Yes. This is what really, really really scares me for the future of the country I love. Much more than any single party, creed, person, or policy.

Throughout history, when those entrusted with the reins of state have become too preoccupied with their own intramural squabbling, and ignored the suffering of the commoners for too long, there has always been a man on a white horse to promise a better tomorrow if he is just given the keys to the kingdom.

Remember, as Napoleon said, he didn't take the crown, he found it lying in a gutter.

I wish the farkwits in Washington, on both sides, would remember that. Just because it hasn't happened here, yet, doesn't mean it can't. People are getting more and more desperate and pissed off with each passing year.

Vodka Zombie: Cool. I was wondering what Glenn Beck's website had to say about this matter. He's so devoted to facts and reason that you can pretty much accept that whatever the opposite of what he tells you is the actual truth.

You know when you can't attack the message, you attack the messenger...
I say we give Obama a year, with full power (after all we did it for Bush), and see what happens. He only has One more year in the White house anyways, we all know he is NOT going to get re-elected. So why not let him try his best with out the hindrance of people who have openly admited they are out to get him.

its a win /win situation. He gets to fix the economy or at least put his money where his mouth is - and Everyone else who has done everything to insure he is a one term president gets their wish.

I say Go for it Mr Obama, murder american citizens, put them in jails and torture whomever you like. You have only a year left, why pretend any longer?

trouzourt: Vodka Zombie: Cool. I was wondering what Glenn Beck's website had to say about this matter. He's so devoted to facts and reason that you can pretty much accept that whatever the opposite of what he tells you is the actual truth.

You know when you can't attack the message, you attack the messenger...
I say we give Obama a year, with full power (after all we did it for Bush), and see what happens. He only has One more year in the White house anyways, we all know he is NOT going to get re-elected. So why not let him try his best with out the hindrance of people who have openly admited they are out to get him.

its a win /win situation. He gets to fix the economy or at least put his money where his mouth is - and Everyone else who has done everything to insure he is a one term president gets their wish.

I say Go for it Mr Obama, murder american citizens, put them in jails and torture whomever you like. You have only a year left, why pretend any longer?

1/10 -- you're phoning it in.

Dibs on imperium maius.

This is what happens when you have the consent from the public but not the aristocracy.

From here I can't tell if it's the right's hair or pants that are on fire.

/pants on head? well, that explains it

Nope, not gonna Glenn Beck's paranoid idiocy a pageclick.

Democracy does seem to be fading fast in this country (both parties are at fault)

What an idiotic premise from an utter nobody this is.

Whatever distracts from the worst Congress in American history, I guess. Has their approval rating hit single digits yet?

Well, they definitely Breitbart'ed the quote.

Full quote:

"I hope the president continues to exercise extraordinary constitutional means, based on the history of Congresses that have been in rebellion in the past. He's looking administratively for ways to advance the causes of the American people, because this Congress is completely dysfunctional.

President Obama tends to idealize - and rightfully so - Abraham Lincoln, who looked at states in rebellion and he made a judgment that the government of the United States, while the states are in rebellion, still had an obligation to function."

Their report:

Rep. Jesse Jackson compared congressional opposition to President Barack Obama's "American Jobs Act" to the Confederate "states in rebellion."

Aside from that idiocy, Rep. Jackson is right, you know. Why are we so addicted to the 'free market' that even when we're using evil socialist government handouts they have to go through capitalist middlemen before actually reaching the people? Like everything else, the rich get the biggest slice of the pie off the top, then the people get to scratch and claw like rats for whatever crumbs may fall off the table for them.

horse-pheathers: 1/10 -- you're phoning it in.

trouzourt: You know when you can't attack the message, you attack the messenger...

So, what the president said is, "So my instruction to... all the advisers who are sitting around the table is, scour this report, identify all those areas in which we can act administratively without additional congressional authorization, and just get it done." Which Jackson reiterated.

So... The president is looking for what he can do now legally, without behaving unconstitutionally or overreaching the granted powers of the executive, and we're supposed to be outraged?

I'm... yawn... I'm so outraged I coulf;nasglpzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

meat0918: No matter how benevolent of a king/dictator we may get, a more brutal one is always, ALWAYS, waiting to take up the reins.

This. A good king can do better than a good democracy, but a bad king can do far, far worse than a bad democracy. The second half of that sentence is the point of using democracy in the first place: not to make good governments better, but to mitigate the damage that bad governments can do. A bad government is far worse for the people than a spectacular government is good for them, and so the tradeoff is worthwhile.

To put it another way, trusting any government with a new power doesn't just mean trusting the current administration with it. It also means trusting, sight unseen, every administration after the current one. This is usually an insane thing to do.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

-C. S. Lewis

monoski: Democracy does seem to be fading fast in this country (both parties are at fault)

I see it is us who are at fault. We keep putting up with the same old shiat year after year and we buy into the media's left-right crap until we hate each other so thoroughly that nothing gets accomplished.

monoski: Democracy does seem to be fading fast in this country (both parties are at fault)

Au contraire; there is too much democracy in this country. The mob is making decisions based on propaganda and lies and it's leading us into the gutter. You really think even more uninformed morans voting would help anything?

DarwiOdrade: Crunch61: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

-C. S. Lewis

So vote Republican!

What about the tyranny of genocidal psychopaths, undead C. S. Lewis? Also I wonder how that quote fit in with this theology.

/goes to dig up a copy of Out of the Silent Planet

DarwiOdrade: So vote Republican!

Heh... I should have seen that coming!

I love seeing that the jobs bill didn't pass the "democratic senate", when it actually got a majority vote and was filibustered.

Shaggy_C: monoski: Democracy does seem to be fading fast in this country (both parties are at fault)

Au contraire; there is too much democracy in this country. The mob is making decisions based on propaganda and lies and it's leading us into the gutter. You really think even more uninformed morans voting would help anything?

This doesn't hold up as true when it's combined with attempts to institute poll taxes. Sure there is democracy for republicans, no representation for anyone else.

DarwiOdrade: culebra: What an idiotic premise from an utter nobody this is.

But he has a D after his name. Therefore, every Democrat & liberal in the country agrees with him 100% on everything he has ever said.

This is undeniably true, but the point I was trying (and failing) to make was that Glenn Beck's The Blaze is totally inconsequential and disingenuous. It's pretty obvious what Jackson meant, and how it differs from the spin presented in this article.

Jackson himself isn't exactly a luminary, but he didn't make an idiot out of himself. The people dogpiling him are making giant red asses of themselves though.

masercot: I love seeing that the jobs bill didn't pass the "democratic senate", when it actually got a majority vote and was filibustered.

If it was filibustered, it never received a majority vote. The vote was 50-49 to end debate. Since you need 60 votes to end debate, no vote on the merits of the bill was ever taken.

Shaggy_C: Well, they definitely Breitbart'ed the quote.

Full quote:

"I hope the president continues to exercise extraordinary constitutional means, based on the history of Congresses that have been in rebellion in the past. He's looking administratively for ways to advance the causes of the American people, because this Congress is completely dysfunctional.

President Obama tends to idealize - and rightfully so - Abraham Lincoln, who looked at states in rebellion and he made a judgment that the government of the United States, while the states are in rebellion, still had an obligation to function."

Their report:

Rep. Jesse Jackson compared congressional opposition to President Barack Obama's "American Jobs Act" to the Confederate "states in rebellion."

Aside from that idiocy, Rep. Jackson is right, you know. Why are we so addicted to the 'free market' that even when we're using evil socialist government handouts they have to go through capitalist middlemen before actually reaching the people? Like everything else, the rich get the biggest slice of the pie off the top, then the people get to scratch and claw like rats for whatever crumbs may fall off the table for them.

Because there is really only one way to distribute wealth to the people. Poor people would still be left out.

$600 Billion to hire all 15 million unemployed at $40k a year. Sadly, I wonder if this wouldn't actually work at least as well as the last stimulus that we flushed down the toilet.

When did Glenn Beck get elected to Congress Subby?

Meatzilla: [avideditor.files.wordpress.com image 453x302]
My God! What magnificent apparel Mr. President!

Is today OT troll day or something?

An efficient government with no checks and balances is not preferable to a dysfunctional one with checks and balances.

Democracy (constitutional republic, whatever) is messy and pretty much ensures you won't get everything you want.

It's a flawed system that is still better than the alternatives.

Democracy is only as good as the citizens within it. Americans are little more than primordial ooze, and deserve to be clinging to the bottom of a jackboot for the rest of their pathetic existence.

PonceAlyosha: This doesn't hold up as true when it's combined with attempts to institute poll taxes. Sure there is democracy for republicans, no representation for anyone else.

Well that is a bit of a different issue, is it not? Republicans are attempting to restrict voting rights for their own gain, because if they can purge the poor from the rolls they can win. Plain and simple.

When I talk about restricting democracy, it is in a grander sense - I think Republicans would be cut out too, which is a good thing. In this country, 'too much democracy' is the fact that 'the people' are even voting for President or Senator in the first place. I'm sorry, but the average American is not an expert in monetary policy, macroeconomics, foreign affairs, or government finance. No, they are simple people who flip burgers or grow corn or work on computers. That's not to say they are not masters at their crafts, but they certainly aren't going to be well-versed enough in the important aspects that affect a nation to vote on decisions that have global impacts. We should go back to the way the founders envisioned our nation, where the people vote for their local officials to represent them based on local issues. From there, the consensus at the state level is what drives the election of federal officials. Not the current system, where charlatans and hacks poison the debate and win votes by tricking the largest number of gullible idiots.

Vodka Zombie: Cool. I was wondering what Glenn Beck's website had to say about this matter. He's so devoted to facts and reason that you can pretty much accept that whatever the opposite of what he tells you is the actual truth.

How about the Daily Caller with VIDEO of him saying it? Would you believe it then or would you cheer the concept on?

Because checks & balances of power is just SO yesterday and overrated, right? Besides, we'd get OBAMA as the one with all the power, so it would be just peachy!

Vodka Zombie: trouzourt: You know when you can't attack the message, you attack the messenger...

With Beck's site, they're pretty much one in the same.

http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/12/jackson-obama-should-declare-a-nati o nal-emergency-add-jobs-with-extra-constitutional-action/

Video goodness included.

S.1660
Latest Title: American Jobs Act of 2011
Sponsor: Sen Reid, Harry [NV] (introduced 10/5/2011) Cosponsors (None)


NAYs ---49

...Reid (D-NV)....


WTF?

Lionel Mandrake: JESSE JACKSON JR....

Jeez, I didn't even get past the headline

That's as far as I got too. A great constitutional scholar, I'm sure.