll. The Earth is only 6,000 years old.

We've become that which we fought against.

Grouchy Old Bear: FlashHarry: when i brought up the phrase "...and the pursuit of happiness" in a gay marriage debate here on fark, a fark "conservative" told me straight-faced that the key word there is "pursuit" - as in, "all y'all gheys can pursue equality all you want - but nobody's saying you're actually gonna get it!"

Question from the audience: How can you tell someone "told you straight-faced" in a text chat?

Because he wasn't making the ghey face while he typed it?

Dawg47: trixter_nl: 006andahalf: kronicfeld: *Except for negroes and women.

and the gheys
and in certain cases, mesicans, japs, chinks, wops, spics, jews, and greasers.

you forgot native americans, ya know the people that were here 16000 years before the US.

Nice try, troll. The Earth is only 6,000 years old.

oh yeah I forgot, after all the hebrew word 'yom' means only day (its the word in the original texts that was translated to 'day' in genesis 1:1-7). I should follow those 15th century bishops a bit more when they try to predict the end of the world.

-aidan...lol.

what's wrong with seatbelt legislation?

American Freedom:

I have the Freedom to drive 100 miles down to Mexico, pick up some Mexican fireworks, drive back home and set them off illegally to celebrate get arrested for my freedoms. God Bless... Mexico?

At least North Korea is showing spirit, Seven fireworks launched just for US!

at80eighty: what's wrong with seatbelt legislation?

many people claim that it takes away their ability to choose just to make insurance companies happier and more profitable. I think they are silly, there should be no choice in what you do with your life when corporate profits are at stake, if it were not for large corporations and their lobby money we would fall into anarchy with a government incapable of passing a single law. so we are far better off helping corporations bottom line no matter the cost to personal choice, personal income, or personal property.

what_now
Did you have to sleep in a little room with 160000 other dudes in stacks of three?

On my last ship I was in the Engineering Department, our berthing was a room about 50' x 30'. In that 1500 sq. ft. there were 72 of us. And in the news was the whining and moaning about prison overcrowding. We weren't sympathetic.

trixter_nl: If you want these laws, there is a ratification section in the constitution to allow for these laws, the reality is that they are not needed. If someone advertises fradulently, then you can go after them for the underlying fraud without going after them for the speech related to the fraud. With the FDA stuff, note I was not talking about the medication only the advertisement/printed materials about the medication or a condition, and if someone is selling a medicine that can still be regulated without going after them for the speech part of it. Most of these things can be covered by other laws yet they sought to ban types of speech, so that is not entirely in check.

The first amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

you're claiming that by regulating medicinal claims about goods for sale, the FDA is violating the 1st, am-i-right?


The FDA was originally mandated by a law in 1906 to protect the public from adulterated and misbranded goods. So you are saying that law is unconstitutional. but you should realize that it was created to protect people from patent medicine salesmen who were doing things like telling mothers to give colicky babies potions full of things like chloroform and alcohol, killing some of them (it's still happening in Africa, you can google to find it). I don't think claiming something deadly as safe for people to consume is protected free speech. Likewise, making false calims of effectiveness is wrong, even if the medicine is harmless. Please make that argument a little better, if you can. It will get shot down, much like yelling "fire" in a movie theater.


And in spite of the FDA, you can turn on your TV and see all sorts of things that are supposed to give men bigger penises and melt fat away (not both at once). I don't think the FDA is infringing on your freedom of speech much right now.

buzzvert: evilgreg: Of course. Does the sun care whether you believe in it? It shines on the believers and nonbelievers alike.

Well, that's the problem... the whole statement assumes the existence of a Creator, which quite frankly, can't stand up in a court of law due to lack of even circumstantial evidence.

I didn't argue that point one way or the other. The question seemed to assume the possible (at least) presence of a Creator, so I answered on that basis. :)

Wraithbane: evilgreg
Not a freakin' exhorbitant, useless monument.

The USS Arizona would like to give you a big old bag to keep all your fail in.

Fair enough. (Fail enough?)

So let's rebuild the Twin Towers with a monument on the grounds. How's that?

TheBigBadCrystallineEntity: Bauer: "We were not at war"

really?

our foreign policy begs to differ.

since ww2, and probably well before that...our 'foreign policy' has been to wage a covert war of conquest and empire.

where have you been?

-on the sleepboat?

it's business as usual...under the dome.

"Eat an M-80 and die."

-you should be banned for that.

wishing me death, and all.

i've never wished anyone death on fark.

The_Philosopher_King: corporate mustache: 006andahalf: kronicfeld: *Except for negroes and women.

and the gheys
and in certain cases, mesicans, japs, chinks, wops, spics, jews, and greasers.


Hey, don't forget us Micks.

You also left out the Catholics.

Don't forget Polacks!

/Cześć
//Not Polish, and don't hate them

"Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide." - John Adams


And we call America a democracy? IT'S A REPUBLIC!

Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

Wow, Boobies is a troll. I'm impressed.

Grouchy Old Bear: Question from the audience: How can you tell someone "told you straight-faced" in a text chat?

The key word there is "pursuit" - as in, all you queers can pursue equality all you want - but nobody's saying you're actually gonna get it!

Animatronik: trixter_nl: If you want these laws, there is a ratification section in the constitution to allow for these laws, the reality is that they are not needed. If someone advertises fradulently, then you can go after them for the underlying fraud without going after them for the speech related to the fraud. With the FDA stuff, note I was not talking about the medication only the advertisement/printed materials about the medication or a condition, and if someone is selling a medicine that can still be regulated without going after them for the speech part of it. Most of these things can be covered by other laws yet they sought to ban types of speech, so that is not entirely in check.

The first amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

you're claiming that by regulating medicinal claims about goods for sale, the FDA is violating the 1st, am-i-right?


The FDA was originally mandated by a law in 1906 to protect the public from adulterated and misbranded goods.


Ahh but the claims spoken or printed and the product that may or may not be tainted are different. That is the point I was trying to make. They can regulate the physical product without violating the first amendment, but the speech clearly says "congress shall pass no law.." not "congress shall pass no law except when it comes to things they think are really important".


So you are saying that law is unconstitutional. but you should realize that it was created to protect people from patent medicine salesmen who were doing things like telling mothers to give colicky babies potions full of things like chloroform and alcohol, killing some of them (it's still happening in Africa, you can google to find it).

Again you confuse selling a bad product (not covered) with speech about that product (which is covered). There is a big difference between the two, something that should be obvious, but it seems it is not.


And in spite of the FDA, you can turn on your TV and see all sorts of things that are supposed to give men bigger penises and melt fat away (not both at once). I don't think the FDA is infringing on your freedom of speech much right now.

read those closer, they have disclaimers because of the FDA stuff, and market it as a supplement because those are unregulated. If they cross the line and say that they are doing something that diagnoses or treats a medical condition then they have to get permission. A small penis or a fat ass are not currently listed as a medical condition, but that can instantly change if the FDA decides to classify them as such.

If they make a claim like cheerios did with "cheerios lowers chelosterol" then they are making a medical claim and have to get approved by the FDA for the product and have their speech regulated until they get government permission to make such a claim. Note in this case the FDA does not dispute the claim at all, but because the statement is made, the FDA wants millions of dollars to test whether or not cheerios contain oat, and if it does then they would be allowed to do that, although they would then be classified as a medicine not a breakfast cereal. Cheerios has been ordered to no longer say they lower cholesterol, even though the FDA admits that the claim is true.

Again my point is not that the products should not be regulated, it is that the speech/press should not be until there is a constitutional amendment to allow it. If a dangerous product is sold you can still go after people for that, without going after them for what they said about it. It would require 2 things though, 1. following the constitution instead of ignoring it when its not convenient, and 2. actually understanding that there is a difference between the product and the speech/press about that product.

Weaver95: what_now: You shush. Have a hot dog, a beer, and a sparkler.

I don't think my homeowners association would allow something like that.

You got me laughing.

Good one.

Wraithbane: evilgreg
Not a freakin' exhorbitant, useless monument.

The USS Arizona would like to give you a big old bag to keep all your fail in.

I wouldn't call the monument at the Arizona 'exorbitant'. It is certainly not anything like what is being constructed in NYC...

trixter_nl: many people claim that it takes away their ability to choose just to make insurance companies happier and more profitable.

haha , thing is I'm pretty lax about buckling up , but even I think its just a matter of your own personal safety - corporate profits are just independent of that

i love you, filter.

-i really do.

This is the first 4th of July I am ashamed to be a american. We have handed this country to a statist marxist facist and only God knows if it will be recognizable in fouryears. God bless america, but I am afraid i'll be saying "God protect america" within a month or two. and with sara palin stepping down i dont know if anyone will protect us.

trixter_nl: it is that the speech/press should not be until there is a constitutional amendment to allow it.

the supreme court says these kinds of rules are legal, and that the first amendment is not to be interpreted 100% literally. so by definition, they aren't unconstitutional.

Sygerrik: This is the first 4th of July I am ashamed to be a american. We have handed this country to a statist marxist facist and only God knows if it will be recognizable in fouryears. God bless america, but I am afraid i'll be saying "God protect america" within a month or two. and with sara palin stepping down i dont know if anyone will protect us.

2/10. If you had left out the Sarah Palin remark, you may have had a few bites...

MrPoopyPants: With all its problems, still no place I'd rather live.

/time to get drunk on piss beer and burn things
//just like the founders would have wanted

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

Benjamin Franklin

Fark Yeah! Happy Fourth of July everyone!

rocinante721: Farking hilarious!

Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

Weaver95 I can't help but read your post and think of Steppenwolf's Monster/Suicide/America. Hell, I can't read any of your posts and not think of that song.

If Fox News was around in 1776 they would be deriding the founding fathers for being LIBERALS.

at80eighty: trixter_nl: many people claim that it takes away their ability to choose just to make insurance companies happier and more profitable.

haha , thing is I'm pretty lax about buckling up , but even I think its just a matter of your own personal safety - corporate profits are just independent of that

if its the government's job to protect you then they should make all corners round, they should outlaw cancer (it kills more people than cars!) they should do a lot more, and really it would not be fun to live in a place where you are protected from everything everywhere just because it might be dangerous. I personally believe that it is not the governments role to protect me from everything everywhere, I think that it is my personal responsibility to do that for myself. With that said I wear my seatbelt all the time. When you start saying someone else is responsible for you and your safety, then any time you are unsafe, you have someone to blame other than yourself for getting into that situation. this results in lawsuits, and people blaming video games and TV for children that have bad parents.

mrapier: Damn you all are buzzkills, can't we just BBQ and watch baseball and listen to Sinatra today?

HEAR HEAR

buzzvert: If I don't believe in a Creator, do I still have certain unalienable rights?

DNA is my Creator.

evilgreg: buzzvert: If I don't believe in a Creator, do I still have certain unalienable rights?

Of course. Does the sun care whether you believe in it? It shines on the believers and nonbelievers alike.

only you can measure and provide evidence for sunshine's existence.

/this is not the right thread for this argument.

YouWinAgainGravity: trixter_nl: it is that the speech/press should not be until there is a constitutional amendment to allow it.

the supreme court says these kinds of rules are legal, and that the first amendment is not to be interpreted 100% literally. so by definition, they aren't unconstitutional.

Yes, the court at one time also said that slaves were not whole people (Dredd), they said a lot of things that many wont agree with. Resting in the oligarchy that can change the constitution just because they said so (note their opinion that they are superior to the constitution and can change it without ratification appears nowhere in the constitution, the document that gives them their power).

If they can just interpret it however they want, why even have it? Why not just formally move to an oligarchy where they can decide on what freedoms people can have and if they change their minds at a later date you no longer have that freedom. In essence that is what we have, yet people insist they have guaranteed freedoms, when in fact they no longer do because people support the court reinterpreting the constitution at will.

So your argument that because the court said it, does not make it right.

Bauer: "where is this empire that we have built? I don't see it. Where are these lands that we have conquered??"...nicksteel, 2009, farker.

-remember this day boys...for it will be yours for all time.

wtf!?!

i'll have what your smoking.

I guess that means that you cannot answer my question. I didn't think you could. Not honestly.

Thing is...all people are not fundamentally equal. Some are disadvantaged from birth - physicaly, emotionally, financially. Some are just a whole lot dummer than others. Some become disadvantaged later. Some of this can be be fixed, some of it can't, even if you throw millions of dollars at it. Its better to not waste the money on a problem that cannot be fixed when you can use that money to help every one else compensate (be even stronger, better) because of those disadvantaged.

kronicfeld: *Except for negroes and women.

and the Irish

gadian: Thing is...all people are not fundamentally equal. Some are disadvantaged from birth - physicaly, emotionally, financially. Some are just a whole lot dummer than others. Some become disadvantaged later. Some of this can be be fixed, some of it can't, even if you throw millions of dollars at it. Its better to not waste the money on a problem that cannot be fixed when you can use that money to help every one else compensate (be even stronger, better) because of those disadvantaged.

missed the point completely, didn't you??

trixter_nl: So your argument that because the court said it, does not make it right.

i didn't say it was right or wrong, i said that if the supreme court says a law is constitutional, the it is. and it remains that way until the supreme court overrules itself, despite what some dude living in amsterdam with little knowledge of the judicial branch's role in government believes.

tomflry7 2009-07-04 02:02:46 PM
"If Fox News was around in 1776 they would be deriding the founding fathers for being LIBERALS."

or witches.

to achieve the level of democracy that they hoped for, without taking into consideration the corruption inherrant in any 'democracy'...would be seen by some as "magic" or witchcraft.

i'm surprised the constitution isn't in quatraines.

Tomflry7: If Fox News was around in 1776 they would be deriding the founding fathers for being LIBERALS.

Liberal-conservative is a nonsensical dichotomy to which I do not subscribe, but last time I checked, "the liberals" were generally for big government, relatively high taxes, and gun control. I'm not sure why you think they are so consistent with the American Revolution.

trixter_nl: pursuit of happiness, results are not guaranteed!

some settling of happiness may have occurred during shipping.
results vary. Stop pursuing happiness if you feel faint or dizzy.
Until you know how happiness will affect you, do not drive or operate heavy machinery.
Happiness is not intended as a substitute for justice.
Store in a cool, dry place. Do not look directly into happiness. Do not combine with nakedness at parties, as this can cause an unsafe reaction lasting 18 years.

gadian: Thing is...all people are not fundamentally equal. Some are disadvantaged from birth - physicaly, emotionally, financially. Some are just a whole lot dummer than others. Some become disadvantaged later. Some of this can be be fixed, some of it can't, even if you throw millions of dollars at it. Its better to not waste the money on a problem that cannot be fixed when you can use that money to help every one else compensate (be even stronger, better) because of those disadvantaged.

there is no guarantee that people will get equal results, the only guarantee for equality is that the law will treat them equal (14th amendment "equal protection under the law"). So the fact that people do not start out equal does not mean that there is any obligation to make them equal. Life is not fair, it is not the governments job to try to make it fair. A guarantee of the pursuit of happiness, does not guarantee that you will be happy.

/the reason it was changed from property to pursuit of happiness is fears over slavery, something that even the slave owning founding fathers did not want to guarantee

Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

Y'know, I understand what you're saying and all, but - as has been mentioned already - when the headline of this thread was written, the native population on this continent was on the road to the slaughterhouse, a large portion of the new population were f**king slaves, and over half the population was, among other things, unrepresented in government by virtue of not being allowed to vote.

So if by "we" you mean "white males," then yeah, I guess may have a point. If by "we" you mean "people in America," however, then we, as a whole, are decidedly MORE free in recent decades than any time before. There are certainly some bubbles in the wallpaper yet - and I'm certainly not defending any of the things you listed - but overall it's been progress. Yes, some of it has required some sacrifice on the part of white males. Suck it up.

/white male
/not guilty
/not selfish

Wraithbane: what_now
Did you have to sleep in a little room with 160000 other dudes in stacks of three?

On my last ship I was in the Engineering Department, our berthing was a room about 50' x 30'. In that 1500 sq. ft. there were 72 of us. And in the news was the whining and moaning about prison overcrowding. We weren't sympathetic.

Oh yes, being well paid to sleep in a room with a density of 0.048 people per square foot 8 hours a day for a few months a year while engaged in a rewarding, challenging occupation is MUCH WORSE than being forced to spend 20 hours a day in a room with twice that density, with no compensation and nothing to do, for the rest of your life.

CheekyMunky: So if by "we" you mean "white males," then yeah, I guess may have a point. If by "we" you mean "people in America," however, then we, as a whole, are decidedly MORE free in recent decades than any time before. There are certainly some bubbles in the wallpaper yet - and I'm certainly not defending any of the things you listed - but overall it's been progress. Yes, some of it has required some sacrifice on the part of white males. Suck it up.

/white male
/not guilty
/not selfish

No, no. Repeat after me: "I'm Whitey, and I apologize."

nicksteel: Bauer: "where is this empire that we have built? I don't see it. Where are these lands that we have conquered??"...nicksteel, 2009, farker.

-remember this day boys...for it will be yours for all time.

wtf!?!

i'll have what your smoking.

"I guess that means that you cannot answer my question. I didn't think you could. Not honestly."

-open you eyes and look around.

there's your short answer.

if you cannot acknowledge that the united states has covertly altered the governments of many, many foreign nations, for many, many years...in order to achieve a better vantage point (MONEY, LAND, WEALTH), then you are a god damned retard ill-informed.

and probably not worth the time to answer in any more depth than that.

-go read a book that the state didn't write for you.

seriously.

Pastor of Muppets: Sygerrik: This is the first 4th of July I am ashamed to be a american. We have handed this country to a statist marxist facist and only God knows if it will be recognizable in fouryears. God bless america, but I am afraid i'll be saying "God protect america" within a month or two. and with sara palin stepping down i dont know if anyone will protect us.

2/10. If you had left out the Sarah Palin remark, you may have had a few bites...

Agreed - I was 99% sure it was a troll, but the Sarah Palin note killed it (especially saying "I don't know if anyone will protect us")

YouWinAgainGravity: At no point in our nation's history has there been some idyllic "golden-era" where everything was perfect. We are much better off than most any other country on the planet. And contrary to what you may think, the founding fathers were not perfect, nor was the time period they lived in. There are many things we can do better, and on many issues, the country regresses from time to time. But we are generally pretty well off. To complain that we are not 'free', or that somehow the founding fathers would spin in their graves at current society, is just ignorant.

THIS: by God, THIS.

It's as good or as bad as we choose to see it. Get out of your basements. Leave all of the red and blue crap for a moment. Clear your head of the need to be snarky. For all of our faults, the United States is still the longest running experiment in personal liberty. There are many worse places to be. There may be a few better, but I don't believe that those other places have been as generally consistent as the United States.

/I feel better
//was still wasted on most of this crowd

YouWinAgainGravity: trixter_nl: So your argument that because the court said it, does not make it right.

i didn't say it was right or wrong, i said that if the supreme court says a law is constitutional, the it is. and it remains that way until the supreme court overrules itself, despite what some dude living in amsterdam with little knowledge of the judicial branch's role in government believes.

I actually know quite a bit about it, where I live at any given point in time does not bar me from knowledge nor does living in America guarantee that someone knows more about it, proof is in the fact that most americans cant even name the 3 branches of government let alone what they do.

Your argument that because the supreme court said that they are not required to follow the constitution but instead can rewrite it via interpretations (such as the first amendment is not a 100% guarantee but rather a suggestion open to the whim of SCOTUS) shows how little you actually know about their role - they are not allowed to legislate from the bench, they are not allowed to modify without ratification any part of the constitution just because they said they can. There is nothing in the constitution that allows them to do this.

The fact that you would bring in where my residency was at the time I created this account shows that you have no valid arguments for the point and are instead trying, weakly, to do an ad hominem attack rather than attacking the actual points made, too bad for you where someone chooses to live does not actually confer some understanding or take it away.

/citizen of the cherokee nation
//American citizen
///studied US law since 1992

We hold this truth to be self-evident: Equality for whoever the fark we choose based on retarded religion, prosperity for few.

/gay
//can't get married
///can't give blood
////can't adopt
//can't do shiat
//totally equal

gadian: Thing is...all people are not fundamentally equal. Some are disadvantaged from birth - physicaly, emotionally, financially. Some are just a whole lot dummer than others. Some become disadvantaged later. Some of this can be be fixed, some of it can't, even if you throw millions of dollars at it. Its better to not waste the money on a problem that cannot be fixed when you can use that money to help every one else compensate (be even stronger, better) because of those disadvantaged.

Let me kindly suggest that you take a few days to read Thomas Hobbes' magnum opus, Leviathan. Please pay especial attention to Parts IV, V, and VI. Be sure to have a copy of the Declaration on one side of the book and a copy of the Constitution (and Bill O'Rights) on t'other. As you read Hobbes, please to highlight the parts that are used in the two founding documents.

Also please to observe how Hobbes defends his notion that "all men are created equal." IIRC, he states five reasons why we are or should be considered such.

Have a nice day!

Sorry guys, I'm just bitter that we constantly tout ourself as a country of diversity and equality yet have a rich and constant history of oppression.

evilgreg: No, no. Repeat after me: "I'm Whitey, and I apologize."

Hardly. It wasn't me that did all that. But that's part of the reason I don't have any guilt about it - I'm not asking for a return to a time when I, and others like me, could enjoy personal luxuries that were dependent on the oppression of people who aren't like me.

Bauer: nicksteel: Bauer: "where is this empire that we have built? I don't see it. Where are these lands that we have conquered??"...nicksteel, 2009, farker.

-remember this day boys...for it will be yours for all time.

wtf!?!

i'll have what your smoking.

"I guess that means that you cannot answer my question. I didn't think you could. Not honestly."

-open you eyes and look around.

there's your short answer.

if you cannot acknowledge that the united states has covertly altered the governments of many, many foreign nations, for many, many years...in order to achieve a better vantage point (MONEY, LAND, WEALTH), then you are a god damned retard ill-informed.

and probably not worth the time to answer in any more depth than that.

-go read a book that the state didn't write for you.

seriously.

I see, you have retreated from your original position of empire building and conquering nations to covertly altered governments.

Nice job.

As usual, my take on the 4th is trenchant and compelling.
Citizen Ted on Independence (new window)

God Save the King!

trixter_nl: ///studied US law since 1992

you were a very poor student then

Cervidanti: We hold this truth to be self-evident: Equality for whoever the fark we choose based on retarded religion, prosperity for few.

/gay
//can't get married
///can't give blood
////can't adopt
//can't do shiat
//totally equal

All choices have consequences. Either you can have courage in your convictions, or you can whine.

CheekyMunky: evilgreg: No, no. Repeat after me: "I'm Whitey, and I apologize."

Hardly. It wasn't me that did all that. But that's part of the reason I don't have any guilt about it - I'm not asking for a return to a time when I, and others like me, could enjoy personal luxuries that were dependent on the oppression of people who aren't like me.

Lighten up, Francis. It's just a quote from Chris Titus.

Cervidanti: We hold this truth to be self-evident: Equality for whoever the fark we choose based on retarded religion, prosperity for few.

/gay
//can't get married
///can't give blood
////can't adopt
//can't do shiat
//totally equal

There is a movement to try to change government, which may actually bring about a bit more equality if that is really what you want. Of course that means that you would not be a protected class in hate crime legislation because its unequal to say if the victim is of a specific group then the punishment is higher.

If you really want to be equal you can try to change the government, the next effort will be in 2010 with the house election. The goal of this movement is to not allow career politicians into office, but rather every day people who do not have a history of being bought and sold. It certainly cant be any worse than what you have seen over the last 30+ years. All candidates that are part of this sign a contract, if they do not do what they say they must quit, the goal is an entire replacement of the house with all new people, no one gets re-elected from either party. This is not a partisan thing, as I understand it they will try to get people from all parties, specifically binding them to do what they say they will do and not promise one thing then not actually do it. They want to get rid of the seniority and horse trading that is all too common in politics today. http://www.goooh.com (new window).

Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

You've been told too often that trivialities like "seat belt legislation" and DUI checkpoints are violations of liberty; they aren't. Those kinds of things keep people free to pursue life and happiness from those who are thoughtless and reckless and that's a good thing.

The truth is that no society can be "free". People as a whole are just too stupid and selfish to allow true freedom. So the best that any government can do is regulate the morons and try not to step on the smart people along the way.

Found this online:

AS I sit here, July 4th, 2009, I think about the state of my country, and dispair. Yes, we fought for and won our Independance 230 years ago, but what have we done since then?

We went from horse and buggy to helicopters. But where are the flying cars?

We went from earth to the moon, but where are our moonbases?

We went from slavery to freedom, but racism (on both sides) continues on.

We went from 13 struggling Colonies to being a SuperPower that fought and won two World Wars halfway around the planet, but half the world hates us.


I walk down the street, and hear the English language being butchered. The Educational System is falling apart, with more attention being paid to how kids feel that to what they learn. Can't let little Jonny feel bad about not knowing basic math... in 8th grade.

People have a feeling of entitlment. They feel they are 'owed' something. The government 'owes' them a check each month. Companies 'owe' them a job. Society 'owes' them another chance after they are caught dealing drugs/stealing cars/whatever.

But these (and other) issues are minor compared to the most pressing issue of all: The Erosion of our Rights.

The Government (and by that, I mean The People In Charge) is slowly eating away at our Rights. There are plenty of examples out there, IF you care to look. But many people don't bother looking, and don't see if they do. A few examples to think about:

The Right to Keep and Bear Arms- The Second Amendment does NOT say that automatic weapons or "assault weapons" (no matter how you define them) are excluded from that Right. And Waiting periods do indeed 'infringe' on that Right.
But all oppressive governments try to disarm their citizens.

The Right to Peacably Assemble. Hundreds of people arrested at the Democratic/Republican conventions in New York recently. They were doing nothing illegal, but were litterally coralled like cattle, and arrested.

The Right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. Try flying lately? There are dozens, hundreds of complaints of TSA employees 'frisking' women and feeing them up. The TSA says it will break the lock on your suitcase if it wants to search your bag. And of course, they are not responsible of all your valuables go missing....

These are but a few examples of the disintegration of our Rights. Of course, one can argue that they represent necessary steps. But necessary for what? Are they taking away our Rights to help keep us Free?? Does no one see the illogic of that?!?

I'd like to finish with a quote from the Declaration of Independence that was made 230 years ago. (I strongly urge everyone reading this to read that document. Read it, and think about it. It'll only take a few lousy minutes of your time, but might enlighten you.)

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security

"...it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government..."

Is now the time?

Think about it.

- A Patriot

ttc2301: still the longest running experiment in personal liberty

The united states is certainly magnificent
Im honored to live here....

but ya know that this is not the first time this experiment has been tried right ? and errr.... we as a people are not particularly "longest running".... pretty much anything right ?

// With grace and luck we WILL be the longest running... still kinda young to claim to be the oldest though

YouWinAgainGravity: trixter_nl: ///studied US law since 1992

you were a very poor student then

because I am right or because I lived in Amsterdam? I am confused now. If you want to insist that SCOTUS is allowed to modify without ratification parts of the constitution I would really like to see a cite for that other than SCOTUS saying "we can, trust us". Why would the ratification section even exist and omit that info if that was actually the way that was intended?

The reality is that I am right, and you are just trying to attack me personally rather than the message that I am presenting. If I am wrong please by all means post something other than a personal attack that supports your notion that the form of government the US has is an oligarchy as you insist that it is (I thought it said republic, which puts the court inferior to the constitution, I could be wrong though, I did live in Amsterdam which according to you immediately negates my knowledge and ability to gain knowledge about the US government).

YouWinAgainGravity: trixter_nl: ///studied US law since 1992

you were a very poor student then


He's actually 100% correct.

They don't constitutionally have the power they claim to wield. But, they are the most powerful branch of the government and the only checks against them are long in between.

Somewhere along the line, SCOTUS deviated in its mission to interpret the Constitution to the letter forcing American society to evolve within its constraints and embarked on interpretation to fit society's evolution.

You live in a country where millions of people still worship George W. Bush like a god.

You live in a country where millions of people would be happy to have Sarah Palin as president.

You live in a country that is so deeply polarized that you can't talk to your fellow citizens about politics anymore.

Just a few things to think about today.

Slartibartfaster: ttc2301: still the longest running experiment in personal liberty

The united states is certainly magnificent
Im honored to live here....

but ya know that this is not the first time this experiment has been tried right ? and errr.... we as a people are not particularly "longest running".... pretty much anything right ?

// With grace and luck we WILL be the longest running... still kinda young to claim to be the oldest though

Add 'currently', shake and review.

/God Bless America anyway

usonia: You live in a country where millions of people still worship George W. Bush Barack Obama like a god.

You live in a country where millions of people would be happy to have Sarah Palin Hillary Clinton as president.

You live in a country that is so deeply polarized that you can't talk to your fellow citizens about politics anymore.

Just a few things to think about today.

See how that works?

usonia: You live in a country where millions of people still worship George W. Bush like a god.

You live in a country where millions of people would be happy to have Sarah Palin as president.

You live in a country that is so deeply polarized that you can't talk to your fellow citizens about politics anymore.

Just a few things to think about today.

I live in a country where I can tell asshats like you to kiss my ass.

usonia: You live in a country where millions of people still worship George W. Bush like a god.

You live in a country where millions of people would be happy to have Sarah Palin as president.

Im comforted by the hundreds of millions of people here who are NOT those people :-)

HAPPY JULY 4 !!

(aint it cute how Kim Jong Il wants to help us celebrate today ?)

Githerax: You've been told too often that trivialities like "seat belt legislation" and DUI checkpoints are violations of liberty; they aren't.

Yes they are.

Those kinds of things keep people free to pursue life and happiness from those who are thoughtless and reckless and that's a good thing.

So by giving government more control over our lives we are becoming more free? What kind of nonsense 1984 doublespeak is this?

The truth is that no society can be "free".

What an evil and outrageous assertion. You have no proof of this whatsoever.

People as a whole are just too stupid and selfish to allow true freedom.

Fine then, allow me to live free and you can create your own little police state with everyone else who wants to participate. Make all the asinine laws you want for yourselves, just leave me be as long as I do not aggress against you.

So the best that any government can do is regulate the morons and try not to step on the smart people along the way.

The best that any government can do is stop creating morons through government schools, overregulation, bailouts, and welfare programs and allow people to learn to take responsibility for themselves and live with the negative or positive consequences of their actions.

usonia: You live in a country where millions of people still worship George W. Bush like a god.

You live in a country where millions of people would be happy to have Sarah Palin as president.

You live in a country that is so deeply polarized that you can't talk to your fellow citizens about politics anymore.

Just a few things to think about today.

you also live in a country where partisan issues are dropped on days like today, the tea parties that are occuring all over are both democrats and republicans. They have been going on for a long time, and some of the people that are listed as right wing conservative media types have been saying this stuff for years about both parties and continue to say both parties are equally bad. Both the democrats and republican parties have been losing members in the last decade or so, and independents are growing, mostly because while people may disagree on some things they really object to what the parties are doing, both of them.

The people are polarizing just not in the way that the two main parties want, they are polarizing away from those parties, believing that both parties have lost their way, and no longer represent the people they claim to be serving. The people are upset over the government believing it is better than everyone else and can do whatever it wants with tax payer money and new programs that increase government power despite the wishes of the people themselves. Currently in America there are more 3rd party/independent voters than there are in either the democrat or republican party.

Cervidanti Quote 2009-07-04 02:30:41 PM
We hold this truth to be self-evident: Equality for whoever the fark we choose based on retarded religion, prosperity for few.

/gay
//can't get married
///can't give blood
////can't adopt
//can't do shiat
//totally equal

Neither do pedophiles and they go to prison for their sexual orientation and are placed on "sex offender" lists. Evolution has proven that they are born that way naturally as it does exist in nature.

Bauer: nicksteel: Bauer: "where is this empire that we have built? I don't see it. Where are these lands that we have conquered??"...nicksteel, 2009, farker.

-remember this day boys...for it will be yours for all time.

wtf!?!

i'll have what your smoking.

"I guess that means that you cannot answer my question. I didn't think you could. Not honestly."

-open you eyes and look around.

there's your short answer.

if you cannot acknowledge that the united states has covertly altered the governments of many, many foreign nations, for many, many years...in order to achieve a better vantage point (MONEY, LAND, WEALTH), then you are a god damned retard ill-informed.

and probably not worth the time to answer in any more depth than that.

-go read a book that the state didn't write for you.

seriously.

Here is a list of some of the lands that the US has conquered and still occupies today:

Aisne-Marne, France
Ardennes, Belgium
Brittany, France
Brookwood, England
Cambridge, England
Corozal, Panama
Epinal, France
Flanders Field, Belgium
Florence, Italy
Henri-Chapelle, Belgium
Lorraine, France
Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Manila, Philippines
Meuse-Argonne, France
Mexico City, Mexico
Netherlands, Netherlands
Normandy, France
North Africa, Tunisia
Oise-Aisne, France
Rhone, France
Sicily-Rome, Italy
Somme, France
St. Mihiel, France
Suresnes, France

So take you farking attitude and shove it up your ass. You don't know shiat about the history of the USA. You probably believe that JFK was killed by a trio of assassins, that the government is responsible for 9/11 and that little green men gave us stealth technology.

You

nicksteel: Bauer: nicksteel: Bauer: "where is this empire that we have built? I don't see it. Where are these lands that we have conquered??"...nicksteel, 2009, farker.

-remember this day boys...for it will be yours for all time.

wtf!?!

i'll have what your smoking.

"I guess that means that you cannot answer my question. I didn't think you could. Not honestly."

-open you eyes and look around.

there's your short answer.

if you cannot acknowledge that the united states has covertly altered the governments of many, many foreign nations, for many, many years...in order to achieve a better vantage point (MONEY, LAND, WEALTH), then you are a god damned retard ill-informed.

and probably not worth the time to answer in any more depth than that.

-go read a book that the state didn't write for you.

seriously.

I see, you have retreated from your original position of empire building and conquering nations to covertly altered governments.

Nice job.

-ok...go no further.

iraq

Nocens: He's actually 100% correct.

They don't constitutionally have the power they claim to wield. But, they are the most powerful branch of the government and the only checks against them are long in between.

Somewhere along the line, SCOTUS deviated in its mission to interpret the Constitution to the letter forcing American society to evolve within its constraints and embarked on interpretation to fit society's evolution.

The judiciary is the most powerful branch? What a ridiculous assertion. SCOTUS takes around 100 cases a year, most of which have no practical effect whatsoever on the lives of the citizenry, or deal with procedural issues. When they do have a "landmark" opinion, it's usually a slight tweak in what the standard currently is. Congress meanwhile has regulated every single aspect of our lives without exception. Besides what has become a general police power via the Commerce Clause, they have the power to impeach the President and strip the Supreme Court of jurisdiction. Congress is by far the most powerful of the branches, and always has been. The framers ("founding fathers," is a little too deity-like for my liking) recognized this in the Federalist Papers among other founding era documents.

nicksteel:
So take you farking attitude and shove it up your ass. You don't know shiat about the history of the USA. You probably believe that JFK was killed by a trio of assassins, that the government is responsible for 9/11 and that little green men gave us stealth technology.

You

JFK was killed by a trio of little green men, sheesh dont you know anything? You couldnt see them because the grassy knoll was green and they blended in well.

The government was responsible for 9/11, they decided the calendar system that we used and if they selected a different one there may not have even been a 9th month in the year. Its so obvious!

We got stealth technology from Nazi Germany, they got it from little green men.

Really, you should do some fact checking on this stuff

trixter_nl: If I am wrong please by all means post something other than a personal attack that supports your notion that the form of government the US has is an oligarchy as you insist that it is (I thought it said republic, which puts the court inferior to the constitution, I could be wrong though, I did live in Amsterdam which according to you immediately negates my knowledge and ability to gain knowledge about the US government).

Article 3 of the constitution establishes the supreme court and gives it jurisdiction over cases related to US law and the Constitution. Marbury vs Madison is when judicial review really came into play and was established. At no point in the Constitution does it state that it must be interpreted according to the literal wording.

Now, the amount of interpretation has always been one of contention throughout US history. Some (like you) want complete literal interpretation, many want them interpreted according to original intent, many want it to be a "living document" and re-interpreted as the times change. Hence why there is always controversy when Supreme Court justices are nominated. But the point is, according to the powers in the constitution, and the precedents that have been set since almost the beginning of this country's history, the Supreme Court has the power to interpret the Constitution as they see fit. And if they make a ruling, whether we agree with them or not, it is by definition "constitutional" until they overturn themselves.

And they have, since the 1800s, ruled that the protection of the First Amendment was not intended to be 100% literal. You can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater, slander/libel/fraud aren't protected, sometimes security concerns trump free speech, etc.

Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

Over in one post. Nice to see you weren't blinded by the holiday.

vertiaset: Freedom does not mean free to do anything I please.

That is correct. It means one is free to do anything one pleases as long as one does not aggress against others.

In a society the goal is to be as free as possible as individuals without overly infringing on the freedoms of your fellow citizens. This is the purpose of a State.

When I read your whining about seat belt laws, drug abuse laws, copyright laws and the like I am stuck by one thing. You are so free that you have NO REAL IDEA of what it means NOT to be free.

More doublespeak nonsense. War = peace, slavery = freedom, etc.

You have no idea of what it means to live in fear of the three o'clock in the morning knock on the door. You have no idea what it means to be imprisoned for speaking your mind, or worshiping God, or assembling in a public square with others to protest some injustice.

I know of people that have experienced all of those things in the United States. Just because it does not happen as often or to such as degree as in some other countries over history does not mean that anything our government does is justified or that any particularly anti-personal liberty law is okay.

Above all you are free to be ungrateful, you are free to denigrate the men who risked all, and in some cases gave all to grant you this freedom.

Save the nationalist rhetoric for Veteran's Day or Memorial Day.

You are indeed "free". Let us pray that if the time ever comes where these freedoms again need to be defended that YOU are up to the challenge.

They do need to be defended, and you the one telling everybody to just sit there, take their abuse and be thankful for the freedom we have left.

Jefferson Lives - John Adams

are you going to deny that the cia has fueled and/or carried out covert acts of war against other nations?

-really?

iran?

iraq?

korea?

vietman?

and then iraq, again.

-this is just for starters.

we are the cia.

they work for us.

-we have committed these acts.

all of us.

The sentiments of that document are very noble. It's unfortunate that the government abandoned it before the ink was dry.

"I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him." --Abraham Lincoln

"Patriotism... is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime." --Adlai Stevenson

Now let's go blow shiat up and get drunk.

Is this a joke? The Founding Fathers were a bunch of slave-owning English aristocrats.

evilgreg
So let's rebuild the Twin Towers with a monument on the grounds. How's that?

I was all for that, I'd have much preferred to see the towers go back up as a statement of resilience. I think we dicked the dog on that one.

Elmo Jones
/Cześć

But are you a good Cześć, or insufficient funds?

Tomflry7
If Fox News was around in 1776 they would be deriding the founding fathers for being LIBERALS.

And if you'd been around, you'd be calling them racist neocons.

Enigmamf
Oh yes, being well paid to sleep in a room with a density of 0.048 people per square foot 8 hours a day for a few months a year while engaged in a rewarding, challenging occupation is MUCH WORSE than being forced to spend 20 hours a day in a room with twice that density, with no compensation and nothing to do, for the rest of your life.

You're not a vet, are you? After 6 years I was taking home $600 every two weeks while working over 300 hours a month, it wasn't "rewarding", and it damn sure wasn't "challenging", it was long, it was boring, and it was tiring. And the main difference? I was where I was because I was out there to defend my fellow citizens, and they were where they were for preying on them. Another difference? The Prison systems were not allowed to work them for more than 8 hours a day, unlike the frequent (every third day) day where I put in a straight 24. I also didn't have the access to the education they did, which was strange, because I had to pay for theirs, and please don't mention the GI Bill before you make yourself look like an even bigger idiot. I also didn't have a lot of right those in the jail still had, I could be charged, tried, and convict without an attorney, I did not have freedom of speech. But we had a lot in common too. I also wasn't free to leave where I was, I also had no choice in what to wear (strangely enough, at that time, the exact same clothes the prisoners were wearing), I also didn't get to choose what to do or when to do it. And, again unlike them, I didn't have the opportunity to see my term end early for "good behavior".

Sorry, but they were in jail for a reason, fark 'em.

Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox: Nocens: He's actually 100% correct.

They don't constitutionally have the power they claim to wield. But, they are the most powerful branch of the government and the only checks against them are long in between.

Somewhere along the line, SCOTUS deviated in its mission to interpret the Constitution to the letter forcing American society to evolve within its constraints and embarked on interpretation to fit society's evolution.

The judiciary is the most powerful branch? What a ridiculous assertion. SCOTUS takes around 100 cases a year, most of which have no practical effect whatsoever on the lives of the citizenry, or deal with procedural issues. When they do have a "landmark" opinion, it's usually a slight tweak in what the standard currently is. Congress meanwhile has regulated every single aspect of our lives without exception. Besides what has become a general police power via the Commerce Clause, they have the power to impeach the President and strip the Supreme Court of jurisdiction. Congress is by far the most powerful of the branches, and always has been. The framers ("founding fathers," is a little too deity-like for my liking) recognized this in the Federalist Papers among other founding era documents.


Ridiculous?

You're talking about a body who can take the Constitution and dictate what it means to their whim. They recently gave Congress the power to pass ex post facto laws despite the fact the Constitution forbids it. Last I checked, that requires an amendment.

They can take power away and give it as they see fit. Your commerce clause? Who do you think gave Congress the sweeping power it's come to be?

They can take any power or right and dictate how powerful it is or how limited it can be. They define the scope to be sweeping or meaningless. They dictate what powers or rights have priority.

They don't even have to reference the Constitution in their rulings. While the Constitution may forbid the government a power, they can and have simply gone to other bodies of law to support their rulings or simply state "spirit" and roll on.

It is within their power to gimp or empower the other two branches, the states, and the people as they see fit. They are the last word on what can fly and what can't.

fredklein: Found this online:

AS I sit here, July 4th, 2009, I think about the state of my country, and dispair. Yes, we fought for and won our Independance 230 years ago, but what have we done since then?

We went from horse and buggy to helicopters. But where are the flying cars?

We went from earth to the moon, but where are our moonbases?

We went from slavery to freedom, but racism (on both sides) continues on.

We went from 13 struggling Colonies to being a SuperPower that fought and won two World Wars halfway around the planet, but half the world hates us.


I walk down the street, and hear the English language being butchered. The Educational System is falling apart, with more attention being paid to how kids feel that to what they learn. Can't let little Jonny feel bad about not knowing basic math... in 8th grade.

People have a feeling of entitlment. They feel they are 'owed' something. The government 'owes' them a check each month. Companies 'owe' them a job. Society 'owes' them another chance after they are caught dealing drugs/stealing cars/whatever.

But these (and other) issues are minor compared to the most pressing issue of all: The Erosion of our Rights.

The Government (and by that, I mean The People In Charge) is slowly eating away at our Rights. There are plenty of examples out there, IF you care to look. But many people don't bother looking, and don't see if they do. A few examples to think about:

The Right to Keep and Bear Arms- The Second Amendment does NOT say that automatic weapons or "assault weapons" (no matter how you define them) are excluded from that Right. And Waiting periods do indeed 'infringe' on that Right.
But all oppressive governments try to disarm their citizens.

The Right to Peacably Assemble. Hundreds of people arrested at the Democratic/Republican conventions in New York recently. They were doing nothing illegal, but were litterally coralled like cattle, and arrested.

The Right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. Try flying lately? There are dozens, hundreds of complaints of TSA employees 'frisking' women and feeing them up. The TSA says it will break the lock on your suitcase if it wants to search your bag. And of course, they are not responsible of all your valuables go missing....

These are but a few examples of the disintegration of our Rights. Of course, one can argue that they represent necessary steps. But necessary for what? Are they taking away our Rights to help keep us Free?? Does no one see the illogic of that?!?

I'd like to finish with a quote from the Declaration of Independence that was made 230 years ago. (I strongly urge everyone reading this to read that document. Read it, and think about it. It'll only take a few lousy minutes of your time, but might enlighten you.)

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security

"...it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government..."

Is now the time?

Think about it.

- A Patriot

Good luck with that.

Happy Dependence Day ...

Wraithbane: I didn't have the opportunity to see my term end early for "good behavior".



Should have gone for REALLY good behavior hehehe

Hey there, Yanks. Is today the day you celebrate getting chased all round the countryside being beaten like rented mules until the French, Dutch and Spanish saved you?

Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

I am probably misquoting, but wasn't it Thomas Jefferson who also said that in order to be free, we must give up some parts of freedom? If this was a completely free society, then it would be anarchy. Complete freedom means doing whatever you want, when you want. You can have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness all you want; as long as you don't deny someone else to right to do the same. It's not 100% free, but then again, complete freedom like what you are espousing, would not be a good thing.

Plus, are you that angry over seat belt laws? Really? In the same sentence with the RIAA and the Patriot Act? WOW!

vertiaset: I wonder, if the U.S. had remained British, by this time due to our size, strength and population, Britain would just be one of the "States" in the Union, and a small insignificant one at that.

Never happen. Besides, if that logic worked, Britain and the US would be Indian States.

"None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free."

Goethe

Pretty much sums up half the people in this thread.

Lord Summerisle: Hey there, Yanks. Is today the day you celebrate getting chased all round the countryside being beaten like rented mules until the French, Dutch and Spanish saved you?

nah Ive lived few a few of these....

This is the day they blow stuff up and feel more bold about blowing stuff up....

so hehehe careful ;-)

Bauer: 9/11 must be forgotten.

It will be. Ask 100 people under 25 years old what happened on December 7th, I would be willing to bet less than a quarter know.

MajorityWhip: Jefferson Lives - John Adams

Oddly enough, today is also the anniversary of the death of both of them.

The Southern Dandy: Besides, if that logic worked, Britain and the US would be Indian States

Britain might possibly have been an indian state (again, "if that logic worked")
I think America has sufficient natural resources it would never have become one (India did not have the resources to absorb the US, but the UK has no real natural resources at all once her empire fell apart.... well.... not enough to absorb larger countries)

Pretty glad Im not speaking Hindi, Punjabi, etc...
... really should go learn them though, I hear the poetry is magnificent.

Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

Stick a gun in your mouth and end the misery.

crash665: I am probably misquoting, but wasn't it Thomas Jefferson who also said that in order to be free, we must give up some parts of freedom? If this was a completely free society, then it would be anarchy. Complete freedom means doing whatever you want, when you want. You can have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness all you want; as long as you don't deny someone else to right to do the same. It's not 100% free, but then again, complete freedom like what you are espousing, would not be a good thing.

He isn't advocating anarchy. Of course anarchy isn't what most people think it is anyway (most people erroneously equate it with chaos). There is a difference between protecting citizenry from the aggression of others and protecting citizenry from themselves. The first is a debatably legitimate function of government, the second is not.

Plus, are you that angry over seat belt laws? Really? In the same sentence with the RIAA and the Patriot Act? WOW!

Seat belt laws are not just "seat belt laws." They give the police unprecedented power to stop, detain, and question anyone in your vehicle. Not to mention fine you potentially hundreds of dollars.

Lord Summerisle: Hey there, Yanks. Is today the day you celebrate getting chased all round the countryside being beaten like rented mules until the French, Dutch and Spanish saved you?

You say that like you're proud of losing to the French, Dutch and Spanish.

Sum Dum Gai: This got greenlit? It's a repeat from 1776.

Came here to say THIS.

shanewf: Happy Dependence Day ...

And also to you!

nicksteel: where is this empire that we have built? I don't see it. Where are these lands that we have conquered??



The purple part.

YouWinAgainGravity: trixter_nl: If I am wrong please by all means post something other than a personal attack that supports your notion that the form of government the US has is an oligarchy as you insist that it is (I thought it said republic, which puts the court inferior to the constitution, I could be wrong though, I did live in Amsterdam which according to you immediately negates my knowledge and ability to gain knowledge about the US government).

Article 3 of the constitution establishes the supreme court and gives it jurisdiction over cases related to US law and the Constitution.


That does NOT allow them to do what you said, it does not allow them to rewrite the constitution (modification without ratification).

At no point in the Constitution does it state that it must be interpreted according to the literal wording.
Nowhere does it say they can modify without ratification, in fact it clearly lays out the process to modify the constitution under a section titled "ratification", as a result, they are not allowed to violate that section just because they feel like it. It is implicit that they have to follow the constitution, which includes the modification procedure.



Some (like you) want complete literal interpretation, many want them interpreted according to original intent, many want it to be a "living document" and re-interpreted as the times change.

I just want it followed, all of it, not just the parts that are easy and meet some political goal. This includes the fact that they are not allowed to modify without ratification, that SCOTUS has to follow the constitution the same as everyone else should have to follow it. this requires it to be interpreted as it was written using the contemporary language of the time it was written. If you allow for a living document system without an amendment to enable that, then you are allowing modification without ratification, which in itself is not allowed by the constitution, it also alters the form of government from a republic to an oligarchy.

If enough people want the living document oligarchy plan, then there are 2 methods to accomplish this. Either a congressional amendment is proposed and passed, or a constitutional convention is called and an amendment is proposed and voted on, in both cases it requires ratification. And if that happens then I will no longer insist that the constitution be followed under the current system, but I will insist that it be followed under that new ratified system.

When you say that they can interpret it as they see fit, that its a living document, you are in essence allowing them to say that any right guaranteed can be stripped merely because they said it was ok, and came up with some justification on how they interpreted it that way (which technically would be optional). Granting that level of power is a death nail in freedom and liberty. What if they wake up some morning and decide that 6th amendment due process rights should be reinterpreted to have some exception (as the 1st, 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and other amendments have)? This means that it would be perfectly "constitutional" at that point to no longer provide for due process rights, no lawyer, no trial, nothing. Oh wait that already happened. Ok, what if they take away your 5th amendment right not to incriminate yourself? Oh wait 1040 tax forms which have been used against people who declared illegal money, or others who did not declare illegal money. Hmm.. Well ok what if they say that your freedom of speech should be curtailed? Oh wait there was someone in alcatraz for mailing "obscenities" through the mail - it was medical info on STDs. Hmm.. I am really having a problem here, maybe you can come up with an example of where they can take away some freedom that is not a bad thing just because they want to interpret things differently.



But the point is, according to the powers in the constitution, and the precedents that have been set since almost the beginning of this country's history, the Supreme Court has the power to interpret the Constitution as they see fit. And if they make a ruling, whether we agree with them or not, it is by definition "constitutional" until they overturn themselves.

You are half right, and for that I will give you credit. Yes the court
There is nothing in the constitution, and your reluctance to provide anything to this effect indicates that you now realize there is nothing in the constitution that grants the court the ability to modify the constitution without ratification.

All you have provided is that some americans believe that SCOTUS should be able to, which does not make it constitutional, you have said SCOTUS has said that they can do this, again that does not make it jive with the constitution despite your best efforts to confuse things to say that it does. You have time and again ignored the ratification section of the constitution that does not enable SCOTUS to circumvent that provision.

Nowhere in Article III does it grant the judicial branch the power to reinterpret the constitution as they see fit. And in fact you have to go back to common law rules for how the courts should be done, and how they should interpret things, since that is the basis of them.

The closest thing you can get is Article III section 2
"The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority; ..."

What it means there "under this Constitution" is for a case where there is a constitutional issue, and it is that power that is being abused "because the court said it could" denying violations because they want to expand the scope and power of government, working out exceptions that almost always favor the government's expanding role.

There is nothing there in that wording that allows for them to reinterpret the constitution to alter its meaning, and nothing there that lets them modify without ratification.

Subby I think you mean Purfuit of Happineff.

Githerax: nicksteel: where is this empire that we have built? I don't see it. Where are these lands that we have conquered??



The purple and red parts.

FTFY

Lord Summerisle: Hey there, Yanks. Is today the day you celebrate getting chased all round the countryside being beaten like rented mules until the French, Dutch and Spanish saved you?

I notice that you boys couldn't do it on your own without the help of some hired Germans...

The reason I don't defend modification or even bring it up, is because interpretation is not the same thing as modification. And yes, justices can interpret as they see fit. However, this is why we have checks and balances. The executive branch nominates the justices, and the legislative branch confirms them (and can theoretically impeach a sitting justice). Additionally, we have multiple justices so that one person's bias does not necessarily dictate interpretation.

crash665:

I am probably misquoting, but wasn't it Thomas Jefferson who also said that in order to be free, we must give up some parts of freedom?

No, well ok he may have but others said it first :) I believe that it was Greeks who said "you cannot be free without laws" or something to that effect. Thousands of years before Jefferson.

Yes, you need some level of government, however the original US government is about where I am just left of anarchy (anarchy is far right wing with 0% government, facism, nazism, socialism, communism are far left at 100% government). The problem was that the original government was not powerful enough to stay coherent, so they added a bit more to it and moved it slightly to the left and then it was ok.

Then after a while things got weird and we started moving dramatically to the left, with the government gaining more and more power. Both parties for quite some time have only produced candidates that will take it further to the left, and for the most part dems/reps are not a left/right thing, they are just left in different ways.

Lord Summerisle: Hey there, Yanks. Is today the day you celebrate getting chased all round the countryside being beaten like rented mules until the French, Dutch and Spanish saved you?

And if it weren't for us yanks you and yours would be speaking German right now.

Githerax: nicksteel: where is this empire that we have built? I don't see it. Where are these lands that we have conquered??



The purple part.

to a point the red part too. I come from a little tribe known as the Cherokee, they used to live in the Georgia area, and were sequestered to a reservation in Georgia until gold was discovered there. At that time there were some SCOTUS cases where SCOTUS said "you are indians, you have no purpose in this court, GTFO" and in a followup case they did rule that Georgia could not boot em off the reservation and Andrew Jackson said "Marshall made his decision, lets see him enforce it" and the forced death march to Oklahoma began. For this death march Jackson was placed on the $20, go figure.

george tenant told george bush that 'iraq wmds' were a slam dunk.

-wmds were a lie.

the cia helped fuel the lies for the war.

he got a medal for his part.

-the whole world knows this...end of story.

any credibility we had as a nation is gone.

sorry nicksteel...that you choose not to see it.

one thing is for sure...we can only go up from here.

so...i guess we have george w. bush to thank for pushing us all over the edge...so now...we can finally, honestly, take a good look at ourselves.

-and try to move foward.

i'm not impressed so far.

buzzvert: If I don't believe in a Creator, do I still have certain unalienable rights?

The right not to believe in a Creator

Look, if you want to spend your day focusing on the negatives and convince yourself that we're living in a country with no freedom and everything's in a shiathole, you're welcome to but that's a very sad reality to live in. I'm going to the pool and a bbq, and focusing on the positives.

Lord Summerisle: Hey there, Yanks. Is today the day you celebrate getting chased all round the countryside being beaten like rented mules until the French, Dutch and Spanish saved you?

no. today is the day we attend parades, eat burnt hotdogs and drink as much cheap beer as possible.

wtf are you talking about?

/you damned foreigner!

jst3p: Lord Summerisle: Hey there, Yanks. Is today the day you celebrate getting chased all round the countryside being beaten like rented mules until the French, Dutch and Spanish saved you?

And if it weren't for us yanks you and yours would be speaking German right now.

The dutch had a offer to keep their government, without being forced to speak german or even have direct german control over it. They could have kept their language if they wanted :)

Seat belt laws are not just "seat belt laws." They give the police unprecedented power to stop, detain, and question anyone in your vehicle. Not to mention fine you potentially hundreds of dollars.

I have to disagree. MOST people need protection from themselves - I'm looking at you Florida. Most people in this country and in the world don't have enough common sense to get out of the rain. The government's duty is to protect its citizens. Whether it is from others or themselves is meaningless. Unfortunately, there are people who will drive while intoxicated and they need to be stopped. It is not our "right" to drive drunk. Unfortunately, many people drive like complete ass-hats and need seat belts.
We bring it upon ourselves. If no one ever drove recklessly and paid attention, then there would be no seat belt laws. If we didn't drink and drive, then there would be no need for road blocks. If no one ever blew their hand off lighting firecrackers or burned there ass sticking a bottle rocket where the sun doesn't shine, then there wouldn't be warning labels on the packages, and we could legally buy them here in Georgia WITHOUT HAVING TO DRIVE TO ALABAMA TO GET THE GOOD STUFF! (sorry)
If there was no one in the world trying to blow us up, then we wouldn't need the Patriot Act. (If the U.S. had stayed out of the Middle East to begin with, then there may/may not be people trying to blow us up. But that's a different post.)

MIguy: Stick a gun in your mouth and end the misery.

Sorry, Weaver doesn't exactly toe the Republican party line.
I'm assuming since Sarah Palin (your god and hero) quit this is your last order.

crash665: If there was no one in the world trying to blow us up, then we wouldn't don't and never will need the Patriot Act.

crash665: I have to disagree. MOST people need protection from themselves - I'm looking at you Florida. Most people in this country and in the world don't have enough common sense to get out of the rain. The government's duty is to protect its citizens. Whether it is from others or themselves is meaningless.

Nothing scares me more than the idiot who believes he has a right to "protect me" from myself. And you have no concept of what a government's duty is.

YouWinAgainGravity: Look, if you want to spend your day focusing on the negatives and convince yourself that we're living in a country with no freedom and everything's in a shiathole, you're welcome to but that's a very sad reality to live in. I'm going to the pool and a bbq, and focusing on the positives.


Again a personal attack from you, I see a trend here, but the reality is that is not what I am doing, saying you are wrong and proving it by quoting the constitution does not in any way say that I am only focusing on the negatives. While you are free to be a very negative person and personally attack people who disagree with your anti-constitution views that does not in any way make what you said a compelling argument.

I do not recall anyone saying there were no freedoms, only that freedoms are being taken away, and that eventually there will be none if people play "ostrich" (bending over, sticking your head in the sand and hoping no one runs up behind you doing naughty things to your backside). The point was one of hope, not dispair. Following the constitution does not mean that all is lost, it actually means that more is gained, and for those that would listen, I submit that freedoms that have been lost can be regained, so long as people are willing to fight for those freedoms. This does not mean take to the streets in an armed insurrection, I actually provided a url to a group that is trying to do a peaceful non-violent government change, http://www.goooh.com, by voting to replace the government with one that will do what it says it will and not a bunch of back room deals.

I am sorry that you see less government control and more freedom as a negative, had I known that you had those feelings about freedom I would not have bothered trying to educate you with facts and logic, I would have instead just said "troll" which appears to be the usual response here. Instead I thought that you would, like me, view freedom as a good thing, as a positive thing, as something to aspire to have. Based on that apparently mistaken view I had of you, I thought that you would be happy to know that there are people out there trying to ensure that you have the freedom to own a pool, a bbq, and to use them as you see fit, on the days that you see fit.

what_now [TotalFark] 2009-07-04 10:32:57 AM
Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

You shush. Have a hot dog, a beer, and a sparkler.

Over in 2 excelent posts.

// Off to morn the death of my nation
///... and perhaps drink myself into oblivion.
//// slashies!!!

vertiaset: Nocens

Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox: Nocens: He's actually 100% correct.

They don't constitutionally have the power they claim to wield. But, they are the most powerful branch of the government and the only checks against them are long in between.

Somewhere along the line, SCOTUS deviated in its mission to interpret the Constitution to the letter forcing American society to evolve within its constraints and embarked on interpretation to fit society's evolution.

The judiciary is the most powerful branch? What a ridiculous assertion. SCOTUS takes around 100 cases a year, most of which have no practical effect whatsoever on the lives of the citizenry, or deal with procedural issues. When they do have a "landmark" opinion, it's usually a slight tweak in what the standard currently is. Congress meanwhile has regulated every single aspect of our lives without exception. Besides what has become a general police power via the Commerce Clause, they have the power to impeach the President and strip the Supreme Court of jurisdiction. Congress is by far the most powerful of the branches, and always has been. The framers ("founding fathers," is a little too deity-like for my liking) recognized this in the Federalist Papers among other founding era documents.


Ridiculous?

You're talking about a body who can take the Constitution and dictate what it means to their whim. They recently gave Congress the power to pass ex post facto laws despite the fact the Constitution forbids it. Last I checked, that requires an amendment.

They can take power away and give it as they see fit. Your commerce clause? Who do you think gave Congress the sweeping power it's come to be?

They can take any power or right and dictate how powerful it is or how limited it can be. They define the scope to be sweeping or meaningless. They dictate what powers or rights have priority.

They don't even have to reference the Constitution in their rulings. While the Constitution may forbid the government a power, they can and have simply gone to other bodies of law to support their rulings or simply state "spirit" and roll on.

It is within their power to gimp or empower the other two branches, the states, and the people as they see fit. They are the last word on what can fly and what can't.

On hearing that the U.S. Supreme Court had held in favor of the Cherokee Indians with regard from their removal from Georgia:

John Marshall (Chief Justice) has made his decision ... now let him enforce it!"


Thing is, Jackson didn't exercise any Constitutional power. He did the same thing SCOTUS does on a regular basis in the modern era. He should have been impeached for it but public opinion was on his side. As far as I know, only two Presidents in history have pulled this. You got one with Jackson and the other when Lincoln went full retard.

m2313: Weaver doesn't exactly toe the Republican party line

how do you toe a line ?

... agree on weaver though

// am I right to be totally freaked out at agreeing with weaver more and more lately ?

MIguy: Stick a gun in your mouth and end the misery.

y'know, I have never seen you post a positive comment about anything. Seriously - I see you comment on a lot of discussion threads and you have never, in anything i've ever read, had one kind word for anything, anyone or any idea. You are unwavering in your bile spewing hatred of damn near everything on this planet.

Weaver95: You are unwavering in your bile spewing hatred of damn near everything on this planet

hey cut that out.... !!!

// agrees

Weaver95: MIguy: Stick a gun in your mouth and end the misery.

y'know, I have never seen you post a positive comment about anything. Seriously - I see you comment on a lot of discussion threads and you have never, in anything i've ever read, had one kind word for anything, anyone or any idea. You are unwavering in your bile spewing hatred of damn near everything on this planet.

Hero emulation.

"You're not a vet, are you? After 6 years I was taking home $600 every two weeks while working over 300 hours a month, it wasn't "rewarding", and it damn sure wasn't "challenging", it was long, it was boring, and it was tiring. And the main difference? I was where I was because I was out there to defend my fellow citizens, and they were where they were for preying on them. Another difference? The Prison systems were not allowed to work them for more than 8 hours a day, unlike the frequent (every third day) day where I put in a straight 24. I also didn't have the access to the education they did, which was strange, because I had to pay for theirs, and please don't mention the GI Bill before you make yourself look like an even bigger idiot. I also didn't have a lot of right those in the jail still had, I could be charged, tried, and convict without an attorney, I did not have freedom of speech. But we had a lot in common too. I also wasn't free to leave where I was, I also had no choice in what to wear (strangely enough, at that time, the exact same clothes the prisoners were wearing), I also didn't get to choose what to do or when to do it. And, again unlike them, I didn't have the opportunity to see my term end early for "good behavior".

Sorry, but they were in jail for a reason, fark 'em."

-wraithbane....

sorry...but you chose that life.

i'm even more sorry that you don't feel honored about it.

why did you go into the service, if not to serve ALL of america?

-not just the red states or the people you don't agree with.

sadly, i think you missed the point of service.

am i wrong?

when did you go from being "americas soldier" to being "fark you, my fellow idiot countrymen"?

isn't a grand civilization defined by the treatment of its criminals?

or its dissenters?

P.S.

Bauer: isn't a grand civilization defined by the treatment of its criminals?

or its dissenters?

starts with "children"

"those that a civilization feels the authority to command"

crash665: I have to disagree. MOST people need protection from themselves - I'm looking at you Florida.

No, they really don't. If they want to fark up their own lives, they should be free to do exactly that. I certainly don't need to be told what to do by you or some government bureaucrat, it's an unwelcome invasion upon my integrity and dignity as a human being.

Most people in this country and in the world don't have enough common sense to get out of the rain.

So let them get wet.

The government's duty is to protect its citizens. Whether it is from others or themselves is meaningless.

No, it emphatically is not. It makes all the difference in the world. It all comes back to choice.

Unfortunately, there are people who will drive while intoxicated and they need to be stopped. It is not our "right" to drive drunk. Unfortunately, many people drive like complete ass-hats and need seat belts.

There is a distinction. Somebody driving drunk endangers me. Somebody driving without a seatbelt does not endanger me (I don't want to hear any far-fetched scenarios) so I couldn't care less whether they do or not. That should be their choice.

We bring it upon ourselves. If no one ever drove recklessly and paid attention, then there would be no seat belt laws.

It's a revenue collection mechanism and a tool used by police to gather information. I can assure you it has very little to do with safety. By the way, New Hampshire has no seatbelt law and they are statistically one of the safest states.

If we didn't drink and drive, then there would be no need for road blocks.

Road blocks are an abomination. I'd rather take my chances with a drunk any day than be treated like a criminal and be questioned and detained by police.

If no one ever blew their hand off lighting firecrackers or burned there ass sticking a bottle rocket where the sun doesn't shine, then there wouldn't be warning labels on the packages, and we could legally buy them here in Georgia WITHOUT HAVING TO DRIVE TO ALABAMA TO GET THE GOOD STUFF! (sorry)

If somebody else wants to blow their own hand off with a firecracker you care...why? Your argument is also becoming confused because you seem to resent and knowingly circumvent a regulation you previously claimed was justified for safety reasons.

If there was no one in the world trying to blow us up, then we wouldn't need the Patriot Act. (If the U.S. had stayed out of the Middle East to begin with, then there may/may not be people trying to blow us up. But that's a different post.)

We don't need the Patriot Act, it is an abhorrent, unconstitutional, and completely unnecessary piece of legislation.

You are a sad, scared person and I feel for sorry for you. You have willingly sacrificed freedom for safety and you, as the saying goes, will soon end up with neither.

Nocens:

Thing is, Jackson didn't exercise any Constitutional power. He did the same thing SCOTUS does on a regular basis in the modern era. He should have been impeached for it but public opinion was on his side. As far as I know, only two Presidents in history have pulled this. You got one with Jackson and the other when Lincoln went full retard.


I agree, and assume that with lincoln you are talking about suspending habeus corpus (a legislative not executive power) and imprisoned newspaper editors who were critical of his administration, and not freeing the slaves that were in states that were part of the union, only freeing them in states that were part of the confederacy, after saying at the time he was inaugurated that he had no power to free the slaves under the 10th amendment.

With that do you not find it odd that they are both revered as great presidents and are on the money in the US?

DNRTFT, as i'm on my crackberry at a lake somewhere.

Happy 4th, farkers.

Go have a beer and a burger.

Slartibartfaster: how do you toe a line ?

You've never heard that expression before? here's the wiki article on it

when i'm in a wal-mart, serving the ungrateful populace that are, by and large, 'bi...and LARGE'...i know without a doubt that we are lucky to live in this nation, for good or bad.

i wonder if we could do it again with todays citizens.

-that, i highly doubt.

on the 4th of july...i 'suggest' that from now on...we be humble and greatful, for those who went to their deaths, for low prices...

"always"

-happy 4th of july farkland-

Wraithbane: crash665: I have to disagree. MOST people need protection from themselves - I'm looking at you Florida. Most people in this country and in the world don't have enough common sense to get out of the rain. The government's duty is to protect its citizens. Whether it is from others or themselves is meaningless.

Nothing scares me more than the idiot who believes he has a right to "protect me" from myself. And you have no concept of what a government's duty is.

Duty, not a right. If you don't need to be protected, fine, but who's to say no one needs to be protected from you? We don't make checkpoints to protect the drunk drivers, we do it to protect everyone ELSE on the road. And don't tell me you've never done anything which may have resulted in someone else getting hurt if the shiat had hit the fan (if so, i guess you've lived a pretty boring life!). It's that hypothetical "IF" that we need to worry about.

Githerax: nicksteel: where is this empire that we have built? I don't see it. Where are these lands that we have conquered??



The purple part.

I think you forget that a large part of that purple part was purchased from the French. They were here first.

Emperorsteele: Duty, not a right. If you don't need to be protected, fine, but who's to say no one needs to be protected from you? We don't make checkpoints to protect the drunk drivers, we do it to protect everyone ELSE on the road. And don't tell me you've never done anything which may have resulted in someone else getting hurt if the shiat had hit the fan (if so, i guess you've lived a pretty boring life!). It's that hypothetical "IF" that we need to worry about.

So you are willing to be treated like a criminal, detained and questioned by police, simply on the chance that they may catch one or two drunk drivers (most checkpoints don't catch any) who may or may not have been driving recklessly and may or may not have hurt anyone else if they weren't arrested when they were?

crash665: Seat belt laws are not just "seat belt laws." They give the police unprecedented power to stop, detain, and question anyone in your vehicle. Not to mention fine you potentially hundreds of dollars.

I have to disagree. MOST people need protection from themselves - I'm looking at you Florida. Most people in this country and in the world don't have enough common sense to get out of the rain. The government's duty is to protect its citizens. Whether it is from others or themselves is meaningless. Unfortunately, there are people who will drive while intoxicated and they need to be stopped. It is not our "right" to drive drunk. Unfortunately, many people drive like complete ass-hats and need seat belts.
We bring it upon ourselves. If no one ever drove recklessly and paid attention, then there would be no seat belt laws. If we didn't drink and drive, then there would be no need for road blocks. If no one ever blew their hand off lighting firecrackers or burned there ass sticking a bottle rocket where the sun doesn't shine, then there wouldn't be warning labels on the packages, and we could legally buy them here in Georgia WITHOUT HAVING TO DRIVE TO ALABAMA TO GET THE GOOD STUFF! (sorry)
If there was no one in the world trying to blow us up, then we wouldn't need the Patriot Act. (If the U.S. had stayed out of the Middle East to begin with, then there may/may not be people trying to blow us up. But that's a different post.)

Frankly, it's not the governments job to "protect us from ourselves." It is our responsibility as American citizens to take that responsibility for us (and by extension our children until they become adults) If people are stupid and kill themselves with dangerous products, then so be it. The government certainly has a responsibility to label stupid things as stupid, but not to deny us that right to do those stupid things as long as we are not harming others.

When you get a situation where government begins mediating what people can and cannot do with their own lives, you run into tyranny.

Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox: crash665:
The government's duty is to protect its citizens. Whether it is from others or themselves is meaningless.

No, it emphatically is not. It makes all the difference in the world. It all comes back to choice.


I think he is half-right. I think that it is the governments duty to protect its citizens rights but not to protect themselves from everything. You have the right to life, it is the governments job to protect you from those that would seek to do you harm. You have the right to be secure in your property, it is the governments job to ensure that those who would steal from you are punished. You have the right to liberty, and it is the governments job to ensure that it does not itself get in the way of that liberty.


There is a distinction. Somebody driving drunk endangers me. Somebody driving without a seatbelt does not endanger me (I don't want to hear any far-fetched scenarios) so I couldn't care less whether they do or not. That should be their choice.
This goes along with the life and liberty stuff I just mentioned, if someone is endangering the lives of others, then the government has an obligation to protect the citizens right to life, this is not to say they should stop people because they might kill themselves while driving under the influence, but only to say they should stop people driving under some intoxicant because they pose a risk to the life and liberty of others.

Seat belts, I agree, do not infringe on others rights, so you should have the liberty to decide whether or not you want to do that. This of course means that if you dont, and a drunk driver hits you, you should not be able to go after the drunk for extra damages that occured as a result of not wearing a seat belt.


If we didn't drink and drive, then there would be no need for road blocks.


This is debatable, I previously posted a link to a news site that investigated DUI checkpoints and how they are far more profitable for non-DUI offenses than they are for DUI related ones, its just a way around the 4th amendment since outside of a DUI checkpoint it has been deemed they need probable cause to ask for identification, proof of insurance and registration taxes paid. The reality is that it should be unconstitutional at a check point as well, since its not valid at any other time without probable cause, and merely being on the road going into a checkpoint should never be considered probable cause.


If no one ever blew their hand off lighting firecrackers or burned there ass sticking a bottle rocket where the sun doesn't shine, then there wouldn't be warning labels on the packages, and we could legally buy them here in Georgia WITHOUT HAVING TO DRIVE TO ALABAMA TO GET THE GOOD STUFF! (sorry)
Back about 1976 the federal government banned M80s, you have some stuff labeled M80s but they arent the same. You still cant get the "good stuff" because there are a lot of regulations. Additionally, aluminium is listed as a dangerous chemical because its used in flash powder and it ends up being controlled, especially when in powder form. Etch-a-sketches have about 1/4 pound #400 mesh powdered aluminium, no quantity limits, no questions asked :) Getting potassium chlorate (match heads) is difficult in quantity because sellers of it have to ensure that you are not making M80s or other illegal fireworks, although its used for many things, smoke bombs, aerials, ... matches. skylighter.com for example tracks across multiple purchases and bans the sale of them on your first order to comply with ATF regulations on this.

So you can get some stuff, just not all the good things because people feel that its the governments responsibility to protect stupid people from doing stupid things (yet they do nothing to try to improve the schools to make fewer stupid people, interesting).

buzzvert: If I don't believe in a Creator, do I still have certain unalienable rights?

I believe in your mom, why don't you?

trixter_nl: read those closer, they have disclaimers because of the FDA stuff, and market it as a supplement because those are unregulated. If they cross the line and say that they are doing something that diagnoses or treats a medical condition then they have to get permission. A small penis or a fat ass are not currently listed as a medical condition, but that can instantly change if the FDA decides to classify them as such.

If they make a claim like cheerios did with "cheerios lowers chelosterol" then they are making a medical claim and have to get approved by the FDA for the product and have their speech regulated until they get government permission to make such a claim. Note in this case the FDA does not dispute the claim at all, but because the statement is made, the FDA wants millions of dollars to test whether or not cheerios contain oat, and if it does then they would be allowed to do that, although they would then be classified as a medicine not a breakfast cereal. Cheerios has been ordered to no longer say they lower cholesterol, even though the FDA admits that the claim is true.

Again my point is not that the products should not be regulated, it is that the speech/press should not be until there is a constitutional amendment to allow it. If a dangerous product is sold you can still go after people for that, without going after them for what they said about it. It would require 2 things though, 1. following the constitution instead of ignoring it when its not convenient, and 2. actually understanding that there is a difference between the product and the speech/press about that product.

Actaully, the Cheerios statement illustrates why you're wrong in this one. Supposedly, the FDA can regulate not only anything that makes a medical claim but also anything that claims to change a function of the body. That's why, for example, sunscreen and Botox get regulated. If someone calls something a dietary supplement but then say it will burn fat or make your penis bigger, it could be classified as a drug that is subject to the restrictions that other drugs face. It could be that the only reason they're still in business is that the FDA has not chosen to go after them-yet. I'm not really sure.

The problem with foods that make medical claims may have something to do with the exact words they use. If you use the wrong words, then you are required to show that your product is safe and effective the way a drug is. In my opinion, a clinical trial showing some benefit to dietary fiber dosen't mean that the the maker of granolaBITTIES can claim that his particular product is "clinically proven to reduce the risk of colon cancer"


Finally, your argument about the second amendment fails the "yelling 'fire' in a movie theater" test. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom to use language anyway or anywhere that you please. The constitution provides for Congress to make laws; it is well established over 200+ years of judicial interpretation that the 1st does not mean that it is OK to yell fire in a movie theater and that the government can make laws to prohibit yelling fire in a movie theater. What you are proposing amounts to saying that the families of people who got trampled after he yelled fire should sue the guy. Nope, the courts have correctly decided that there are reasonable limits and criminal acts should be prosecuted. This does not require a constititional amendment.

Hollywood Cole: buzzvert: If I don't believe in a Creator, do I still have certain unalienable rights?

I believe in your mom, why don't you?

I rofled at that one.

Bio-nic:
Frankly, it's not the governments job to "protect us from ourselves." It is our responsibility as American citizens to take that responsibility for us (and by extension our children until they become adults) If people are stupid and kill themselves with dangerous products, then so be it. The government certainly has a responsibility to label stupid things as stupid, but not to deny us that right to do those stupid things as long as we are not harming others.

When you get a situation where government begins mediating what people can and cannot do with their own lives, you run into tyranny.

Well said, although I had to add a small tweak :)

can'tletyoudothatstarfox...

when i was a young child...we played with lawn jarts.

-and some of us were pretty good at it.

yes...the stupid got hurt.

that's the way it was.

-welcome to totalfark, you glorious bastard!

MajorityWhip: Jefferson Lives - John Adams

For a couple more hours anyways.

Amazing that the two men died on the same day and that the day was July 4 1826.

Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.

Less free than the 1950s, the era of McCarthyism, when you have to sign documents swearing that you're not a communist or they'll fire you?
Less free than the time when blacks were slaves and women could not vote?

vertiaset: can I come too?

I lol'd

vertiaset: And why won't the government tell us the truth about AREA 51? We all know 9/11 was an INSIDE JOB!

Noone here suggested that ITT AFAIK, those beliefs are crazy.

vertiaset: What about that WAR ON DRUGS? Ir is prohibition pure and simple.

True

vertiaset: If I want to smoke crack or meth or shoot heroin and crash my car into the Foster's Freeze who are they to keep me down.

True

Emperorsteele:
Duty, not a right. If you don't need to be protected, fine, but who's to say no one needs to be protected from you? We don't make checkpoints to protect the drunk drivers, we do it to protect everyone ELSE on the road. And don't tell me you've never done anything which may have resulted in someone else getting hurt if the shiat had hit the fan (if so, i guess you've lived a pretty boring life!). It's that hypothetical "IF" that we need to worry about.

Since this is a Founding Fathers thread...

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety

Declaration read aloud by our true heroes, actors. (new window)

Many people don't want to acknowledge that a Free society requires danger. The more freedom you have, the more risk you take upon yourself. To enact more laws to protect you always at the same time takes away your freedom.

Modern Americans don't want freedom, they would rather have the illusion of safety.

Bauer: can'tletyoudothatstarfox...

when i was a young child...we played with lawn jarts.

-and some of us were pretty good at it.

yes...the stupid got hurt.

that's the way it was.

-welcome to totalfark, you glorious bastard!

Thank you very much, of course, I would always prefer people donate to Free Talk Live. They do more to spread the message of liberty than I could ever do. If you would like a chance at living in the world of personal responsibility and freedom that you remember so fondly again, check out the Free State Project, it is happening. I am going to look for jobs in New Hampshire next year and try to move, hopefully I will see you there someday.

Bauer: can'tletyoudothatstarfox...

when i was a young child...we played with lawn jarts.

-and some of us were pretty good at it.

yes...the stupid got hurt.

that's the way it was.

-welcome to totalfark, you glorious bastard!

When I was a kid, we played with sharp pub darts, and threw them way up in the air. One of them landed in my skull, and there I was, standing with a dart sticking out the top of my head. I was pretty pissed off, but my cousin was no help at all, he fell over and laughing and couldn't stop laughing for a long time. I eventually pulled it out with both hands. We had our freedoms and we liked em.

I've NEVER had the pursuit of happiness.

/Fuk you War on Drugs!

"yet they do nothing to try to improve the schools to make fewer stupid people, interesting"

education, originally, was for the rich.

-that's why.

an uneducated populace is easier to control.

this is the main reason the gop hates teachers unions and lawyers.

uppity book learnin' stuff, and like.

when you say "interesting"...i figure you already know this.

-this.

Animatronik: Bauer: can'tletyoudothatstarfox...

when i was a young child...we played with lawn jarts.

-and some of us were pretty good at it.

yes...the stupid got hurt.

that's the way it was.

-welcome to totalfark, you glorious bastard!

When I was a kid, we played with sharp pub darts, and threw them way up in the air. One of them landed in my skull, and there I was, standing with a dart sticking out the top of my head. I was pretty pissed off, but my cousin was no help at all, he fell over and laughing and couldn't stop laughing for a long time. I eventually pulled it out with both hands. We had our freedoms and we liked em.

good god!!!

i'd love to see that.

-sorry.

Happy 4th of a July!

It is a monumentous day in our history, celebrating our freedom from the british over two centuries ago. We are proud to be living in still the greatest country on earth, but we must fight to keep this country free.


So take the time to contemplate freedom while enjoying a great fourth of july, and enjoy the fireworks!


It has been a brutal decade for civil rights, but we're slowly taking back the freedoms that make this country beautiful. With a little focus, and a little determination, we will preserve the great name of the USA.

So take the time to contemplate freedom while enjoying a great fourth of july, and enjoy the fireworks!

Animatronik: Bauer: can'tletyoudothatstarfox...

when i was a young child...we played with lawn jarts.

-and some of us were pretty good at it.

yes...the stupid got hurt.

that's the way it was.

-welcome to totalfark, you glorious bastard!

When I was a kid, we played with sharp pub darts, and threw them way up in the air. One of them landed in my skull, and there I was, standing with a dart sticking out the top of my head. I was pretty pissed off, but my cousin was no help at all, he fell over and laughing and couldn't stop laughing for a long time. I eventually pulled it out with both hands. We had our freedoms and we liked em.

good god!!!

i'd love to see that.

-sorry.

bet you didn't do that again...did you.

hey...you lived.

:)

trixter_nl: Bio-nic:
Frankly, it's not the governments job to "protect us from ourselves." It is our responsibility as American citizens to take that responsibility for us (and by extension our children until they become adults) If people are stupid and kill themselves with dangerous products, then so be it. The government certainly has a responsibility to label stupid things as stupid, but not to deny us that right to do those stupid things as long as we are not harming others.

When you get a situation where government begins mediating what people can and cannot do with their own lives, you run into tyranny.

Well said, although I had to add a small tweak :)

Thank you, I just stood a 20 hour watch in the NoC and am a little tired (and buzzed from my wonderful Spotted Cow)

.... that among these are life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and 2 tips to lose stomach fat!


Apparently the creators of this site didn't check too carefully who was buying advertising space from them.

Happy birthday, US of A, and have fun pursuing happiness today and everyday, everybody!

Bauer [TotalFark] Quote 2009-07-04 03:03:26 PM
are you going to deny that the cia has fueled and/or carried out covert acts of war against other nations?

-really?

iran?

iraq?

korea?

vietman?

and then iraq, again.

-this is just for starters.

we are the cia.

they work for us.

-we have committed these acts.

all of us.


Yawn............

vertiaset: As an aside, Drew Curtis has said that fewer than 5% of people who read Fark ever post in a thread. So, that leads one to believe that lots and lots of people are reading these threads and laughing their asses off.

The question is are they laughing at us or with us?

At us. Always Always Always at us...

Githerax nicksteel: where is this empire that we have built? I don't see it. Where are these lands that we have conquered??



The purple part.


If the guilt of taking advantage of all of the benefits of this country gets a little too much for you.....you can always get the hell out.

In fact, you'd be a hypocrite if you didn't.

but then self righteous douchbags like you never have the balls to put up......I just wish you'd shut up though.

Animatronik:
Actaully, the Cheerios statement illustrates why you're wrong in this one. Supposedly, the FDA can regulate not only anything that makes a medical claim but also anything that claims to change a function of the body.


Well not quite. Things are sold that modify a function of the body without any FDA approval or regulation, things like energy drinks. If you read things that the FDA has said like this on infant mattresses its about medical claims, not bodily functions. Treatment or cure of a disease or syndrome is a medical claim. High cholesterol is considered a disease (I am unsure if they use that word or have a similar one but that concept), and as such anything attempting to treat it has to go through approval not just of the product, but also the speech that discusses the product.

Most of the grey area FDA things like penis enlarging boobie swelling fat burning supplements have a disclaimer that they are not diagnosing treating or curing any disease. Its usually in fine print that ends up too fuzzy and small to actually be read, but its there.



Finally, your argument about the second amendment fails the "yelling 'fire' in a movie theater" test.

No, you just appear to not understand what the 2nd amendment says.

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"

What this means is -
"the right of the people" heller affirmed its a personal right
"to keep and bear arms" to own and possess weapons and to use them in defence you have to go back to the 1500s for the origin of the phrase 'bear arms'. There is no right to use them for anything but defence, hunting is not protected, target shooting is not protected, use for defence is protected (although it would be insane to say that people can use them in defence but cant practice so target shooting should be allowed).
"shall not be infringed" even in heller the court avoided this phrase, but it means no infringement, none, zero.

So now that its broken down a bit, it doesnt even equate to yelling fire in a crowded theater. The defence aspect changes it a bit, and without that knowledge of the history and origin of the phrase (which originally judges, presidents, and legal scholars all agreed that is what it meant at that time) it appears to be a similar argument but after closer inspection it is not close to being equal.


Further as for yelling fire in a crowded theater, that is the court saying you cant do that, not the constitution. Now here is how that should be dealt with. Do not make a law that says its illegal (Congress shall pass no law and all that), instead hold people responsible for the outcome of their actions. If you yell fire and people run and trample each other, charge them not with the speech but rather the result, the injury to others. Its a fine line, but it keeps the speech itself free, while holding people responsible for their actions.

I firmly believe that the bill of rights also includes a tacit bill of responsibilities, and that people need to take personal responsibility for their actions, and the results of those actions. Instead of blaming video games and TV for bad parenting blame the people who did something that was deemed socially unacceptable. If people were forced to take responsibility for their own actions instead of seeking out everything else to blame you would find that most of the rules people think they need are actually unneeded.



Freedom of speech does not mean freedom to use language anyway or anywhere that you please. The constitution provides for Congress to make laws

It actually does not provide for them to make a law that restricts speech, religion, assembly or press. Specifically I point to the first amendment which starts out with "Congress shall make no law" which implicitly states that it is not allowed to do that, despite your insistence that it is, saying that SCOTUS can modify without ratification any part of the constitution it sees fit just because they said so is not proof that it is authorized under the constitution.

The first amendment, the freedom of speech means that you are free from government restrictions not private ones, on private property or if I am infringing on the rights of others then I am not allowed to do it, because nothing in the constitution states that I am allowed to infringe on the rights of others. The first amendment only applies to the government and not anyone else (technically only to Congress and not to the states, something else SCOTUS modified).

The caveat that is used for the fire argument is the protection of other peoples rights, although it still does not allow congress to make such a law, but does enable the states to do it. The words that were chosen were done so intentionally, to reassign the word Congress to mean the federal government and states only in that section but not anywhere else is a bit silly.

this would get back to one of the founding fathers statements (I want to say Adams, but I could be wrong, and I dont recall the exact quote) that the states should compete for citizens by way of laws, taxes, etc that the citizens desire.

I am also one of those people that believe that if you dont like the constitution you should seek to modify it and have that modification ratified, if you are unable to get it ratified, then suck it. Ignoring it and encouraging the court to ignore it creates great harm to the people, but it does create a government where its easier for corporate lobbyists to buy off politicians. If they are allowed to ignore one part, redefine another, exempt some additional parts, then what is left? At what point can they no longer do this? At what point will all the freedoms and liberties be gone?

If SCOTUS can at will just redefine what it sees fit, why cant it just say that the legislature is redefined in a way that gives them no power, and the executive a lot more power to the point that it ends up being a dictatorship? All it would take is some redefinition in a few key places and its a facist regime. Now the people would not tolerate that if it happened all at once, but once you open the door its a slow progression to total government control over everything.

Remember the states are sovereign entities, they only gave the federal government a tiny bit of that sovereignty and they are supposed to be more powerful than the federal government which gives the people more power. I am sure that almost everyone here disagrees with either the obama administration or the bush administration, and if the power was at the state level, they could more easily recall the official when they do something they dont like, they could more easily vote via a referrundum on controversial laws, they could more easily move to a different state if things get too bad and they are in the minority. When its a massive federal government that ability to have that level of control over the government is gone.

Bauer: Animatronik: Bauer: can'tletyoudothatstarfox...

when i was a young child...we played with lawn jarts.

-and some of us were pretty good at it.

yes...the stupid got hurt.

that's the way it was.

-welcome to totalfark, you glorious bastard!

When I was a kid, we played with sharp pub darts, and threw them way up in the air. One of them landed in my skull, and there I was, standing with a dart sticking out the top of my head. I was pretty pissed off, but my cousin was no help at all, he fell over and laughing and couldn't stop laughing for a long time. I eventually pulled it out with both hands. We had our freedoms and we liked em.

good god!!!

i'd love to see that.

-sorry.

bet you didn't do that again...did you.

hey...you lived.

:)

That's not one of the most dangerous things I did - not even close.

There is no way to keep boys totally safe, you just have to channel their behavior. Most really good chemists went through a childhood phase where they just wanted to Blow Stuff Up. I knew a chemist on the short list for a Nobel at one time, who, when he was a kid destroyed a shed with a 55 gallon drum filled with homemade explosives. Luckily he becamse a famous chemist instead of a terrorist. When I was a kid tinkering with chemicals, I discovered a way to make a lot of hydrogen really fast. I made a hydrogen cannon and narrowly missed shooting myself in the head with it.

No M-80's? No problem. we just spent some time getting the powder out of a bunch of fireworks and making our own giant explosive firecracker.

At one point I wondered what it would take to melt various things, so I made a homemade carbon arc, which could heat something up to thousands of degrees. I wore 2 pairs of sunglasses to protest my eyes. What a dumbass I was. Yes the fire department had to be called a couple times but nobody got hurt and the house wasn't burned down.

I like Franklin better:

What kind of government have you given us, Dr. Franklin?"

This was asked by a curious woman of Benjamin Franklin in Sept. 1787, when he emerged from the last session of the Constitutional Convention. It is said that his response was,

"A republic, madam, if you can keep it."

Sigh....more founding father worship from the
sheeple. Guess I gotta set ya straight once more.

Oh well, here goes:
the Declaration of Independence was propaganda
for the counter revolution of the aristocrats.

The objective of the counter revolution was to thwart
democracy in the colonies by using a pseudo-
democratic federal constitution that would
increase factions in political districts by enlarging
said factions. That way the majority would not be able to
"unite and discover their common interest" (quote
from james madison, the father of the constitution).

The purpose of the counter revolution and the new federal constitution was to protect the wealth of the rich, aka "the minority of the opulent." (quote from madison).


Madison wrote that "democracy was not right
for america."

Madison wrote to Jefferson that the way to run
america was to "divide et impera."

The federal govt and its constitution was the way to divide and rule the masses by enlarging the political
districts, thus making it hard for the masses to unite and control their own govt.

the offices of the president and the senate are the main way that the factions are enlarged. The president and the
senators are elected from large districts and are
therefore not very accountable to the voters.

Real democracies, eg. , all the other western nations, have parliamentarian govts, where the power is in the assembly, whose members are elected from small
districts.


For more on this, read Fresia's online book
TOWARD AN AMERICAN REVOLUTION and read Dr Woody Holton's online articles/esaays (google "an excess of democracy")

/now back to your regularly scheduled pseudopolitical debates....

what you call "taking advantage of all of the benefits of this country"...i call the rape of the natural land.

-you should be greatful to live in this nation.

it protects you from physical harm when you post idiotic comments online.

for a troll like you...that's golden!

don't spoil the moment.

go with it...

bring it to the table.

"what's your beef"?

trixter_nl: Animatronik:
Actaully, the Cheerios statement illustrates why you're wrong in this one. Supposedly, the FDA can regulate not only anything that makes a medical claim but also anything that claims to change a function of the body.


Well not quite. Things are sold that modify a function of the body without any FDA approval or regulation, things like energy drinks. If you read things that the FDA has said like this on infant mattresses its about medical claims, not bodily functions.

Read what I said. I said "anything that claims to change a function of the body". Note the use of the word "claims". energy drinks may change a function of the body (I'm not sure) but you won't find one that claims to do so, as a benefit to induce you to buy the product.


Treatment or cure of a disease or syndrome is a medical claim. High cholesterol is considered a disease (I am unsure if they use that word or have a similar one but that concept), and as such anything attempting to treat it has to go through approval not just of the product, but also the speech that discusses the product.


Lowering cholesterol is changing a function of the body, not treating a disease.


Most of the grey area FDA things like penis enlarging boobie swelling fat burning supplements have a disclaimer that they are not diagnosing treating or curing any disease. Its usually in fine print that ends up too fuzzy and small to actually be read, but its there.


As I said, it's my opinion that disclaimers like that are not a protection if you claim to be making a change that affects bodily functon. Remember all of those adds for enzyte or whatever, supposedly a dietary supplement? I'm pretty sure that they had a disclaimer about FDA evaluation. Didn't help their CEO.


Finally, your argument about the second amendment fails the "yelling 'fire' in a movie theater" test.

No, you just appear to not understand what the 2nd amendment says.

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"

What this means is -
"the right of the people" heller affirmed its a personal right
"to keep and bear arms" to own and possess weapons and to use them in defence you have to go back to the 1500s for the origin of the phrase 'bear arms'. There is no right to use them for anything but defence, hunting is not protected, target shooting is not protected, use for defence is protected (although it would be insane to say that people can use them in defence but cant practice so target shooting should be allowed).
"shall not be infringed" even in heller the court avoided this phrase, but it means no infringement, none, zero.

You bastid, you've been trolling me. Or something. I'm pretty sure I haven't biatched about the 2nd amendment since yesterday. I need more beer. And some Extenze.

Weaver95: I have great difficulty reconciling concepts such as the Patriot act, seatbelt legislation, wall street bailouts, RIAA's perversion of US copyright law and the entire War on Drugs with the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

If you ask me, we've lost our way. we're no longer 'free'. we've been TOLD we're free, but we need permits for everything and today we're going to have to run a gauntlet of drunk driving checkpoints to get around town. Not to mention the fact that the NSA and DHS are going to tap our phones to make sure nobody blows up the statue of Liberty tonight. So I don't think we're 'free'. I think we decidedly less free than we've ever been at any time before in the history of this country.

just my .02 cents.


What your describing is government, what you want is chaos. True and complete freedom is anarchy. Of course there will always be the discussion of how far government should go, and what exactly they should manage but the idea that government is meant to be free and nonrestrictive is a fantasy.

Government isn't meant to be perfect boys and girls, I know, shocking isn't it? Its unrealistic that it ever will be as well.

That isn't to say that there aren't problems, that there aren't concerns, but call me when you've been locked up for speaking your mind or you aren't able to worship any damn god you want, or the government takes away your guns. Etc.

animatronik...

-you seem like a rather 'quick' farker.

i, too, had a 'lab'...and know that you should not add mothballs, ammonia and baking soda, together.

we'll see if you last the week.

don't implode or anything.

;)

Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox: Nocens: He's actually 100% correct.

They don't constitutionally have the power they claim to wield. But, they are the most powerful branch of the government and the only checks against them are long in between.

Somewhere along the line, SCOTUS deviated in its mission to interpret the Constitution to the letter forcing American society to evolve within its constraints and embarked on interpretation to fit society's evolution.

The judiciary is the most powerful branch? What a ridiculous assertion. SCOTUS takes around 100 cases a year, most of which have no practical effect whatsoever on the lives of the citizenry, or deal with procedural issues. When they do have a "landmark" opinion, it's usually a slight tweak in what the standard currently is. Congress meanwhile has regulated every single aspect of our lives without exception. Besides what has become a general police power via the Commerce Clause, they have the power to impeach the President and strip the Supreme Court of jurisdiction. Congress is by far the most powerful of the branches, and always has been. The framers ("founding fathers," is a little too deity-like for my liking) recognized this in the Federalist Papers among other founding era documents.

This is where I stopped reading. You are an idiot.

Animatronik: trixter_nl: Animatronik:
Actaully, the Cheerios statement illustrates why you're wrong in this one. Supposedly, the FDA can regulate not only anything that makes a medical claim but also anything that claims to change a function of the body.


Well not quite. Things are sold that modify a function of the body without any FDA approval or regulation, things like energy drinks. If you read things that the FDA has said like this on infant mattresses its about medical claims, not bodily functions.

Read what I said. I said "anything that claims to change a function of the body". Note the use of the word "claims". energy drinks may change a function of the body (I'm not sure) but you won't find one that claims to do so, as a benefit to induce you to buy the product.


They dont claim to give you energy? Hmm.. I think they do. From what I read its on making a "medical claim" and not "changes a function of the body". There is a difference between the two. Here are a couple of examples

fda.gov
If the soap makes a medical claim, such as that it will cure dandruff, it is considered a drug and must carry required drug labeling and also meet FDA safety and effectiveness requirements.

fda.gov
However, FDA does not regulate such products unless the manufacturer intends to make a medical claim.

fda.gov
A medical claim for condoms as being effective against STDs requires that appropriate laboratory tests be performed.


They consistently use the term medical claim and not changing a bodys function. Sunscreen and condoms do not change the bodys function but if they make a medical claim they are regulated.


You bastid, you've been trolling me. Or something. I'm pretty sure I haven't biatched about the 2nd amendment since yesterday. I need more beer. And some Extenze.

you, or someone in your post, brought up the phrase "2nd amendment" not me, saying that my interpretation of it was like yelling fire in a theater (and it has to be a crowded theater, an empty one has no effects). I only responded to what you said.

Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox: crash665: I am probably misquoting, but wasn't it Thomas Jefferson who also said that in order to be free, we must give up some parts of freedom? If this was a completely free society, then it would be anarchy. Complete freedom means doing whatever you want, when you want. You can have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness all you want; as long as you don't deny someone else to right to do the same. It's not 100% free, but then again, complete freedom like what you are espousing, would not be a good thing.

He isn't advocating anarchy. Of course anarchy isn't what most people think it is anyway (most people erroneously equate it with chaos). There is a difference between protecting citizenry from the aggression of others and protecting citizenry from themselves. The first is a debatably legitimate function of government, the second is not.

Plus, are you that angry over seat belt laws? Really? In the same sentence with the RIAA and the Patriot Act? WOW!

Seat belt laws are not just "seat belt laws." They give the police unprecedented power to stop, detain, and question anyone in your vehicle. Not to mention fine you potentially hundreds of dollars.

Mr. Justice Scalia, and virtually all of the framers of the Constitution of the United States would disagree with you. That's why they delegated to the states a general power to police the health, safety, and morals of their citizens. There is no doubt but that our founding fathers regarded state paternalism as a legitimate function of government.

Happy 4th of July, Farkers!

I know you've got some issues with your gov't. Lord knows we do up here as well, but just remember that its a work in process. As long as you believe you're heading in the right direction, thats the most important part.

Yeah congratulations men, you've managed to keep women from having equal rights this long. Let's see how long you can do it!

Typhoid: Yeah congratulations men, you've managed to keep women from having equal rights this long. Let's see how long you can do it!

As long as you stay in the kitchen.

Bauer: i, too, had a 'lab'...and know that you should not add mothballs, ammonia and baking soda, together.

No idea what that makes. Doesn't soound like the way to make a nitro compound. I never fooled around with stuff like that. Nitro compounds are extremely unstable in the wrong hands, i knew that when I was 14 and did not try to make nitrglycerin or anything like that. Good way to lose fingers or worse.

But don't worry, my days of blowing stuff up for fun are long past. Although I do get a tear in my eye when I watch mythbusters sometimes.

Bio-nic: crash665: Seat belt laws are not just "seat belt laws." They give the police unprecedented power to stop, detain, and question anyone in your vehicle. Not to mention fine you potentially hundreds of dollars.

I have to disagree. MOST people need protection from themselves - I'm looking at you Florida. Most people in this country and in the world don't have enough common sense to get out of the rain. The government's duty is to protect its citizens. Whether it is from others or themselves is meaningless. Unfortunately, there are people who will drive while intoxicated and they need to be stopped. It is not our "right" to drive drunk. Unfortunately, many people drive like complete ass-hats and need seat belts.
We bring it upon ourselves. If no one ever drove recklessly and paid attention, then there would be no seat belt laws. If we didn't drink and drive, then there would be no need for road blocks. If no one ever blew their hand off lighting firecrackers or burned there ass sticking a bottle rocket where the sun doesn't shine, then there wouldn't be warning labels on the packages, and we could legally buy them here in Georgia WITHOUT HAVING TO DRIVE TO ALABAMA TO GET THE GOOD STUFF! (sorry)
If there was no one in the world trying to blow us up, then we wouldn't need the Patriot Act. (If the U.S. had stayed out of the Middle East to begin with, then there may/may not be people trying to blow us up. But that's a different post.)

Frankly, it's not the governments job to "protect us from ourselves." It is our responsibility as American citizens to take that responsibility for us (and by extension our children until they become adults) If people are stupid and kill themselves with dangerous products, then so be it. The government certainly has a responsibility to label stupid things as stupid, but not to deny us that right to do those stupid things as long as we are not harming others.

When you get a situation where government begins mediating what people can and cannot do with their own lives, you run into tyranny.

Absolute hokum. Tyranny is concentration of too much power into too few hands, or unjustly cruel or oppressive government. Requiring people to use seat belts, a law which manifestly causes people to act for their own good, in no meaningful sense constitutes "tyranny."

m2313: Typhoid: Yeah congratulations men, you've managed to keep women from having equal rights this long. Let's see how long you can do it!

As long as you stay in the kitchen.

My pies will be poisoned, but you're welcome to them.

"Road blocks are an abomination. I'd rather take my chances with a drunk any day than be treated like a criminal and be questioned and detained by police."


Since I was trying to have a decent conversation with people who disagree with me and do so without resorting to name calling - It looks like I can't help it. (thank you, wolfbane or whatever your name is - is everyone who has a different opinion than you an idiot, too?) ) I'd say you are the sad little person. Take your chances with a drunk behind a car? Wow! That's idiotic! You can sit there and think that the government should protect you from the "bad guys" without having to actually do anything all you want. Let's not do wiretapping. Let's just ask if someone is going to do something bad. They'll tell us. I'm sure.
Don't wear a seat belt. Maybe you'll fly through the wind shield and the world will be rid of you and your idiotic ideology. (Oh yeah, maybe your kids will be smart enough to wear them - I don't wish suffering on any child.)
Let the government protect me as long as they don't do anything I don't like, right? Protect this country, but let me do what ever the hell I like! Once reality sets in, you'll realize that there are necessary evils in the world. Some of these happen to be law and rules and government policies you don't like.
As far as my argument over the fireworks? In Georgia, some of them are legal, some aren't. I disagree with this law much like you and others here on Fark do with the seat belt laws. I will buy them, and if I get a ticket for shooting the illegal ones, I won't whine and complain and write protest letters. I will accept the fact that I violated a law that I chose to violate.
Now, I'm going outside to swim in my pool and then shoot fireworks. (Watch out for the cops! They're evil!) Thank you, and Fark You All!

cry0fan: Sigh....more founding father worship from the
sheeple. Guess I gotta set ya straight once more.

Oh well, here goes:
the Declaration of Independence was propaganda
for the counter revolution of the aristocrats.

The objective of the counter revolution was to thwart
democracy in the colonies by using a pseudo-
democratic federal constitution that would
increase factions in political districts by enlarging
said factions. That way the majority would not be able to
"unite and discover their common interest" (quote
from james madison, the father of the constitution).

The purpose of the counter revolution and the new federal constitution was to protect the wealth of the rich, aka "the minority of the opulent." (quote from madison).


Madison wrote that "democracy was not right
for america."

Madison wrote to Jefferson that the way to run
america was to "divide et impera."

The federal govt and its constitution was the way to divide and rule the masses by enlarging the political
districts, thus making it hard for the masses to unite and control their own govt.

the offices of the president and the senate are the main way that the factions are enlarged. The president and the
senators are elected from large districts and are
therefore not very accountable to the voters.

Real democracies, eg. , all the other western nations, have parliamentarian govts, where the power is in the assembly, whose members are elected from small
districts.


For more on this, read Fresia's online book
TOWARD AN AMERICAN REVOLUTION and read Dr Woody Holton's online articles/esaays (google "an excess of democracy")

/now back to your regularly scheduled pseudopolitical debates....

Democracy is a terrible form of government. You seem to like the idea of it though so I want to make sure you understand what it really is. Democracy in simple terms is two wolves and a hen voting on whats for dinner. Republican government is a government that is based upon the rule of law. We were intended to be the latter. Yes, the system was initially set up only to allow landowners to have a say in the system. This was a good thing. You do not want uneducated plebs to have a say in any form of republican government. There are always far more morons than intelligent people, and once politicians learn that they can get power by catering to the plebs and giving the masses what they want a government quickly becomes the corrupt fear mongering farce of a system that we have today.

Typhoid: m2313: Typhoid: Yeah congratulations men, you've managed to keep women from having equal rights this long. Let's see how long you can do it!

As long as you stay in the kitchen.

My pies will be poisoned, but you're welcome to them.

"And madame, if you were my wife, I would eat it!"

libbynomore2: nick

I do not feel guilty about anything that this country has done. Your map shows a remarkable lack of knowledge of history. Are you feeling sorry for the poor Indians??

all that so we can have this:

Typhoid: My pies will be poisoned, but you're welcome to them.

Not a pie person, and I've been told the cake is a lie.
Maybe poison cookies?

Bauer: george tenant told george bush that 'iraq wmds' were a slam dunk.

-wmds were a lie.

the cia helped fuel the lies for the war.

he got a medal for his part.

-the whole world knows this...end of story.

any credibility we had as a nation is gone.

sorry nicksteel...that you choose not to see it.

one thing is for sure...we can only go up from here.

so...i guess we have george w. bush to thank for pushing us all over the edge...so now...we can finally, honestly, take a good look at ourselves.

-and try to move foward.

i'm not impressed so far.

Then take your sorry ass and move somewhere else. You are nothing more than a pimple on the ass cheek of the good men and women who live in this country.

Take your pessimistic attitude and go live in some other country and see if it is any better. I hear that there are lots of empty apartments in Tehran these days. You could probably get one real cheap. And after you get your ass handed to you a few times by some real men, come on back to the States and then tell us how bad things are here.

captain_heroic44: Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox: Nocens: He's actually 100% correct.

They don't constitutionally have the power they claim to wield. But, they are the most powerful branch of the government and the only checks against them are long in between.

Somewhere along the line, SCOTUS deviated in its mission to interpret the Constitution to the letter forcing American society to evolve within its constraints and embarked on interpretation to fit society's evolution.

The judiciary is the most powerful branch? What a ridiculous assertion. SCOTUS takes around 100 cases a year, most of which have no practical effect whatsoever on the lives of the citizenry, or deal with procedural issues. When they do have a "landmark" opinion, it's usually a slight tweak in what the standard currently is. Congress meanwhile has regulated every single aspect of our lives without exception. Besides what has become a general police power via the Commerce Clause, they have the power to impeach the President and strip the Supreme Court of jurisdiction. Congress is by far the most powerful of the branches, and always has been. The framers ("founding fathers," is a little too deity-like for my liking) recognized this in the Federalist Papers among other founding era documents.

This is where I stopped reading. You are an idiot.

Fine, name something they have not regulated.

trixter_nl: They dont claim to give you energy? Hmm.. I think they do. From what I read its on making a "medical claim" and not "changes a function of the body". There is a difference between the two. Here are a couple of examples

fda.gov
If the soap makes a medical claim, such as that it will cure dandruff, it is considered a drug and must carry required drug labeling and also meet FDA safety and effectiveness requirements.

fda.gov
However, FDA does not regulate such products unless the manufacturer intends to make a medical claim.

fda.gov
A medical claim for condoms as being effective against STDs requires that appropriate laboratory tests be performed.

I think claiming to give you energy is sufficiently vague that the FDA doesn't get involved, because it doesn't address a specific bodily function . In my opinion, any energy you get from those things comes from the caffeine in them, and nothing else.

For everything else you said, if you read what I said, I said they aren't allowed to claim either a medical benefit OR changing a function of the body. So you can bring up as many examples as you like where people got in trouble for medical claims, it doesn't address the other aspect. I think claims related to bodily function may ALSO get you into trouble. As the makers of some bigger-penis-making products have already found out. It may be that claiming to be a dietary supplement gives them some protection, but it has to actually be a dietary supplement I guess.

From FDA.gov ( note the 2nd part I bolded):

The terms "drug," "device," and "cosmetic" are defined in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) (Sections 201 (g), (h) and (i)):

The term "drug" includes articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in man or other animals and articles (other than foods and dietary supplements) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body.

captain_heroic44: Congress meanwhile has regulated every single aspect of our lives without exception...

This is where I stopped reading. You are an idiot.

Ok, prove me wrong, name one area of our lives that Congress has not regulated in some way.

trixter_nl: Githerax: nicksteel: where is this empire that we have built? I don't see it. Where are these lands that we have conquered??



The purple part.

to a point the red part too. I come from a little tribe known as the Cherokee, they used to live in the Georgia area, and were sequestered to a reservation in Georgia until gold was discovered there. At that time there were some SCOTUS cases where SCOTUS said "you are indians, you have no purpose in this court, GTFO" and in a followup case they did rule that Georgia could not boot em off the reservation and Andrew Jackson said "Marshall made his decision, lets see him enforce it" and the forced death march to Oklahoma began. For this death march Jackson was placed on the $20, go figure.

Indians were a hindrance to progress. It was only a matter of time before you got your asses kicked. Your way of life way backward and inefficient. Couple that with a remarkable inability to grasp the obvious (you were hopelessly outnumbered), you set yourselves up for extinction.

Githerax: nicksteel: where is this empire that we have built? I don't see it. Where are these lands that we have conquered??



The purple part.

we bought most of the land west of the Mississippi and the land east of the Mississippi was ours as a result of the revolution.


And on top of that, your asshole buddy was talking about post WWII. So unless your grasp of US history is totally farked up, your map does not apply.

Bauer: nicksteel: Bauer: nicksteel: Bauer: "where is this empire that we have built? I don't see it. Where are these lands that we have conquered??"...nicksteel, 2009, farker.

-remember this day boys...for it will be yours for all time.

wtf!?!

i'll have what your smoking.

"I guess that means that you cannot answer my question. I didn't think you could. Not honestly."

-open you eyes and look around.

there's your short answer.

if you cannot acknowledge that the united states has covertly altered the governments of many, many foreign nations, for many, many years...in order to achieve a better vantage point (MONEY, LAND, WEALTH), then you are a god damned retard ill-informed.

and probably not worth the time to answer in any more depth than that.

-go read a book that the state didn't write for you.

seriously.

I see, you have retreated from your original position of empire building and conquering nations to covertly altered governments.

Nice job.

-ok...go no further.

iraq

you mean that country where we disposed the evil dictator and then set up a democratic form of government that we are now in the process of giving back to them? That Iraq? Try harder.

cybrwzrd: captain_heroic44: Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox: Nocens: He's actually 100% correct.

They don't constitutionally have the power they claim to wield. But, they are the most powerful branch of the government and the only checks against them are long in between.

Somewhere along the line, SCOTUS deviated in its mission to interpret the Constitution to the letter forcing American society to evolve within its constraints and embarked on interpretation to fit society's evolution.

The judiciary is the most powerful branch? What a ridiculous assertion. SCOTUS takes around 100 cases a year, most of which have no practical effect whatsoever on the lives of the citizenry, or deal with procedural issues. When they do have a "landmark" opinion, it's usually a slight tweak in what the standard currently is. Congress meanwhile has regulated every single aspect of our lives without exception. Besides what has become a general police power via the Commerce Clause, they have the power to impeach the President and strip the Supreme Court of jurisdiction. Congress is by far the most powerful of the branches, and always has been. The framers ("founding fathers," is a little too deity-like for my liking) recognized this in the Federalist Papers among other founding era documents.

This is where I stopped reading. You are an idiot.

Fine, name something they have not regulated.

Identify the federal law which governs your conduct in the bedroom.

Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox: captain_heroic44: Congress meanwhile has regulated every single aspect of our lives without exception...

This is where I stopped reading. You are an idiot.

Ok, prove me wrong, name one area of our lives that Congress has not regulated in some way.

Identify the act of Congress that restricts your ability to worship.

nastyboi

On behalf of all the men and women who have fought and died defending this country, eat shiat and die. And do it soon.

captain_heroic44: Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox: captain_heroic44: Congress meanwhile has regulated every single aspect of our lives without exception...

This is where I stopped reading. You are an idiot.

Ok, prove me wrong, name one area of our lives that Congress has not regulated in some way.

Identify the act of Congress that restricts your ability to worship.

They won't let me masterbate in public buildings.

nicksteel: Indians were a hindrance to progress. It was only a matter of time before you got your asses kicked. Your way of life way backward and inefficient. Couple that with a remarkable inability to grasp the obvious (you were hopelessly outnumbered), you set yourselves up for extinction.

I know you are trolling, but there's substantial irony here, because of all the indian tribes, the Cherokee were particularly known for living well side-by-side with Europeans, adopted new technology, and developed their own written language. In the end, most of them got booted by the whites anyway. It wasn't about progress, it was about cultural dominance. Just sayin'.

I think it's adorable that the gun totin', flag wavin' "if you don' like it, GIT OUT!" red states are the ones that are the most subsistent on the federal government, per capita, and contribute the least to GDP.

I mean, it's like the kids that live in the basement that never get a steady job or make something better of themselves. In America's case, well, at least they like the house and would die defending the property. Happy 4th, you lovable rednecked bastards.

Animatronik: nicksteel: Indians were a hindrance to progress. It was only a matter of time before you got your asses kicked. Your way of life way backward and inefficient. Couple that with a remarkable inability to grasp the obvious (you were hopelessly outnumbered), you set yourselves up for extinction.

I know you are trolling, but there's substantial irony here, because of all the indian tribes, the Cherokee were particularly known for living well side-by-side with Europeans, adopted new technology, and developed their own written language. In the end, most of them got booted by the whites anyway. It wasn't about progress, it was about cultural dominance. Just sayin'.

I am NOT trolling. Adapt or die. The Indians did not adapt. I will give you the Cherokee, they went on to own slaves. Kinda makes it hard to feel like you were oppressed when you were doing it yourselves.

nastyboi: They won't let me masterbate in public buildings.

Only God knows when the Second Coming will happen my friend.

So, like, why is Obama in Russia today? You'd have thought he might wanna be here.

buzzvert: I think it's adorable that the gun totin', flag wavin' "if you don' like it, GIT OUT!" red states are the ones that are the most subsistent on the federal government, per capita, and contribute the least to GDP.

I mean, it's like the kids that live in the basement that never get a steady job or make something better of themselves. In America's case, well, at least they like the house and would die defending the property. Happy 4th, you lovable rednecked bastards.

There are no pure red states and there are no pure blue states. And that simple fact makes your whining and crying all the more pathetic.

DarkAvised: So, like, why is Obama in Russia today? You'd have thought he might wanna be here.

There's going to be a nuclear blast in DC eliminating all his opponents, and quick thorough assassinations will of the remainders will follow.

Then he will fly back here, claim it was a conservative domestic terrorist attack, and assume martial law, starting a second Civil War, using purges against dissidents, in which all the true Americans will be killed.

We warned you about this evil socialist.

nicksteel: Animatronik: nicksteel: Indians were a hindrance to progress. It was only a matter of time before you got your asses kicked. Your way of life way backward and inefficient. Couple that with a remarkable inability to grasp the obvious (you were hopelessly outnumbered), you set yourselves up for extinction.

I know you are trolling, but there's substantial irony here, because of all the indian tribes, the Cherokee were particularly known for living well side-by-side with Europeans, adopted new technology, and developed their own written language. In the end, most of them got booted by the whites anyway. It wasn't about progress, it was about cultural dominance. Just sayin'.

I am NOT trolling. Adapt or die. The Indians did not adapt. I will give you the Cherokee, they went on to own slaves. Kinda makes it hard to feel like you were oppressed when you were doing it yourselves.

Many Indians DID adapt, they were still treated badly by the whites because they were fewer in number and weren't able to fight as well. It's a classic case of one human clan being afraid of the other and acting to eradicate it out of fear. The whites feared organized Indian tribes the way Rome feared Carthage. We don't see it that way because it's so close in our history.

captain_heroic44: Identify the federal law which governs your conduct in the bedroom.

Prostitution is illegal on federal land, near military bases, etc. It is illegal to transport prostitutes across state lines. It is illegal to cross state lines for the purpose of meeting an underaged teen or prostitute for sex. It is against military law to commit adultery.

Note that I don't necessarily agree with the conduct, or even some of these laws (although I think prostitution should be legal, and actually is in my state without issue). But you asked if there was a law regulating bedroom conduct, so there you have it.

captain_heroic44: Identify the act of Congress that restricts your ability to worship.

It is against federal law to use peyote or marijuana for religious purposes.

Animatronik: nicksteel: Animatronik: nicksteel: Indians were a hindrance to progress. It was only a matter of time before you got your asses kicked. Your way of life way backward and inefficient. Couple that with a remarkable inability to grasp the obvious (you were hopelessly outnumbered), you set yourselves up for extinction.

I know you are trolling, but there's substantial irony here, because of all the indian tribes, the Cherokee were particularly known for living well side-by-side with Europeans, adopted new technology, and developed their own written language. In the end, most of them got booted by the whites anyway. It wasn't about progress, it was about cultural dominance. Just sayin'.

I am NOT trolling. Adapt or die. The Indians did not adapt. I will give you the Cherokee, they went on to own slaves. Kinda makes it hard to feel like you were oppressed when you were doing it yourselves.

Many Indians DID adapt, they were still treated badly by the whites because they were fewer in number and weren't able to fight as well. It's a classic case of one human clan being afraid of the other and acting to eradicate it out of fear. The whites feared organized Indian tribes the way Rome feared Carthage. We don't see it that way because it's so close in our history.

MANY Indians adapted?? I don't think I would use the word many. If Indians back in the 1800s were anything like the Indians that I met in South Dakota, I can see why the white people chased them out. It had nothing to do with fear. It had a lot to do with attitude, then and now.

Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox: captain_heroic44: Identify the federal law which governs your conduct in the bedroom.

Prostitution is illegal on federal land, near military bases, etc. It is illegal to transport prostitutes across state lines. It is illegal to cross state lines for the purpose of meeting an underaged teen or prostitute for sex. It is against military law to commit adultery.

Note that I don't necessarily agree with the conduct, or even some of these laws (although I think prostitution should be legal, and actually is in my state without issue). But you asked if there was a law regulating bedroom conduct, so there you have it.

captain_heroic44: Identify the act of Congress that restricts your ability to worship.

It is against federal law to use peyote or marijuana for religious purposes.

that is not true.

nicksteel: nastyboi

On behalf of all the men and women who have fought and died defending this country, eat shiat and die. And do it soon.

Thanks for proving my point.

nicksteel: There are no pure red states and there are no pure blue states. And that simple fact makes your whining and crying all the more pathetic.

Why, yes, there is no simple right or wrong, yes or no, libtard or conservative delineations! What a startling and intellectual revelation. Now, can you go back through your posts in this thread and revise them with your newfound insight? And when you're done with that, could you make me a hot dog?

nicksteel: that is not true.

Yes it is.

Or at least it still was when I left work from the DOJ this Thursday. If it changed between yesterday and today I apologize.

Animatronik:
For everything else you said, if you read what I said, I said they aren't allowed to claim either a medical benefit OR changing a function of the body. So you can bring up as many examples as you like where people got in trouble for medical claims, it doesn't address the other aspect. I think claims related to bodily function may ALSO get you into trouble. As the makers of some bigger-penis-making products have already found out. It may be that claiming to be a dietary supplement gives them some protection, but it has to actually be a dietary supplement I guess.



With enzyte it was over medical claims, or at least that is what the lawyers for enzyte said on camera in an interview over their FDA issues. Specifically it had to do with the advertising and not the product.

The definition of a medical claim includes drugs, so if there is a medical claim about something that changes the bodys function then the claim has to be verified, in virtually every case the product has to be ruled safe and effective (as claimed) but it boils down to the medical claim unless you can show me where the FDA regulates drugs that do not have any medical claims attached to them.

I am just saying that its at a higher level, they go after the medical claims (whether they are made to doctors to get them to dispense a product or tv adverts). Without a medical claim you cannot guarantee that anything is effective, since it is tested to see if its effective at the specific medical claim and not effective at something totally unrelated.

I would actually have less problem with it if it were the way you present it, because they would be going after the product and not the speech, but unfortunately it is on the claim itself.

can you find a single instance where they go after a product without any claims? hint: you cant submit it to the FDA for approval without making a claim as to what it will do.

nastyboi: nicksteel: nastyboi

On behalf of all the men and women who have fought and died defending this country, eat shiat and die. And do it soon.

Thanks for proving my point.

I am sure that you think that I have proven your point. You are such a complete idiot that you would think that. You are not worth the sweat off the balls of any member of the Armed Services. Hell, I'd even throw in people who work for the Post Office.

Smug little punks like you would be the first to run to those patriotic citizens for protection. And they would give it to you.

So at which point did we stop fearing the Redman, Animatronik? When we killed the first batch with small pox, the second with muskets, or the third with alcohol and welfare?

Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox: nicksteel: that is not true.

Yes it is.

Or at least it still was when I left work from the DOJ this Thursday. If it changed between yesterday and today I apologize.

May 29, 2002

Federal Court Rules in Rastafarian Case

In an opinion issued Tuesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, some marijuana-using Rastafarians may be protected under a religious-freedom law passed by Congress in 1993.

The case began in 1991 when Benny Guerrero, returning from a trip to Hawaii, was stopped by officials at Guam's international airport. Mr. Guerrero evidently attracted the eyes of authority because he was carrying a book about Rastafarianism and marijuana. A search of Guerrero's luggage turned up five ounces of marijuana and some Cannabis seeds. He was arrested and charged with importation of a controlled substance.

In his defense, Guerrero argued that he was a practicing Rastafarian and that his use of marijuana was religious. His importation of the herb was, he argued, protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a law that blocks the federal government from unjustifiably infringing on a person's practice of religion.

captain_heroic44:
Identify the act of Congress that restricts your ability to worship.

21 USC 821 comes to mind, but I may be wrong. 21 USC is the food and drug statutes, 800 or so is where the drug statutes start, and many drugs are banned, yet some religions use them, and who is to say that you should not be allowed to create a new one.

Some really old religions use intoxicants, including native american ones, however the way it works there is that certain tribes are granted permission only under specific circumstances, and whitey cant join that religion (one restriction is that you have to be a tribal member, approved by the dept of interior, bureau of indian affairs and get issued a tribal identification card from BIA to be a tribal member).

anything else?

buzzvert: nicksteel: There are no pure red states and there are no pure blue states. And that simple fact makes your whining and crying all the more pathetic.

Why, yes, there is no simple right or wrong, yes or no, libtard or conservative delineations! What a startling and intellectual revelation. Now, can you go back through your posts in this thread and revise them with your newfound insight? And when you're done with that, could you make me a hot dog?

good, I have taught you something.

ALAKAZAM!!! You are a hot dog!!

trixter_nl: captain_heroic44:
Identify the act of Congress that restricts your ability to worship.

21 USC 821 comes to mind, but I may be wrong. 21 USC is the food and drug statutes, 800 or so is where the drug statutes start, and many drugs are banned, yet some religions use them, and who is to say that you should not be allowed to create a new one.

Some really old religions use intoxicants, including native american ones, however the way it works there is that certain tribes are granted permission only under specific circumstances, and whitey cant join that religion (one restriction is that you have to be a tribal member, approved by the dept of interior, bureau of indian affairs and get issued a tribal identification card from BIA to be a tribal member).

anything else?

"are granted permission" is not the same as restrictions

Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox: It is illegal to cross state lines for the purpose of meeting an underaged teen or prostitute for sex.

change that a bit. It is illegal to cross state lines (or even if you dont, the intarweb is enough even if its the same state) to hook up with anyone that is of the age of consent in that given state but under the age of 18. Further it is illegal to fly to a foreign country and have sex with anyone under the age of 18. Federal law does not make a distinction between the traveler being under/over 18, so a 17 year old takes a plane ride to nevada to hook up with a 17 year old (perhaps on a school trip??) and they bang. Both of them are not violating federal law.

It is illegal to send a picture via the intarweb, mobile phone, or similar of someone nekid under the age of 18, even if that someone is you. That can be considered bedroom activity. The person you are sending it to can be next door, in the same state but its considered interstate because of an expansion that allows virtually everything to be interstate now.

trixter_nl: Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox: It is illegal to cross state lines for the purpose of meeting an underaged teen or prostitute for sex.

change that a bit. It is illegal to cross state lines (or even if you dont, the intarweb is enough even if its the same state) to hook up with anyone that is of the age of consent in that given state but under the age of 18. Further it is illegal to fly to a foreign country and have sex with anyone under the age of 18. Federal law does not make a distinction between the traveler being under/over 18, so a 17 year old takes a plane ride to nevada to hook up with a 17 year old (perhaps on a school trip??) and they bang. Both of them are not violating federal law.

It is illegal to send a picture via the intarweb, mobile phone, or similar of someone nekid under the age of 18, even if that someone is you. That can be considered bedroom activity. The person you are sending it to can be next door, in the same state but its considered interstate because of an expansion that allows virtually everything to be interstate now.

Both of you are reaching a bit. What about perverts who get sexual satisfaction by killing people. Is the government interfering in their sex lives or is it protecting the public?

nicksteel:
"are granted permission" is not the same as restrictions

you are right, however the restriction is for everyone who is not granted permission to violate that restriction. As such whitey (or indians of a different tribe, mexicans, blacks, etc) cant practice that religion legally. The government has said it is illegal.

captain_heroic44:
Absolute hokum. Tyranny is concentration of too much power into too few hands, or unjustly cruel or oppressive government. Requiring people to use seat belts, a law which manifestly causes people to act for their own good, in no meaningful sense constitutes "tyranny."

And how the attempt to concentrate all of our power into the hands of police is not building towards tyranny eludes me.

Please, explain to me how it's not reaching a point of tyranny when the populace can be stopped for more and more basic and silly things (to the point where, "he was eying me funny, so I checked from identification" from police) has become justified and defended by the court system.

I am as capable, if not more capable of defending myself from the vagrancy that is modern criminal activity much better than the police can. Taking away my right to defend myself (either through the abrogation of the 2nd amendment) and giving that power to some stranger who may be 10 - 20 or even an hour away seems downright stupid.

trixter_nl: Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox: It is illegal to cross state lines for the purpose of meeting an underaged teen or prostitute for sex.

change that a bit. It is illegal to cross state lines (or even if you dont, the intarweb is enough even if its the same state) to hook up with anyone that is of the age of consent in that given state but under the age of 18. Further it is illegal to fly to a foreign country and have sex with anyone under the age of 18. Federal law does not make a distinction between the traveler being under/over 18, so a 17 year old takes a plane ride to nevada to hook up with a 17 year old (perhaps on a school trip??) and they bang. Both of them are not violating federal law.

It is illegal to send a picture via the intarweb, mobile phone, or similar of someone nekid under the age of 18, even if that someone is you. That can be considered bedroom activity. The person you are sending it to can be next door, in the same state but its considered interstate because of an expansion that allows virtually everything to be interstate now.

Is it not also illegal to bang your 9 year old daughter? It's your bedroom (well her's unless mommy want in on the action)

nicksteel:
Both of you are reaching a bit. What about perverts who get sexual satisfaction by killing people. Is the government interfering in their sex lives or is it protecting the public?

you should read a bit more of what I have said in this thread, specifically the part about how your rights end at the tip of someone elses nose. You do not have the right to take away anyone elses rights, which includes that whole pesky life part of it. I think its a bit of a stretch to negate that aspect of it.

/why won't my esses work the way I wants?

Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox: captain_heroic44: Identify the federal law which governs your conduct in the bedroom.

Prostitution is illegal on federal land, near military bases, etc. It is illegal to transport prostitutes across state lines. It is illegal to cross state lines for the purpose of meeting an underaged teen or prostitute for sex. It is against military law to commit adultery.

Note that I don't necessarily agree with the conduct, or even some of these laws (although I think prostitution should be legal, and actually is in my state without issue). But you asked if there was a law regulating bedroom conduct, so there you have it.

captain_heroic44: Identify the act of Congress that restricts your ability to worship.

It is against federal law to use peyote or marijuana for religious purposes.

It is against federal law to use peyote or marijuana under certain circumstances. That these restrictions have an incidental effect on religious practice is irrelevant. There is no federal law restricting worship.

Or, alternatively, I can take a federal law restricting the ability to detonate a nuke as a restriction on worship of radical Islam. How can we tolerate such heinous persecution?

There still has to be an interstate component to Mann Act violations, which makes it indisputably within the purview of the commerce power.

trixter_nl: nicksteel:
"are granted permission" is not the same as restrictions

you are right, however the restriction is for everyone who is not granted permission to violate that restriction. As such whitey (or indians of a different tribe, mexicans, blacks, etc) cant practice that religion legally. The government has said it is illegal.

It is a tribal religion. What part of that do you not understand??

captain_heroic44: Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox: captain_heroic44: Identify the federal law which governs your conduct in the bedroom.

Prostitution is illegal on federal land, near military bases, etc. It is illegal to transport prostitutes across state lines. It is illegal to cross state lines for the purpose of meeting an underaged teen or prostitute for sex. It is against military law to commit adultery.

Note that I don't necessarily agree with the conduct, or even some of these laws (although I think prostitution should be legal, and actually is in my state without issue). But you asked if there was a law regulating bedroom conduct, so there you have it.

captain_heroic44: Identify the act of Congress that restricts your ability to worship.

It is against federal law to use peyote or marijuana for religious purposes.

It is against federal law to use peyote or marijuana under certain circumstances. That these restrictions have an incidental effect on religious practice is irrelevant. There is no federal law restricting worship.

Or, alternatively, I can take a federal law restricting the ability to detonate a nuke as a restriction on worship of radical Islam. How can we tolerate such heinous persecution?

There still has to be an interstate component to Mann Act violations, which makes it indisputably within the purview of the commerce power.

And to be perfectly clear, what the Mann Act regulates is not bedroom conduct, but interstate movement for sexual purposes. We're talking about interstate movement of minors and commercial sex traffickers. This has a highly public component to it. We're definitely talking about a whole different level than private bedroom conduct between consenting adults.

Bio-nic: captain_heroic44:
Absolute hokum. Tyranny is concentration of too much power into too few hands, or unjustly cruel or oppressive government. Requiring people to use seat belts, a law which manifestly causes people to act for their own good, in no meaningful sense constitutes "tyranny."

And how the attempt to concentrate all of our power into the hands of police is not building towards tyranny eludes me.

Please, explain to me how it's not reaching a point of tyranny when the populace can be stopped for more and more basic and silly things (to the point where, "he was eying me funny, so I checked from identification" from police) has become justified and defended by the court system.

I am as capable, if not more capable of defending myself from the vagrancy that is modern criminal activity much better than the police can. Taking away my right to defend myself (either through the abrogation of the 2nd amendment) and giving that power to some stranger who may be 10 - 20 or even an hour away seems downright stupid.

I think that if you spend a little bit of time in a real tyranny you will see that they do not have courts. You will see that they don't need any excuse to lock you up or kill you.

So stop crying about things that aren't real.

WhyteRaven74: MajorityWhip: Jefferson Lives - John Adams

For a couple more hours anyways.

Amazing that the two men died on the same day and that the day was July 4 1826.

Oh, you got that! You must read books.

trixter_nl: captain_heroic44:
Identify the act of Congress that restricts your ability to worship.

21 USC 821 comes to mind, but I may be wrong. 21 USC is the food and drug statutes, 800 or so is where the drug statutes start, and many drugs are banned, yet some religions use them, and who is to say that you should not be allowed to create a new one.

Some really old religions use intoxicants, including native american ones, however the way it works there is that certain tribes are granted permission only under specific circumstances, and whitey cant join that religion (one restriction is that you have to be a tribal member, approved by the dept of interior, bureau of indian affairs and get issued a tribal identification card from BIA to be a tribal member).

anything else?

No. The intoxicants are prohibited. Not the worship. Generally applicable laws that have an incidental impact on religion can't be counted for reasons stated in previous post.

Lenny_da_Hog: MajorityWhip: Jefferson Lives - John Adams

Oddly enough, today is also the anniversary of the death of both of them.

Can someone give the Professor a cigar?

evilgreg: CheekyMunky: So if by "we" you mean "white males," then yeah, I guess may have a point. If by "we" you mean "people in America," however, then we, as a whole, are decidedly MORE free in recent decades than any time before. There are certainly some bubbles in the wallpaper yet - and I'm certainly not defending any of the things you listed - but overall it's been progress. Yes, some of it has required some sacrifice on the part of white males. Suck it up.

/white male
/not guilty
/not selfish

No, no. Repeat after me: "I'm Whitey, and I apologize."

Yes, because when we talk about freedom the people should ask "Am I more free" and not "Are we more free".

Taking this argument to the extreme, the peak of freedom can be argued to be when Louis XIV said "L'Etat, c'est moi"

nicksteel: Bio-nic: captain_heroic44:
Absolute hokum. Tyranny is concentration of too much power into too few hands, or unjustly cruel or oppressive government. Requiring people to use seat belts, a law which manifestly causes people to act for their own good, in no meaningful sense constitutes "tyranny."

And how the attempt to concentrate all of our power into the hands of police is not building towards tyranny eludes me.

Please, explain to me how it's not reaching a point of tyranny when the populace can be stopped for more and more basic and silly things (to the point where, "he was eying me funny, so I checked from identification" from police) has become justified and defended by the court system.

I am as capable, if not more capable of defending myself from the vagrancy that is modern criminal activity much better than the police can. Taking away my right to defend myself (either through the abrogation of the 2nd amendment) and giving that power to some stranger who may be 10 - 20 or even an hour away seems downright stupid.

I think that if you spend a little bit of time in a real tyranny you will see that they do not have courts. You will see that they don't need any excuse to lock you up or kill you.

So stop crying about things that aren't real.

Except that if we DON'T argue and stop it, we are lead by the balls INTO tyranny...

Yes, I understand that if the US was real tyranny we would have secret laws for people and simply trust that the government knows what they are doing.

Allow large private corporations to take over our prisons security at profit.

Restrict people from using their duly purchased merchandise for private profit and pleasure

Have black clad men and women bursting through our doors to take people off the street in the middle of the night and hold them without trial or redress.

wiretap our peoples phone conversations without their consent.

disarm the populace during emergencies "for their own good," make them pay for the welfare of drug addicts, illegal aliens, and other questionably legal things. We could almost...

wait...

You tell me to stop crying, when crying doesn't do anything to stop the above. Preventing it to begin with is the only way to stop it.

Have you tried today? Yesterday? Last week? Last month? Year? EVER?

GTFO troll, unless you have.

nicksteel: trixter_nl: nicksteel:
"are granted permission" is not the same as restrictions

you are right, however the restriction is for everyone who is not granted permission to violate that restriction. As such whitey (or indians of a different tribe, mexicans, blacks, etc) cant practice that religion legally. The government has said it is illegal.

It is a tribal religion. What part of that do you not understand??

That only certain pre-approved people can worship it, you do not have the right to worship that religion, or a modified version of it, if you are not approved.

You do not have the freedom to choose the religion you choose. I understand the argument that the government can restrict the religion if it violates someone elses rights, such as mayan sacrifices of humans, but this is not the case with this instance, you are not violating anyone elses rights if you choose that religion, yet it is illegal if you do not get approved by the BIA to be a member of that tribe. The religion itself is not a tribal religion any more than being jewish (religious) means you are from israel, you can convert at any time to that religion or practice a modified form of it if you choose.

Now since pandoras box is opened lets look at where this power comes from.
Article I Section 8 Clause 3
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

at the time that was written "regulate" meant "to make regular" and regular there meant "common or ordinary". In essence the legislature had the ability to make commerce regular between those entities. Not to pass laws banning it, licensing it, or otherwise restricting it. If you dont believe me, please do some research into the contemporary usage of regulate in the late 1700s. There are legal scholars of the day who wrote on this phrase.

Nothing that is inside the state is allowed, but if you read the senate hearings on the drug laws, they said that because congress cannot tell which drugs are involved in interstate and foreign commerce, and because some are, they all are. This was upheld in 2001 with the oakland cannibis club (medical marijuana) they proved that everything came from within California, specifically keeping records for this very argument. The seeds, fertilizer, etc were all from within the state.

Now we can go back further on to how this power to legislate everything came to be. We can go back to 1942 in Filburn SCOTUS said that if enough people did something without even commerce involved, then it would eventually affect interstate and foreign commerce, because people would not buy goods they would produce them themselves, and thus they can legislate it. The specific case was a farmer grew 1 acre of wheat on his own property, he picked it, his wife ground it into flour, and baked it into bread, which the farmer and his wife ate, they did not sell it, trade it or otherwise give it away. The government said they had to grow 12 acres instead. He did not want to do this, so he challenged their decision.

As a result of this decision the 10th amendment took a hit (it states anything not specifically granted to the feds is a right of the state), and the interstate and foreign commerce clause was amended without ratification to mean "anything congress wants".

trixter_nl: nicksteel:
"are granted permission" is not the same as restrictions

you are right, however the restriction is for everyone who is not granted permission to violate that restriction. As such whitey (or indians of a different tribe, mexicans, blacks, etc) cant practice that religion legally. The government has said it is illegal.

Your comments seem so rational and level-headed until you use the term "whitey" which I would normally assume to be facetious except for the fact that you're of non-white Cherokee decent.

Bio-nic: nicksteel: Bio-nic: captain_heroic44:
Absolute hokum. Tyranny is concentration of too much power into too few hands, or unjustly cruel or oppressive government. Requiring people to use seat belts, a law which manifestly causes people to act for their own good, in no meaningful sense constitutes "tyranny."

And how the attempt to concentrate all of our power into the hands of police is not building towards tyranny eludes me.

Please, explain to me how it's not reaching a point of tyranny when the populace can be stopped for more and more basic and silly things (to the point where, "he was eying me funny, so I checked from identification" from police) has become justified and defended by the court system.

I am as capable, if not more capable of defending myself from the vagrancy that is modern criminal activity much better than the police can. Taking away my right to defend myself (either through the abrogation of the 2nd amendment) and giving that power to some stranger who may be 10 - 20 or even an hour away seems downright stupid.

I think that if you spend a little bit of time in a real tyranny you will see that they do not have courts. You will see that they don't need any excuse to lock you up or kill you.

So stop crying about things that aren't real.

Except that if we DON'T argue and stop it, we are lead by the balls INTO tyranny...

Yes, I understand that if the US was real tyranny we would have secret laws for people and simply trust that the government knows what they are doing.

Allow large private corporations to take over our prisons security at profit.

Restrict people from using their duly purchased merchandise for private profit and pleasure

Have black clad men and women bursting through our doors to take people off the street in the middle of the night and hold them without trial or redress.

wiretap our peoples phone conversations without their consent.

disarm the populace during emergencies "for their own good," make them pay for the welfare of drug addicts, illegal aliens, and other questionably legal things. We could almost...

wait...

You tell me to stop crying, when crying doesn't do anything to stop the above. Preventing it to begin with is the only way to stop it.

Have you tried today? Yesterday? Last week? Last month? Year? EVER?

GTFO troll, unless you have.

go live in North Korea for a year and then tell me how bad things are in the USA.

captain_heroic44:

No. The intoxicants are prohibited. Not the worship. Generally applicable laws that have an incidental impact on religion can't be counted for reasons stated in previous post.

the intoxicants are a required part of the worship, so you are not allowed to practice the religion without permission.

The reality is that they should not ban things on the federal level like this anyway, as you put it "for reasons stated in a previous post", and if that were followed, then the tribal lands (which are not part of the state) would be able to allow it and the states can ban it and everyone should be happy. Following the constitution would be an ok thing and these types of discussions would instantly become moot if that were done. Additionally the states would have the power to ban religions per the constitution since it says "Congress shall pass no law ..." and thus its a right of the state under the 10th amendment, and if the people dont like it they can go to a different state or they can vote to get that state to change the law. That is the way it was written, and if people dont like what is in the constitution they should read the section on ratification and either push lawmakers in congress to propose an amendment or push the states to have a constitutional convention - both of them require ratification by the states. I am just saying that the constitution should be followed and not ignored because of some "higher purpose".

scott88008:

Your comments seem so rational and level-headed until you use the term "whitey" which I would normally assume to be facetious except for the fact that you're of non-white Cherokee decent.

heh I am also of white decent, does that help? :)

I did get my BIA issued card proving my bloodline, which is a legal requirement to join the tribe, and become a citizen of the cherokee nation. So I have it all, I will be accepted by everyone now, I am both a minority and a white man! yeah baby :P

trixter_nl: nicksteel: trixter_nl: nicksteel:
"are granted permission" is not the same as restrictions

you are right, however the restriction is for everyone who is not granted permission to violate that restriction. As such whitey (or indians of a different tribe, mexicans, blacks, etc) cant practice that religion legally. The government has said it is illegal.

It is a tribal religion. What part of that do you not understand??

That only certain pre-approved people can worship it, you do not have the right to worship that religion, or a modified version of it, if you are not approved.

You do not have the freedom to choose the religion you choose. I understand the argument that the government can restrict the religion if it violates someone elses rights, such as mayan sacrifices of humans, but this is not the case with this instance, you are not violating anyone elses rights if you choose that religion, yet it is illegal if you do not get approved by the BIA to be a member of that tribe. The religion itself is not a tribal religion any more than being jewish (religious) means you are from israel, you can convert at any time to that religion or practice a modified form of it if you choose.

Now since pandoras box is opened lets look at where this power comes from.
Article I Section 8 Clause 3
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

at the time that was written "regulate" meant "to make regular" and regular there meant "common or ordinary". In essence the legislature had the ability to make commerce regular between those entities. Not to pass laws banning it, licensing it, or otherwise restricting it. If you dont believe me, please do some research into the contemporary usage of regulate in the late 1700s. There are legal scholars of the day who wrote on this phrase.

Nothing that is inside the state is allowed, but if you read the senate hearings on the drug laws, they said that because congress cannot tell which drugs are involved in interstate and foreign commerce, and because some are, they all are. This was upheld in 2001 with the oakland cannibis club (medical marijuana) they proved that everything came from within California, specifically keeping records for this very argument. The seeds, fertilizer, etc were all from within the state.

Now we can go back further on to how this power to legislate everything came to be. We can go back to 1942 in Filburn SCOTUS said that if enough people did something without even commerce involved, then it would eventually affect interstate and foreign commerce, because people would not buy goods they would produce them themselves, and thus they can legislate it. The specific case was a farmer grew 1 acre of wheat on his own property, he picked it, his wife ground it into flour, and baked it into bread, which the farmer and his wife ate, they did not sell it, trade it or otherwise give it away. The government said they had to grow 12 acres instead. He did not want to do this, so he challenged their decision.

As a result of this decision the 10th amendment took a hit (it states anything not specifically granted to the feds is a right of the state), and the interstate and foreign commerce clause was amended without ratification to mean "anything congress wants".

you take an extremely minor religious group and decide somehow that it is the norm by which the country must be measured. That's bullshiat. As for the approval process - go get yourself approved and shut the fark up.

As for your farmer and his wheat - more bullshiat. I know farmer today, some are relatives, who do the same basic thing that you outlined. I think you have left out something that would make your argument pointless and stupid.

I have no way of knowing if anything that you are saying is factual. I do know from experience that much of what you say is pure bullshiat.