What is "limited government?"

[Quantum Windbag]

Maybe you should keep reading, and then do a little research, instead of just reading one sentence and declaring yourself smarter than anyone else.

Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western tradition. Its best known definition comes from Aristotle, who considers it a counterpart of both logic and politics, and calls it "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion." Rhetorics typically provide heuristics for understanding, discovering, and developing arguments for particular situations, such as Aristotle's three persuasive audience appeals, logos, pathos, and ethos. The five canons of rhetoric, which trace the traditional tasks in designing a persuasive speech, were first codified in classical Rome, invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Along with grammar and logic (or dialectic – see Martianus Capella), rhetoric is one of the three ancient arts of discourse.

From ancient Greece to the late 19th century, it was a central part of Western education, filling the need to train public speakers and writers to move audiences to action with arguments. The word is derived from the Greek ??t?????? (rhetorikós), "oratorical", from ??t?? (rh?tor), "public speaker", related to ??µa (rhêma), "that which is said or spoken, word, saying", and ultimately derived from the verb ???? (loqui), "to speak, say".
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Rhetoric is nothing more than how you say something. It is all about bypassing the brain and appealing to the emotions, You do this through exaggeration and hyperbole, not dry facts. Your attempt to argue that rhetoric is more about what people say than how they say it demonstrates your complete misunderstanding of the word. If you don't believe me look up pathos and ethos in Wiki.

Are we really going to have an argument about fucking "rhetoric" now? You are a little child. Must I put you in your place? I will repeat, which the above only verifies: Rhetoric is not synonymous with hyperbole and exaggeration. One may use hyperbole and exaggeration as part of a rhetorical style, but in no way is part of the definition of rhetoric. therefore, they are categorically distinct. You are committing a categorical error in lumping these things together. Rhetoric is simply the description of the art to persuade or convince, and in no way necessitates the use of hyperbole or exaggeration.

To reiterate: Hyperbole and Exaggeration are nowhere contained in the definition of rhetoric. Merely, they are tools for rhetoricians. As such, they are categorically distinct, and can not be synonymous, as far as usage goes. So, try asking your question again, and maybe I can answer it, and we can get past this discussion.

It really seems like your end goal is to try to frustrate threads as much as possible.

Yeah, he’s among our more tedious rightist ideologues.

What is wrong with being an ideologue?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Can we please stop the flame war? I want to have a real discussion. If you have nothing to offer but ideological hate, then please refrain from commenting. If you think I am guilty of this, then call me on it. Otherwise, cut the shit.

If you want to have a real discussion I suggest you stop pretending you know what you are talking about. You started this thread by confusing two different principles, and them argued with the people that pointed out your mistake. You then insisted you wanted to talk about one thing, when you actually want to talk about something else, but you actually have no idea about whatever that is. That has reduced you to whinging about other people who, given the stupidity of your original premise, treat this thread with all the respect your premise deserves.

 

[bripat9643]

We had a very limited government but the framers changed that very limited government into a large government with numerous powers.

No they didn't. Abraham Lincoln did that.

Aticles of Confederation to the Constitution.

The constitution does not give the federal government "numerous powers," unless you call delivering the mail and building postal roads some kind of great powers.

 

[regent]

No they didn't. Abraham Lincoln did that.

Aticles of Confederation to the Constitution.

The constitution does not give the federal government "numerous powers," unless you call delivering the mail and building postal roads some kind of great powers.

The power to tax including income tax, declare war, borrow money, tariffs, regulate commerce, establish courts, create West Point on and on. And the hundreds, perhaps thousands of powers the Congress and the Courts have established as belonging to the national government i.e. label on wool products.

 

[bripat9643]

Aticles of Confederation to the Constitution.

The constitution does not give the federal government "numerous powers," unless you call delivering the mail and building postal roads some kind of great powers.

The power to tax including income tax, declare war, borrow money, tariffs, regulate commerce, establish courts, create West Point on and on. And the hundreds, perhaps thousands of powers the Congress and the Courts have established as belonging to the national government i.e. label on wool products.

You said it yourself: Congress and the courts gave the federal government those powers, not the Constitution. Lincoln pretty much flushed the Constitution down the toilet when he claimed the document gave him the authority to unilaterally make war on his fellow Americans.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

No they didn't. Abraham Lincoln did that.

Aticles of Confederation to the Constitution.

The constitution does not give the federal government "numerous powers," unless you call delivering the mail and building postal roads some kind of great powers.

Nonsense.

The Constitution affords Congress powers both expressed and implied:

The powers granted to the national government by the Constitution are of two types: express powers and implied powers. Express powers are those explicitly and expressly mentioned in the Constitution. Implied powers are those which can reasonably be assumed to flow from express powers. For example, the Constitution expressly authorizes the Congress to "coin Money [and] regulate the Value thereof" (see Article I, Section 8). The formation of a national bank is an implied power, one which is "necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Power."

[T]he national government exercises a wide range of implied powers. The legitimacy of these powers flows from the "General Welfare" clause in the Preamble, the "Necessary & Proper Clause," and the "Commerce Clause.”

On the basis of these "clauses," the Congress and the President have, for example, established a national bank, built an interstate highway system, established an Air Force and the Marines (note that the Constitution only authorizes and Army and a Navy), created the Social Security system, and enacted hundreds of laws regulating the conduct of commerce, or business, conducted between the states and their residents.

ThisNation.com--Power and Federalism

 

[Darkwind]

And, we are no longer living the times in which the "classical liberal" existed. This is irrelevant anyways. I am simply going by what I observe today: conservatives preaching about small governments and how liberals only want a "big" government. I am just trying to get a number, a quantitative measurement for how "small" this small government must be. Is that too much to ask?

You are attempting to get a handle on a fallacy.

Small government is not a measurement of size, but one of corrupted power.

Today's liberal wishes to legislate their brand of morality, where as a true conservative wishes to remove government from those aspects of society it has no business meddling in.

One other thing. It does not matter that we do NOT live in those times, the meaning and purposes are what matters. The Constitution is no different today than it was 230+ years ago. The words remain the same, with the same meanings.

It is only those who have agendas for power and money that want to drop the past in favor of their corrupted vision of the present.

dude, this is not that complicated.What I am asking is pretty simple: for a definition on an oft repeated term by conservatives. It is used rhetorically, yet seems to lack any real substance. If conservatives want to stake their position on the notion of a "small" government, it needs to be quantified, and I am asking for some measure here. Not a single person has been able to give me this, which confirms my suspicion it doesn't have a defined value, but is simply a concept used rhetorically to bash liberals, to try and make themselves look more "constitutionally aligned."

I understand the traditional concept of limited government, as it pertains to the constitution. That is not what I am asking, because usage of terms changes over time. Since Reagan, conservative ideology has banked on this notion of not just qualitatively limited government, but quantitatively as well. In other words, small. So, this begs the question: How SMALL??? How is small defined? It is a completely relative term with no absolute value, so it needs to be given a definition, yet has not. Until it is defined, it is meaningless.

Here is your problem. Quantify your emotions and thinking at the various moments of your life when things happen such as "the birth of a child", or the defeat of a favorite sports team.

What you want to do is pigeonhole people. Those conservatives who adhere to a limited government have only to point to the Constitution, as it is written and as it was understood by the founders. Not how it is interpreted now. When people start looking for meanings to justify positions, then you have already corrupted the purpose, because you have already determined that "X", whatever X is, is what you want and then you will find a way to 'read' into the Constitution that value.

Drop the Ronald Reagan schtick and be honest. It isn't that hard.

Ask people what THEY think limited government means, and take that at face value from only them. There is no 'group' think that is reasonable, acceptable, or even accurate.