Debate Now I'm Leaving! Who Is With Me?

[Foxfyre]

Okay. I think I do understand what you are saying now, i.e. that there aren't enough Americans left who have not been corrupted by the existing system? If I have interpreted it correctly, I think that is a credible argument, though I am not ready to agree with you yet.

But the original Americans WANTED liberty and had discussed what it was and what it would look like for some eleven years before they had agreed on enough points to sign a Constitution that was developed through a lot of give and take and compromise.

Is there a third world country in which there are people with such a vision? I see a lot of people here in America with such a vision. Who are capable of knowing what liberty looks like and how it would work. And they love their country and I would imagine they would rather fix the one we have than start over from scratch someplace else.

But I'm sure open to be convinced otherwise.

Perhaps my problem is liberty loving people here ... In that they are not too hard to find until we start talking about what liberties we should have.
Then there is often a sense that people become a lot more restrictive or exclusive about liberties when those liberties threaten something they hold dear.
.

But that is why I wanted to have the discussion. We all are educated, opinionated, passionate people and of course we are going to disagree on many if not most things. But at some point, in such a discussion, we hit sympathetic concepts and realize that yes, that is what will work and we can accept it.

Take the issue of taxes for just one example. Would we want a new Constitution that severely limited Congress's ability to tax and raise our taxes? Or leave it more unspecified so that Congress interprets the Constitution to assume essentially no restrictions on its ability to tax as the current Constitution is interpreted?

I can imagine that it wouldn't take a lot of discussion to come to a meeting of the minds on that among those who would want to join the new country.

 

[BlackSand]

But that is why I wanted to have the discussion. We all are educated, opinionated, passionate people and of course we are going to disagree on many if not most things. But at some point, in such a discussion, we hit sympathetic concepts and realize that yes, that is what will work and we can accept it.

Take the issue of taxes for just one example. Would we want a new Constitution that severely limited Congress's ability to tax and raise our taxes? Or leave it more unspecified so that Congress interprets the Constitution to assume essentially no restrictions on its ability to tax as the current Constitution is interpreted?

I can imagine that it wouldn't take a lot of discussion to come to a meeting of the minds on that among those who would want to join the new country.

But then we would have to discuss what was more important ... Freedom from taxes or a balanced budget?
Then we would have to discuss what we would want as far as approved spending ... And so on.

I mean all that is good and well ... But until you have business, stability and wealth ... It doesn't matter what you tax or to what degree.
In third world countries, there is nothing to tax ... So the immediate priorities are already set.
You have to have the incoming revenues and stability before you can figure out what your mundane bureaucratic governmental dreams are going to be.

That is why the Constitution doesn't cover everything in detail ... And still left subjects open to simple oversight and personal responsibility ... Along with the idea that they couldn't fix everything, nor was it their responsibility to do so.

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[Foxfyre]

But that is why I wanted to have the discussion. We all are educated, opinionated, passionate people and of course we are going to disagree on many if not most things. But at some point, in such a discussion, we hit sympathetic concepts and realize that yes, that is what will work and we can accept it.

Take the issue of taxes for just one example. Would we want a new Constitution that severely limited Congress's ability to tax and raise our taxes? Or leave it more unspecified so that Congress interprets the Constitution to assume essentially no restrictions on its ability to tax as the current Constitution is interpreted?

I can imagine that it wouldn't take a lot of discussion to come to a meeting of the minds on that among those who would want to join the new country.

But then we would have to discuss what was more important ... Freedom from taxes or a balanced budget?
Then we would have to discuss what we would want as far as approved spending ... And so on.

I mean all that is good and well ... But until you have business, stability and wealth ... It doesn't matter what you tax or to what degree.
In third world countries, there is nothing to tax ... So the immediate priorities are already set.
You have to have the incoming revenues and stability before you can figure out what your mundane bureaucratic governmental dreams are going to be.

That is why the Constitution doesn't cover everything in detail ... And still left subjects open to simple oversight and personal responsibility ... Along with the idea that they couldn't fix everything, nor was it their responsibility to do so.
.

I don't want freedom from taxes. I just want freedom from a government that assumes power to tax for whatever it chooses to do or to tax as much as it wants to do. I want to strictly restrict that government in what it is allowed to do.

And I would very much like to incorporate a balanced budget or at least a limit on how much government would be allowed to borrow with some kind of provision for an extreme emergency such as somebody declaring war on us or the Wyoming caldera firing up or some such super major disaster.