Posted on 07/28/2008 12:01:54 PM PDT by BGHater
The dangers inherent in the foreign policy advocated by the neo-conservatives are well known. While many Americans have become increasingly aware of those dangers, far less attention has been focused on the dangers of neo-conservative economic policies. This issue is of critical importance right now, because many are mistakenly pointing their fingers at the free market as the culprit behind our current economic plight.
There are only a few in elected office who have any real loyalty to free markets and limited government. The agenda of neo-conservatives in the economy calls for a very active central government. Indeed, while there are some neo-conservatives who continue to use the rhetoric of limited government, and who oppose increases in the federal income tax as a way to maintain the political benefits that apply to those who talk about free markets, it is now the neo-conservatives who promote fiat monetary policies even more than those on the liberal left.
While I have been a strong proponent of cutting taxes on all Americans, and therefore supported the tax reductions offered by President Bush, the neo-cons argue that tax rate reduction alone is the key to “getting the government out of the way” of economic growth. Moreover, they invariably argue for tax reductions targeted toward the wealthy, and toward multinational corporations.
Over the years, I have offered several tax plans designed to assist hard working middle-class Americans to pay for their needs, whether these needs be health-care related, educational or to pay the costs of fuel. A few years back when I introduced one such bill, a prominent Republican approached me on the House Floor and asked, half in anger and half in amazement “why did you do that?” Shortly after that, the committee chairman at the time, also a Republican, sent out a release strongly attacking my tax cut bill.
So, while the liberal economic agenda includes more taxes and spending, the neo-con economic program simply looks to target some tax cuts to preferred groups, but ignore the economic big picture. The neo-con economic agenda is to “borrow and spend” and it is that agenda, even more than the tax and spend ways of many liberals, that has cast us in economic peril at this time.
Simply, on spending, the neo-cons and the liberals share views, just as they share similar views on foreign policy. While each side tries to claim the mantle of change, reality is that more of the same is not change.
The fiat monetary policy we now follow is the most significant factor contributing to our economic peril, and it is central to the neo-con agenda. As we hear new calls to empower the Federal Reserve Board, we should be aware that underlying all neo-conservative policies is the idea of monetary inflation. Inflation is the technique used to pay for the regulatory-state and the costs of policing the world.
Except the democrats want the tax cuts repealed while Paul wants them spread to all classes, i.e. tax cuts across the board IMO.
How are his views anti-Constitution?
Probably because neo-con is associated with Bush and his policies. He hasn’t exactly been in line with limited government. Just my opinion.
“No, it negates the seriousness with which Ron Paul is supposedly to be taken.”
That may be true, but it doesn’t negate the CONTENT of what he’s saying. If a murderer tells you murder is wrong, he’s right regardless of what he’s done.
Spin it however you want... Facts mean little to you if it gets in the way of a good Ron Paul bashing...
"I disapproved from the first moment... the want of a bill of rights [in the new Constitution] to guard liberty against the legislative as well as the executive branches of the government." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 1789. ME 7:300
"I do not like... the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction against monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land and not by the law of nations." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. ME 6:387
"A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inferences." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. ME 6:388, Papers 12:440
"The general voice from north to south... calls for a bill of rights. It seems pretty generally understood that this should go to juries, habeas corpus, standing armies, printing, religion and monopolies. I conceive there may be difficulty in finding general modifications of these suited to the habits of all the States. But if such cannot be found, then it is better to establish trials by jury, the right of habeas corpus, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion, in all cases, and to abolish standing armies in time of peace, and monopolies in all cases, than not to do it in any. The few cases wherein these things may do evil cannot be weighed against the multitude wherein the want of them will do evil." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1788. ME 7:96
"It astonishes me to find... [that so many] of our countrymen... should be contented to live under a system which leaves to their governors the power of taking from them the trial by jury in civil cases, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce, the habeas corpus laws, and of yoking them with a standing army. This is a degeneracy in the principles of liberty... which I [would not have expected for at least] four centuries." --Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1788. (*) FE 5:3
"I consider all the ill as established which may be established. I have a right to nothing which another has a right to take away." --Thomas Jefferson to Uriah Forrest, 1787. ME 6:388, Papers 12:477
"I hope, therefore, a bill of rights will be formed to guard the people against the federal government as they are already guarded against their State governments, in most instances." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1788. ME 7:98
"I was in Europe when the Constitution was planned, and never saw it till after it was established. On receiving it, I wrote strongly to Mr. Madison, urging the want of provision for... an express reservation to the States of all rights not specifically granted to the Union." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, 1802. ME 10:325
Well... yeah... other than THOSE objections right?
I’m curious, do you think the federal government is too powerful and/or using powers it isn’t not Consitutionally granted? What is your brand of Constitutionalism seeing as your tagline says Constitutionalists (suggesting Paul-types I’m assuming) know the least about the Constitution?
Don’t take this as a challenge/insult/attack, I’d just like to know your views.
“L Ron Paul connections with supporters and groups which includes 9/11 an inside job, to Marxist Cindy Sheehan anti war crowd to Holocause deniers.”
(...)
None of this is remotely interesting anymore - haven’t you posted it in multiple threads? Nor is it relevant to the discussion at hand.
This is the Democrat’s accusation that the Bush tax cuts are “only for the wealthy”
No, it’s only part of his argument that neocons are neither fiscally conservative or for limited government.
Anyone who has spent any time reading the neocon’s flagship journal, The Weekly Standard, will get a taste of the neocon disinterest and/or antagonism towards American principles of Constitutional government.
None of this is remotely interesting anymore
Then don’t reply.
I don’t give a rats ass what you think
Apparently the complete and unvarnished words of Jefferson aren't as supportive of your thesis as the expurgated version you have presented.
And even those is embarrassingly weak.
Jefferson wanted a Bill of Rights, as did many of those who supported the Constitution and its ratification.
He made that quite clear.
Did he objection to the Constitution in principle? Not at all.
Did he oppose its ratification, as the Anti-Federalists did? Not at all.
Blame the University of Virginia's website. http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeffcont.htm
And yeah... he was pretty much dead set against setting up a government that had no declaration of Rights in it. Without it, he was firmly against the Constitution.
I expected you to try and spin this, I just thought you'd have done a better job. As it is, you agree he was against it because of the original lack of a BoR, but then try and say he was for the whole thing anyway?
Lame. Just lame...
Firstly, my tagline does not mention Constitutionalists, but the people who often call themselves Constitutionalists.
In reality that group of people are generally Anti-Federalists and Neo-Confederates in their approach to and interpretation of the Constitution.
As such they embrace a flawed theory of the Constitution as a treaty between states instead of its true nature as an ordinance of the people of the United States.
As such they pursue a theory of interpretation employed by the frustrated Anti-Federalists - strict construction.
As such, they champion bizarre notions like the oxymoronic "states' rights."
They also embrace outlandish conspiracy theories like the idea that the 16th Amendment was never ratified.
I am a Federalist who respects the Constitution as an ordinance of the American people as a whole. I acknowledge original intent as the interpretive norm desired by the Framers and I take the Constitution at its own word as the supreme law of the land.
I’m curious, do you think the federal government is too powerful and/or using powers it isn’t not Consitutionally granted?
The federal government isn't too powerful. The main problem with the federal government is that it spends far too much on all sorts of unnecessary programs. Under the Constitution the federal government has the power to tax - the problem is not one of usurpation of forbidden power but the abuse of authorized power. And, if anything, the state governments are more guilty than the federal government of waste and micromanagement. Any excess ascribed to the federal government goes double for dozens of state governments and triple for hundreds of municipal governments.
The federal government's main job is the provision of national defense, the maintenance of internal security and the protection of America's interests abroad - these are great tasks and are accompanied by great powers. The federal government is dissipating itself on stupid programs like Social Security and Medicare that distract it from its main purposes.
He wanted the Constitution amended, he was not against the Constitution itself. Pretty much every supporter of the Constitution had their own ideas of how it could or should be improved.
The Anti-Federalists were opposed to any Constitution, amended or unamended. Characterizing Jefferson as an Anti-Federalist is simply disingenuous.
you agree he was against it because of the original lack of a BoR
Again, he was not against it. He wanted an enhanced Constitution, not no Constitution.
Lame. Just lame...
Saith the cut-and-paster.
You are a moron...
The Constitution does not contemplate an omnipotent national government, but a limited federal government.
Hyperbole and cutting-and-pasting are poor substitutes for coming up with your own coherent argument.
Frankly, it just appears indolent to the average observer.
You are a moron...
My, how clever. Once again, you've really enhanced the quality of the discussion.
Considering you try to make an argument out of your opinion alone, with nothing to support it at all, my summation of your intellect stands.
Explain “oxymoronic ‘states’ rights’”. I’m not sure I understand. I guess states don’t have “rights” as people do, but I think that’s just terminology.
On the subject of the 16th Amendment, do you think income tax was already permitted by the Constitution or that it required the 16th Amendment (I’ve heard once or twice that the income tax allowed under the original Constitution).
As for the federal government’s power, I agree that it spends too much on random little things and even some fairly big ones like SS and Medicare, both of which I oppose. But wouldn’t that mean the Feds are too “powerful”? Do you think there is Constitutionality in SS and M and if so do you just oppose them because you think they are wasteful (not because the government doesn’t have the legal ability to do it)?
So in your opinion states and local governments are more wasteful and corrupt (?). My reaction would be that the feds are far more wasteful than the state and local governments.
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