America is a 'CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC,' not a Democracy...

[Discombobulated]

And Nazis and Fascists were far right, your video doesn't change history. Right wing is defined as ultra conservative and reactionary....there is no controversy about that.

No..Conservatives are proactive.
Liberals are reactive.
As a matter of course, liberals will ignore a problem and hope it goes away.
Conservatives do not see "problems". We see challenges.
Liberals will use a problem to turn it into a crisis which then must only be dealt with politically.

Feel free to make up as many of your own definitions as you like.

 

[eagle1462010]

And Nazis and Fascists were far right, your video doesn't change history. Right wing is defined as ultra conservative and reactionary....there is no controversy about that.

No..Conservatives are proactive.
Liberals are reactive.
As a matter of course, liberals will ignore a problem and hope it goes away.
Conservatives do not see "problems". We see challenges.
Liberals will use a problem to turn it into a crisis which then must only be dealt with politically.

Obamacare? Immigration? Culture wars?

Conservatives are reactionaries . even Newt claimed he represented radical reactionaries

We use rationalization to consider the problems of the time..............

You use emotion...........

Your kind of like that kid at the store that wines his little butt off wanting candy...............The Conservative Parent says we can't afford it and it's bad for you so shut the hell up.................A liberal parent would say okay and take the wallet from another customer to pay for it.

 

[Dante]

Nodding....one involves the Federal Government. The other doesn't. But the numbers are still the same: 2/3rds.

yep, the numbers in themselves are the same, but it is not really about the actual number(s). It is about what the numbers represent. Step back and maybe you will see the forest ... (forest for the trees?)

What part of 'one involves the federal government and the other doesn't' makes you think I don't understand the processes involved?

He is trying to make some gotcha point about it having to be a super majority.
Dante loves word games.

really? You're wrong again. Facts matter as do distinctions for without each, we get more dolts like you

I agree with facts and distinctions that is what I have done.
I am not the only one here that has not been taught by a lefty history professor, like you have that twists our history.
And you have a real problem with anyone who has a different point of view other than your own.
I put up part of an actual letter from Ben Franklin from 1766 in more of it's context since you said it was taken out of context and then you insult.
So who is really the dolt?

Crazy people always think they are the only ones who _____(fill in the blank)_____.

I actually caused quite a sensation and scandal in a leftie history class when I told minorities they should fear popular democracy more than I should. You are a class A dolt if you think studying and spouting right wing versions of history is any different than lefties with a progressive axe to grind.

I wasn't referring to the context of THE LETTER. geeze, how can one not insult you at times?

I have seen your attempts to present facts as opposed to opinion and have enjoyed it, but you stray into partisanship with it while accusing others of same

 

[Skylar]

Not semantics and not pointless, but distinctions with a difference:

Oh, its entirely semantics. As the constitution is altered by amendments. Its different than it was before the amendment. You can insist that this isn't 'changing' the constitution. But alter means to change. It doesn 't matter if you agree or disagree. The word's meaning isn't predicated on your agreement.

The later amendments spoke to rights many people thought the Constitution protected (others not so). In the opinion(s) of myself and others, the amendments you speak of did not change the Constitution much in the way you present it. You present it as almost a wholly new thing.

Slavery was legal under the constitution. The 14th amendment changed that rendering it illegal. You can claim nothing changed. But history says otherwise.

Your argument is not only entirely semantics, its utterly pointless. As the changes existed. They were sometimes enormously profound. And its the changes themselves that are significant. Not the verb we use to describe them.

It was always "the national governments job to ensure that the privileges and immunities of its citizens" GUARANTEED and enumerated in the US Constitution, were "not violated by the States."

The USSC disagrees with you, finding that the national government had no authority to enforce the Bill of Rights on the States. The USSC is the body granted the authority to adjudicate all cases that arise under the Constitution. And the body intended to interpret the constitution.

Rendering their findings a historical fact of our law. And yours mere personal opinion.

 

[Dante]

which pretty much gutted state rights

How so?

it took the states say out of it

and made it another popular vote

so now we have two peoples houses

Yes, but how in the revisionist, whacky world of states rights did that kill states rights? ???

 

[eagle1462010]

 

[Dante]

It is not surprising that conservatives want so badly for us not to be a democracy.

What's surprising to me is that people consider themselves conservatives and at the same time don't want their senators popularly elected.

They don't want that because they have a cockeyed notion that there is a conservative partisan advantage to the old way of electing Senators.

You can always trace a puzzling conservative 'principle' to some selfish ideological/partisan motive.

you really do excel at being wrong.

The wingnuttery is purely left-wing. The choice to remove the election of Senators from the States to popular elections was part of the overall progressive construct for the elimination of States in favor of one overarching, oppressive government. The Senators, whose job prior to the bastardization of the Constitution with the 17th, was to advocate and vote on laws and legislation that promoted the power of the States over the power of the Federal government.

When the Senate became a body by mob rule, the weakening of States rights began. We are seeing the fruit of this ideology in the nearly incapacitate ability of the States to tell the Fed to remain out of their sovereign rights.

For the Record.

WE HAVE A CONSTITUTION.

That makes our government a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC.

The brain dead among you who think otherwise should go back to your handlers for clarification of terms.

1. Who outside any state votes for the Senators of that state?

2. The election of Senators was changed by CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Are you rejecting the Constitution,

period?

Amendments have been set aside before. Prohibition comes to mind. The 17ths is equally, if not more so, damaging to the United States.

As for number 1. You hoist yourself up on your petard. The Senate was chosen by State Legislatures. Who, but the people, vote for their State Legislatures?

The question is one of responsibility. A Senator beholden to his or her state is far more likely to protect the State's rights. A Senator, elected by the people, is nothing more than a renamed US Representative and beholden to a far smaller constituency, a constituency that may not have the states best interest at heart.

I know I'm wasting My time, but this explanation is more for those who can read and think, not so much for you.

good gawd man, you have things backwards and have no clue?

"The Senate was chosen by State Legislatures. Who, but the people, vote for their State Legislatures?"

"A Senator, elected by the people, is nothing more than a renamed US Representative and beholden to a far smaller constituency, a constituency that may not have the states best interest at heart."

 

[Darkwind]

What's surprising to me is that people consider themselves conservatives and at the same time don't want their senators popularly elected.

They don't want that because they have a cockeyed notion that there is a conservative partisan advantage to the old way of electing Senators.

You can always trace a puzzling conservative 'principle' to some selfish ideological/partisan motive.

you really do excel at being wrong.

The wingnuttery is purely left-wing. The choice to remove the election of Senators from the States to popular elections was part of the overall progressive construct for the elimination of States in favor of one overarching, oppressive government. The Senators, whose job prior to the bastardization of the Constitution with the 17th, was to advocate and vote on laws and legislation that promoted the power of the States over the power of the Federal government.

When the Senate became a body by mob rule, the weakening of States rights began. We are seeing the fruit of this ideology in the nearly incapacitate ability of the States to tell the Fed to remain out of their sovereign rights.

For the Record.

WE HAVE A CONSTITUTION.

That makes our government a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC.

The brain dead among you who think otherwise should go back to your handlers for clarification of terms.

1. Who outside any state votes for the Senators of that state?

2. The election of Senators was changed by CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Are you rejecting the Constitution,

period?

The election of Senators was changed by CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT


which pretty much gutted state rights

I guess then it's the Constitution itself that you have a problem with.

Again, you excel at being wrong.

There are procedures WITHIN the Constitution for amending it, yes? An Amendment can also be passed that revokes other Amendments outside the Bill of Rights, which are considered sacrosanct, but not immune to being Amended.

The issue is the PROPER way to adjust the Constitution. That is through the Amendment process. A valid and strong argument can be made that the 17th has done more harm to this country than just about any other Amendment passed with the possible exception of the 16th.

We have no problem with the Constitution. We actively and properly use it.

The same cannot be said for progressives.

Each State in OUR union has the right to a voice, as was articulated by law and founding. The 17th altered that in favor of central government, which was never an intended outlook for this country.

Have a nice day. I have to actually tend to My duty as a citizen and earn My way through life.

 

[Darkwind]

What's surprising to me is that people consider themselves conservatives and at the same time don't want their senators popularly elected.

They don't want that because they have a cockeyed notion that there is a conservative partisan advantage to the old way of electing Senators.

You can always trace a puzzling conservative 'principle' to some selfish ideological/partisan motive.

you really do excel at being wrong.

The wingnuttery is purely left-wing. The choice to remove the election of Senators from the States to popular elections was part of the overall progressive construct for the elimination of States in favor of one overarching, oppressive government. The Senators, whose job prior to the bastardization of the Constitution with the 17th, was to advocate and vote on laws and legislation that promoted the power of the States over the power of the Federal government.

When the Senate became a body by mob rule, the weakening of States rights began. We are seeing the fruit of this ideology in the nearly incapacitate ability of the States to tell the Fed to remain out of their sovereign rights.

For the Record.

WE HAVE A CONSTITUTION.

That makes our government a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC.

The brain dead among you who think otherwise should go back to your handlers for clarification of terms.

1. Who outside any state votes for the Senators of that state?

2. The election of Senators was changed by CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Are you rejecting the Constitution,

period?

Amendments have been set aside before. Prohibition comes to mind. The 17ths is equally, if not more so, damaging to the United States.

As for number 1. You hoist yourself up on your petard. The Senate was chosen by State Legislatures. Who, but the people, vote for their State Legislatures?

The question is one of responsibility. A Senator beholden to his or her state is far more likely to protect the State's rights. A Senator, elected by the people, is nothing more than a renamed US Representative and beholden to a far smaller constituency, a constituency that may not have the states best interest at heart.

I know I'm wasting My time, but this explanation is more for those who can read and think, not so much for you.

good gawd man, you have things backwards and have no clue?

"The Senate was chosen by State Legislatures. Who, but the people, vote for their State Legislatures?"

"A Senator, elected by the people, is nothing more than a renamed US Representative and beholden to a far smaller constituency, a constituency that may not have the states best interest at heart."

No, I do not. Try reading some history sometime. Specifically, the role of the US Senate in our government.

 

[Skylar]

To the issue of Slavery during the Founders time..............It was normal during that time............As time changes, people change and correct what is wrong............which has happened over our history.

It was. It was also deeply hypocritical and unjust. 'All men are created equal' and slavery are concepts that are diametrically and inescapably opposed, standing as mutually exclusive mirrors of each other.

But, you must look at it in the context of the time period................During that time people were simply different and believed in some things we don't believe in today..................Slavery is BS in my book, but I choose to look at history objectively.

I'm quite aware of the context of the era. The constitution was among the best compromises the founders could manage with the situation that they had. Slavery was not only institutionalized, it was the backbone of the economies of many of the States that were to vote on the constitution. Abolishment of slavery was a political and practical impossibility for the founders. Due to context, institutions of their age, moral cowardice, personal greed, hypocricy or political reality.

They couldn't do it.

We could. We've corrected the flaws they never could. We've abolished slavery. We've extended the Bill of Rights to the States. We've extended universal suffrage. We've recognized and protected more rights for more people than the founders ever could.

Which is why I say our constitution is better than theirs.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Perhaps you're just a little too slow to understand that democracy is one component of a constitutional republic......they are not mutually exclusive.

And there is a difference between "democracy" and "a democracy", but you're too busy insulting people to think of that.

.

Feel free to provide historic examples of "a democracy".

I did ...Read post on last page

 

[thereisnospoon]

The speaker doesn't really deny the "fascism is far Right" view, he just suggests that a different approach is more enlightening. But the theory is that communism is rule by ALL, for the benefit of ALL, and Fascism is rule by the few elite, for the benefit of the elite. The conclusion, practically speaking, is that every system ends up being an oligarchy, and the advantage of the American system is that just about anyone can become an oligarch, with a little luck and hard work. People with the humblest of backgrounds can (and do) become wealthy and/or politically powerful. Look at Bill Clinton, Barry Obama, and Bill Gates.

Actually all forms of social government fall into governing by the ruling elite.

 

[Dante]

Better is an overly subjective term to use.

Its subjective, but not overly so. I've given you my criteria and my evidence. You can agree or disagree. Approaching double the years without a civil war is pretty difficult to argue with. As is the lack of slavery. Women's suffrage. And all those gay guys we're not executing for sodomy.

Or constitution is better. Our understanding of rights is vastly superior. And we've corrected many of the truck sized flaws in the constitution as it was written.

More rights and freedoms? Rights and freedoms recognized in case law were not added -- they were recognized as being there all along.

The founders clearly didn't recognize the rights and freedoms we do today. We recognize and protect more. The founders executed homosexuals. We recognize their marriages. The founders enslaved millions of people of African descent. We elected one president. Women weren't allowed to vote. Women vote more often than men now.

You can imagine that say, slaves could always exercise the rights we recognize all men possess today. But they didn't. You can imagine that women always had the right to vote. But they didn't. We may one day recognize the right to gay marriage. But history remains a testament to long years where the rights weren't recognized or protected.

We've done better. Not just little better. But orders of magnitude better, extending rights to those that didn't possess them, extending the franchise, protecting more rights and abolishing the abomination of slavery that the founders jealously guarded. You may not recognize any distinction. The slave in the field and the gay man being executed for sodomy most certainly could.

The Bill of Rights did apply to the states.

Not according to the USSC, which explicitly found that the Bill of Rights didn't apply to the States. The Feds were forced to allow a State government to violate the rights of an individual in that State....as the Bill of Rights didn't restrict the actions of the State.

The 14th amendment and selective incorporation fixed that to a large degree, as it was intended to.

Our Constitution is the same one that existed over a few hundred years ago -- with a few amendments.

Amendments are alterations. Changes. You can claim that they aren't changes, but you run head long into the meaning of words and the pointlessness of argument that is entirely semantics. Especially when the changes are profound. Slavery, women's suffrage, the prohibition of States from violating rights. These remade our society.

And demonstrated how much better we are at recognizing, protecting and extending rights than the founders ever were.

The evil of slavery existed. Even some slave holders wanted to end it over time. There were arguments about it all over the place. The Constitution you claim to worship and adore was a compromise document. Without slavery being recognized there would have been NO Constitution or United States.

We fixed it. They failed to. They couldn't. They were bound by their own economic interests, personal greed, a lack of moral courage, social mores, or a lack of consensus.

We've done better. We've made that consensus. We've extended rights the founders never could. Just as we have to women, to blacks, to non-property owners, protecting them all from the tyranny of the majority in the State governments. The founders couldn't. The founders didn't. Their constitution didn't allow for it.

Ours does. Which is why ours is better.

The Civil War was fought over slavery.

Exactly. The founders lacked the capacity to resolve the issue, kicking the can down the road of history where the cancer of slavery metastasized and spread, gaining deeper roots and more victims. Their failures led to the Civil War. The government they created enabled the very institution that the civil war was predicated upon.

Our constitution does resolve that issue. It innately better. Its more just, extending more rights to more people, empowering more to wield the authority of suffrage, abolishing the evil of slavery, recognizing and protecting more rights than the founders ever could.

We've done better.[/QUOTE]

The Constitution explicitly states (and has always stated) that in battles between the states and federal government the USCC would decide. The cases you indirectly refer to were hotly debated within the Court.

I already addressed your inane ref to my use of the word 'change' It was used in the way you first proposed it: as in a new constitution -- ours and theirs. It is not so much a matter of semantics as it is your disingenuous style.

 

[Dante]

The founders lacked the capacity to resolve the issue

...

really? Short of war how would it have been resolved?

Stop being so disingenuous

 

[Dante]

And Nazis and Fascists were far right, your video doesn't change history. Right wing is defined as ultra conservative and reactionary....there is no controversy about that.

No..Conservatives are proactive.
Liberals are reactive.
As a matter of course, liberals will ignore a problem and hope it goes away.
Conservatives do not see "problems". We see challenges.
Liberals will use a problem to turn it into a crisis which then must only be dealt with politically.

Obamacare? Immigration? Culture wars?

Conservatives are reactionaries . even Newt claimed he represented radical reactionaries

We use rationalization to consider the problems of the time..............

You use emotion...........

Your kind of like that kid at the store that wines his little butt off wanting candy...............The Conservative Parent says we can't afford it and it's bad for you so shut the hell up.................A liberal parent would say okay and take the wallet from another customer to pay for it.

Being a liberal I rarely use emotion in deciding an issue. I have yet to see conservatives choose rationality over emotion. The Tea Party movement? Oh yeah, very rational and emotionless

 

[Dante]

They don't want that because they have a cockeyed notion that there is a conservative partisan advantage to the old way of electing Senators.

You can always trace a puzzling conservative 'principle' to some selfish ideological/partisan motive.

you really do excel at being wrong.

The wingnuttery is purely left-wing. The choice to remove the election of Senators from the States to popular elections was part of the overall progressive construct for the elimination of States in favor of one overarching, oppressive government. The Senators, whose job prior to the bastardization of the Constitution with the 17th, was to advocate and vote on laws and legislation that promoted the power of the States over the power of the Federal government.

When the Senate became a body by mob rule, the weakening of States rights began. We are seeing the fruit of this ideology in the nearly incapacitate ability of the States to tell the Fed to remain out of their sovereign rights.

For the Record.

WE HAVE A CONSTITUTION.

That makes our government a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC.

The brain dead among you who think otherwise should go back to your handlers for clarification of terms.

1. Who outside any state votes for the Senators of that state?

2. The election of Senators was changed by CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Are you rejecting the Constitution,

period?

Amendments have been set aside before. Prohibition comes to mind. The 17ths is equally, if not more so, damaging to the United States.

As for number 1. You hoist yourself up on your petard. The Senate was chosen by State Legislatures. Who, but the people, vote for their State Legislatures?

The question is one of responsibility. A Senator beholden to his or her state is far more likely to protect the State's rights. A Senator, elected by the people, is nothing more than a renamed US Representative and beholden to a far smaller constituency, a constituency that may not have the states best interest at heart.

I know I'm wasting My time, but this explanation is more for those who can read and think, not so much for you.

good gawd man, you have things backwards and have no clue?

"The Senate was chosen by State Legislatures. Who, but the people, vote for their State Legislatures?"

"A Senator, elected by the people, is nothing more than a renamed US Representative and beholden to a far smaller constituency, a constituency that may not have the states best interest at heart."

No, I do not. Try reading some history sometime. Specifically, the role of the US Senate in our government.

A Senator elected by a few hundred legislators or a Governor have a much smaller constituency and interest to be beholden to. Good gawd man, I was just rereading Madison and others argue this point. They thought a Senator not elected by the people would be more like the House of Lords, not beholden to a large constituency.

What friggin' history do you read, Glenn Beck?

 

[Dante]

To the issue of Slavery during the Founders time..............It was normal during that time............As time changes, people change and correct what is wrong............which has happened over our history.

It was. It was also deeply hypocritical and unjust. 'All men are created equal' and slavery are concepts that are diametrically and inescapably opposed, standing as mutually exclusive mirrors of each other.

But, you must look at it in the context of the time period................During that time people were simply different and believed in some things we don't believe in today..................Slavery is BS in my book, but I choose to look at history objectively.

I'm quite aware of the context of the era. The constitution was among the best compromises the founders could manage with the situation that they had. Slavery was not only institutionalized, it was the backbone of the economies of many of the States that were to vote on the constitution. Abolishment of slavery was a political and practical impossibility for the founders. Due to context, institutions of their age, moral cowardice, personal greed, hypocricy or political reality.

They couldn't do it.

We could. We've corrected the flaws they never could. We've abolished slavery. We've extended the Bill of Rights to the States. We've extended universal suffrage. We've recognized and protected more rights for more people than the founders ever could.

Which is why I say our constitution is better than theirs.

quote:

Federalists argued that the Constitution did not need a bill of rights, because the people and the states kept any powers not given to the federal government. Anti-Federalists held that a bill of rights was necessary to safeguard individual liberty. Bill of Rights Institute Bill of Rights

You misread and misrepresent so much it is incredible.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Good luck. Our Public School System is a joke at this point. All the kids get now is 'How to be a good Communist Democrat' indoctrination. Most Americans are completely clueless on issues like this. But hey, nice try. Thanks.

Because all your opinions are viewed through ideology you have no opinions that really matter.

And you opinions aren't..
Hello pot? This is kettle...You're black.
Or are you just a ridiculous person who is trying to be outrageous?

 

[Discombobulated]

Perhaps you're just a little too slow to understand that democracy is one component of a constitutional republic......they are not mutually exclusive.

And there is a difference between "democracy" and "a democracy", but you're too busy insulting people to think of that.

.

Feel free to provide historic examples of "a democracy".

I did ...Read post on last page

Those little anecdotes don't really qualify as historic examples of anything.

 

[Discombobulated]

Good luck. Our Public School System is a joke at this point. All the kids get now is 'How to be a good Communist Democrat' indoctrination. Most Americans are completely clueless on issues like this. But hey, nice try. Thanks.

Because all your opinions are viewed through ideology you have no opinions that really matter.

And you opinions aren't..
Hello pot? This is kettle...You're black.
Or are you just a ridiculous person who is trying to be outrageous?

You don't even begin to know what you're talking about.