Posted on 07/04/2009 7:26:32 AM PDT by Publius
Many thanks!
And half the time they even hose those up and you get cheesy whining instead. ;-)
Please add wally_bert to the ping list, Publius. :)
I have spoken with people like this. They're real. They say that it's not fair to have intelligence tests for voters, and I agree with them. It's not fair to people who think and produce if morons are allowed to infiltrate the government.
Where does this denial of reality have a parallel in today’s society?
Everywhere. I never finished college, and I never will. A modern degree is a disgusting parody of education and intelligence. Anyone can get one; actually knowing anything is optional. My mother inadvertently taught me about this game. She still believes the socialist bullshit from 1950s England - schools are bad if they make students memorize facts and good if they teach them "how to think."
It is not possible to teach someone how to think. It is innate. We can no more teach people to think than we can teach them to digest food. What we have instead done is produce idiots who have a piece of paper that says they're not idiots. A simple enough lie, but even an idiot can point at his worthless degree and reply, "But you're degree looks just like mine." When we tell everybody that they can have a college degree, a college degree becomes as significant as nice car or a big tv. If you can pay for it, you can have it.
Is it coincidence that astrologers have a larger audience than physicists? It is the real consequence of this practice.
"His opinion is just as valid as yours."
Every time I hear this, I want to strangle whoever said it. No, his opinion is not as valid as mine, nor is it valid at all. My opinion is based on the most scrupulous examination of facts that I can manage, and if I haven't got facts, my opinion is that I don't know. My opinion is not that I'll be a civil engineer today, I was a cardiologist yesterday, and I'll be a Supreme Court Justice tomorrow. Our education system does not teach the following extremely important lesson: "You don't know what you're talking about so shut up." It might hurt somebody's feelings. When one of these idiots does something stupid and kills somebody, we can take comfort in his self esteem. Kee McFarlane leaps to mind.
California threatens to secede. As things get worse, will the bonds of Union sunder due to a central government that cannot perform the tasks it has promised the people?
People don't much care for government in this country. Even when it hands them welfare checks, they lash out at 'the man.' Unintended Consequences is an interesting divergent argument to Atlas Shrugged. My opinion is that we would get Unintended Consequences somewhere on the way to Atlas Shrugged. We have been handed a pile of violations of common sense and humanity by our government, passing on 50 years now. We got it because of genuine wrongs that were redressed in improper fashion. IMO, Martin Luther King did more damage to this country than anyone in history. Imagine how the United States would be if, instead of whining to the courts, a few KKK members were found swinging from the same trees they used to torture blacks. You can fight your own battles or you can go whining to mommy and daddy. The second strategy will never work. Bill Cosby observed that adults aren't interested in justice, they want QUIET!
</rant>
Yes, I purposefully wrote 'you're' instead of 'your.'
The courts of the Fair Play men were often held at a place near what is now known as Chatham's Mill, in Clinton County. But it is doubtful if they had any regular place of meeting, or stated time for the transaction of business. The time of meeting was brought about by the exigencies that might arise. The court could be convened at any place within the territory over which it exercised jurisdiction, and on short notice, to try any case that might be on hand. '
In the ideal world, this is how things should be done. But we don't live in the ideal world, and a system like this lends itself to brutality more often than it does honesty. Parliamentary procedure forbids such acts in a modern organization. As soon as whoever is in charge decides that his ego is more important than his principles, we get the just causes listed in the Declaration of Independence:
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
The Constitution addresses these issues in Article III, Section 2:
The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the state where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any state, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed.
Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
Amendments IV, V, VI, VII, and VIII were written to restrict whims of courts. Habeas Corpus was never intended to allow an obviously guilty man to game the system. It was established as the right of noblemen to force the authorities to explain why he was, " . . .was immediately placed in a canoe and rowed to the mouth of Lycoming Creek, the boundary line of civilization, and there sent adrift down the river. '
It demands that authority produce records, and justify itself. Why? Because I don't trust them.
Especially, one with nukes.
I suppose we will see this played out in North Korea.
I remember that you and I had had a conversation about Waco. Might I trouble you to share it here?
Not only are we outsourcing industry, we are outsourcing agriculture. Look at the country of origin on your produce. More and more it is Mexico, China, etc. I see this as a national security issue. If a country can't feed its self, it is vulnerable. Here in CA there is widespread speculation on why farmland is being forced out of production. Is it to drive down the value for speculators, and if so whom? Does the federal government have a plan to take over food production like they took over the auto and banking industries?
Bingo!
How many people are going to support a secessionist movement if they stand to lose their social security, food stamps, medicare etc? It is an idea I've been bouncing about in my head for a few weeks. What if Texas secedes? How will this issue be managed? I can see welfare payments stopped. Don't like it, get a job or leave. But will retirees stand for their piece of the pie taken away? Remember, social security and medicare is the 3rd rail of politics.
For the past decade, a plan for a North American Union and a new currency, the Amero, has been percolating within the Foreign Policy Community. They have couched it as the next logical step in globalization, but is there an ulterior motive? Is a dying nation becoming predatory and couching it as "best for all concerned".
Annexation of Mexico?
I’m sure it was Louisiana.
We are all to be citizens of the world.
Subjects, more like.
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