Comments on: Update II: Mr. Constitution?

By: Blode0322

Blode0322 — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:23:53 +0000

Van Wijk, I've wondered about this for a long time. Looking back, there are a myriad of voting schemes more sensible than one-adult-one-vote. 19th Century Germany used a weighted voting scheme in municipal elections: all the taxpayers in a town would be divided into three categories based on how much tax they paid. Tax paid by all the members of each category would be equal, and the voting power of each category would be equal. Obviously, the numbers of voters in each category would not be equal. I think the above scheme does not count subsidies against people. A very simple modern scheme for voting is, everyone who is a net taxpayer gets one vote. Subtract civil service salaries, welfare, government contracts, etc., from total direct tax paid. (Some make an exception for military and police salaries.) [The Founders didn't think the propertyless should have the franchise. If you pay taxes, you vote; if you consume them; you don't, or else you get to vote another man's property your way.]

By: Van Wijk

Van Wijk — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:05:43 +0000

Ben Franklin said that once the people can vote themselves expensive gifts, the country is done. I think I remember Pericles saying something similar.

A thought: Is what we are seeing now simply universal suffrage taken to its logical conclusion? Did giving every single citizen an equal vote make this inevitable?

By: Myron Pauli

Myron Pauli — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 06:15:43 +0000

Conservative Jindal’s record – here are the state spending for Louisiana 2005 – 2010 (projected)
in billions: 16.8, 18.6, 20.5, 22.6,25.0, and 27.5.
Here is total state & local: 32.6, 35.3,38.2,41.4,44.9, and 48.7. I guess that is what he means by fiscal responsibility. As Ilana said, “saying stuff means nothing”.

By: Barbara Grant

Barbara Grant — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:01:11 +0000

Jindal mentioned in his speech that Republicans, once committed to principles of limited government and fiscal responsibility, have lost the trust of similarly committed Americans, and want to regain it. I hardly think that this places him in the category of Bushian statists.

[Saying stuff means nothing. Newt said as much at CPAC, and he is firmly in the camp of “Bushian statists.” Let’s see how Jindal sticks to his guns.]

By: Myron Pauli

Myron Pauli — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:35:16 +0000

(1) About the welfare clause: several colonies were originally established as Proprietary Colonies (see http://www.answers.com/topic/proprietary-colony) with the government run for the benefit of investor-owners. The American revolutionaries did not want the governments’ delegated powers to be used for the “specific” welfare but rather for the entire “general” welfare. This can be seen in the 4th section of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (see http://www.nationalcenter.org/VirginiaDeclaration.html). Republicans and Democrats who expand government to serve their contributors and favorite industries steadily perverted the meaning of general welfare since 1787. // (2) I was happy to see Ron Paul, Thomas Woods, Andrew Napolitano, and Bruce Fein in person in DC on Friday but the philosophy of liberty of them and the Campaign for Liberty is not compatible with the and the 87% Bushian rightwing-statists who love Ken-doll Mitt, Cheerleader Sarah, Dark-skinned Jindal, Mouthy Rush, and Prodigy Krohn who are merely in search of a Reaganesque spokesman to take the helm of the 4.5 trillion dollar Ship of State (on its way to the iceberg of national bankruptcy) away from Captain Messiah Obama. I got enough sampling of “mainstream conservatives” smear Ron Paul as a “9/11 truther” and “anti-American” to not stay for CPAC.

By: Barbara Grant

Barbara Grant — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:14:38 +0000

I disagree with Vox on a couple points. First, though Obama’s spending package will fail, there is no guarantee that the electorate will see it as such. How about “Hope Needs Time” as a slogan for continued spending, along with the promise that if we just give the stimulus more time to work, things will turn out fine. After all, Obama will be speaking to Americans who, in the majority, believe that FDR’s wasteful spending brought us out of the Depression. He will also have the press on his side, having hired a lot of them recently.

Second, I think it’s wrong to write off Bobby Jindal. He is very well-educated and he has done well by the people of his state in cutting spending, if I understand correctly. He had a very tough act to follow: Obama is an excellent orator. The fact that the networks were incapable of getting in a good audio connection to Baton Rouge (the signal kept dropping out, eliminating many words) didn’t help. Give the man from Louisiana a chance, I say. He has a lot of potential.

By: Steve Hogan

Steve Hogan — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:36:47 +0000

I was debating a couple of liberals last week on this very point. The politicians take an oath to uphold the Constitution, then spend every waking moment of their term violating it with impunity.

When I asked these liberals if they’d ever bothered to read and understand the document, they were candid enough to admit they hadn’t. And that is the crux of the problem. Politicians will do whatever we allow them to get away with, and they will get away with murder if the public is ignorant.

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:08:04 +0000

Last time I read the constitution, it says "promote the general welfare" not "provide for the general welfare". If I understand the word "promote" correctly, it means "get off your lazy a.. and provide for your family"!

By: JP Strauss

JP Strauss — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 10:41:51 +0000

I think the fact that “the only politician who adheres to America’s founding philosophy” only got 13% of the vote, is cause for alarm in itself.