Floyd Brown Loc: Milwaukee WI

We all are guilty of not getting the intent of some things posted here.

It is as much the words used as it is the reading of those words.

jonhatfield Loc: Green Bay, WI

I suppose you read it daily and obsess over every word's connection to your interpretation of how wrong America is going? Mike, you and company, need to realize that fact & reality and interpretation of fact & reality are separate things...that opinion and interpretation can be right, wrong, partially one or the other or, which seems contradictory, both right & wrong at the same time. You see various wrongs in our govt. (in your opinion) and judge the whole thing has gone wrong (in your opinion)...and you cite THE CONSTITUTION as fact backing your opinion. However, that's your INTERPRETATION of the Constitution. Fine, we all have opinions and interpretations--but don't mistake interpretation as fact.

I believe in America and our government and I believe in Britain and its government and I don't think either one has gone wrong and consider people who think so as cranks who don't see the larger picture. The larger picture is 200 some years our government has worked. Yes, there were & are flaws, wrongs, changes, etc. and they must be dealt with and worked out. Our system of government was set up to do just that in measured way and it has worked exactly as set up for over 200 years and shouldn't be turned upside down by a radical fringe group of cranks on the right who think we need a Tea Party and revolution. Now that's just my opinion and you have yours. But doesn't it give you pause that mainstream Americans think you are cranks and wackos? It's not a matter of the "lamestream" press villainizing you as is claimed by your camp--it's a matter of glimpses the public has from time to time of the more extreme and far-fetched parts of your camp. I was aware of the less far-fetched rightist camp in public life and a few extremists whose behaviors tended to discredit them, but I had no idea of the camp of radical disbelievers of what America is until I accidentally ran across this OPP political forum.

Now I'm a bit of a crankcase myself in being so opinionated about extremism. Let me explain my cranky interpretation. You see America the Ugly. I see America the Beautiful. You see present-day American government as violation of 1787 Constitutional principles as you interpret them. I see American government as continued practice of those principles over more than two centuries. You see America only. I see America and Britain and France and Holland and Belgium and Sweden and Finland and India and South Korea and Japan and the Philipines and Mexico and Brazil and Israel, etc., etc.--a world of nations practicing forms of constitutional government like ours today...not perfect but working at it and all nations looking toward America. You see only America since 1776 & 1787. I see 700 years from Renaissance rebirth of Graeco-Roman ideal through British invention of self-govt. principles in its transition from feudalism...and the Brit endurance through the Euro transitions from feudalism to constitutional govt. with Phillip of Spain, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Kaiser Bill & Nazi Hitler dictator episodes...and the transplantation of British govt. principles to the New World in "purer" form (but also some transplantation of the feudal manorial system that developed into the plantation problem it took us a terrible civil war to transition through and the slavery-instead-of-serfdom twist-on-feudalism problem that has taken longer to transition through) that has developed and emerged as the model, the shining city on the hill, for the world to aspire to be...and to be the America that continues parent Britain's role as defender and promoter of constitutional governance in the Cold War against international Soviet Russia Communism, another perversion of the old feudalism, in the last half of the 20th century and now in the first decades of the 21st century against jihadism, Talibanism, Al-Quidaism twists in the Muslim world's transition from feudalism that threaten the future of constitutional government and the future of Western Civilization--or as I like to think of it, Anglo-Saxon Civilization--or, as the larger world thinks of it, the future of world civilization.

To see it another way, Mike, look at it this way. Compare America's present-day situation in the larger picture of history to the banks that are "too big to fail" in the larger picture of our economy--that is, too big to be allowed to fail because their failure would cause the whole system to fail. America and its government indeed has flaws and its conditions have developed to a new and ever larger bigness level that indeed could become a new serfdom of individuals to corporate & govt. organizations. At this point in history, however, whatever its flaws, America and its government are too large in the world's future to be allowed to fail or overthrown, because that would destroy the foundation of freedom and democracy and constitutional governance for the whole world. We will have to prop up America and our government to fight the geopolitical battle of our time (patiently, as with the Cold War, not radically) and work to repair the foundations and correct blemishes. That's how America has worked 200 some years. The nitty gritty of working through issues and problems (politics) hasn't been and certainly presently isn't exactly "pretty" but the overall result has been and is America the Beautiful. You people need to believe in it. Some of its flaws are what can be regarded as beauty marks (that is, for example, slavery and then segregation were flaws but in our own generation Americanism has triumphed to make the former flaw into a beauty mark of our civilization). Somehow I believe we will work through the new conditions and problems of economic and govt. bignesses...if we maintain a degree of balance and patience.

See, I'm just as concerned as you are about the future of constitutional self-govt. and individual freedom. It's just that I see radicalism of right and left as not only counterproductive to working through the crisis of bignesses (a reality that isn't going to go away) but actually a danger of derailing the whole constitutional govt. way of working through the problems.

If I'm a bit blunt in stating my opinion of your side as cranks dangerous to our and civilization's future, the purpose is to get you to see the other side--not the left extremist side which I view as equally dangerous and parallel to the extreme right--but the muddled middle mainstream that is the real America. You in your conviction of the righteousness of your causes consider me arrogant? Your side despises the mainstream? So I despise your outstream? Who is more arrogant? I'm a single arrogant ignorant mainstream wingnut. You are part of a whole gang of arrogant ignorant rightwingnuts on this forum (although I'm sure you're considerably less nutty than the rest of the Hooterville gang on this forum). You want me to read the Constitution to understand where you're coming from. Well, I'm blunt and arrogant because that apparently is the only way your extreme side communicates and thus my only way to get you to see where the mainstream side is coming from. Rude of me to interrupt all the wingy thumping and thumbing up in unison but apparently the only way to get you to pause and think outside your box. Of course then I'm accused of thinking from various boxes by the more extreme in your camp. I won't make a list of further discrediting phenomena characteristic with the more spaced-out extremist postings from the thump-and-thumb gang. They certainly are peculiar, and I'm sure you must have noticed and been uncomfortable with them. I suppose I shouldn't stereotype the whole group with the flaws of...well, flaws of a larger part of the extremist group. Maybe it's just characteristic of extremism in general and I should have concentrated on distinguishing those not so discreditable in manner posters from those more extremely discredible in manner, but it's complicated to distinguish degrees. Maybe that's why so many rightwing posters don't bother t distinguish among opposing posters and label them all lefties and communists? The fact that this is characteristic with your side is, of course, no excuse for my labeling your side all wingnuts. Unkind of Sen. McCain to call your side wackos. Perhaps you need to persuade some in your camp to clean up their act. There are real issues and causes at stake on your side that could be made part of mainstream politics and contribute to working out national issues over time as our constitutional system has the past two centuries. All or nothing imperatives is just not the American way. It is the communist way and it appears often it is the way of the extreme right. I'm not saying to abandon your opinions and ideas, just that you need to make presentation and argument of issues related to principles live up to American constitutional government practice of those principles. Principles and practice aren't always the same but American principles and practices accept degrees of inconsistency with understanding that we work through to get nearer the principles...as we did with slavery to segregation to integration (with all deliberate speed, not all at once!). Do you understand that basic practice as basic principle in American government and politics? And do you recognize that your side in its fanaticism has a tendency to throw that basic principle & practice under the bus? The secessionists claimed to act on constitutional principles and rights. And indeed their actions were "principled" and "constitutional" but also wrong in practice, terribly wrong for the survival of democracy and freedom and constitutional government in the world. This is an example of being right in principle but wrong, terribly wrong, for application of principle.

Well, that's my effort to present the side of "moderates" as opposed to "extremists" to your understanding. Not, of course, that I have been moderate in presenting that side. ha.

vernon

moderate ,one who keeps a finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing before making a decision

vernon

moderate ,your just a lib trying to make the republicans look extreme .i never hear you talk about the extremes that obama and reidare much less how they lie.

jonhatfield Loc: Green Bay, WI

Vernon, you're just a lippy child. You never say anything substantive, just lippiness. Grow up, child.

vernon

i may be a lippy child but you are dam sure a pompous ass.but dont show your ignorance trying to make out your something your not.

jonhatfield Loc: Green Bay, WI

Now we both know what we are. ha.

BigMike Loc: yerington nv

I've watched you at work Jon. You use the word "interpretation" as a catchall to tell folks they are too dumb to know right from wrong.

That isn't "moderate". It's liberal politispeak that folks are using to try to wiggle their way past the clear meaning of the Constitution.

It won't work with me. There isn't a thing wrong with my reading or my comprehension. I don't obsess over the Constitution and I don't read it while sitting on the can! I do read maps, however :lol: .

You used a lot of words to tell me "no, I haven't read the Constitution in a while". Give it a read. It doesn't take all that long, and you'll see that the Federal Government is doing a lot of things it's not mandated to, and many of those things would be better off left to the States.

I have a huge amount of respect for the Founders. I think any one of them could kick my ass in intellectual warfare, and they set our Nation up they way they did for very good reasons.