straightUp Loc: California

Well said.

(I wouldn't think being a politician is the best road to riches, they only make around 200K/yr... but you are 100% on who to blame.)

straightUp Loc: California

Fair enough... Here goes...

True, the word can be applied to a lot of areas... I think the first listed definition in your American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language is the best fit for govenrment policy otherwise known as "law".

So.. "The right and power to interpret and apply the law."

This definition assumes the existence of law. Otherwise there would be nothing to interpret or apply. Therefore, with each law comes a right for an authority to interpret and apply it. In that sense we can say the jurisdiction of an authority might expand or contract depending on the laws and what areas of commerce, environment, personal business, etc... such laws affect. When an industry is deregulated, what is happening is a law or a set of laws that previously gave the state authority over specific areas of that industry are being eliminated and with it the right for the state to apply it. Hence the idea of a shrinking jurisdiction.

Now, my use the term was in direct relation to the article referenced in the OP. So I made the assumption that the context would have been understood. I really wasn't expecting the need to whip out the dictionaries.

But now that I've belabored the definition of a shrinking jurisdiction, I hope what I was saying about civil rights being coded in law, will make more sense to you. Indeed, if you're first approach to my comment is to think I am attacking deregulation per se, then I can see how you would miss my point entirely.

What I am saying is actually far more simple...

1. 100% of our civil rights are coded in law.
2. Deregulation shortens the reach of the law.
3. (make your own conclusions)

straightUp Loc: California

Crazy... It's difficult to take you seriously when your language is so weighed down with derogatory BS. First of all Obama isn't Muslim, secondly even if he was, there is no law saying the President can't be a Muslim. So already you are sounding like a prejudiced retard. Thirdly, only one of his measures that I know about was ever interpreted by anyone of authority to be unconstitutional, and that argument is still being debated. Also, I don't know what "programs" you are referring to... At this point my perception of you allows me to believe you think ANYTHING Obama signs is a social program because you just see a dirty word, not an actual concept. I'm not sure which programs zonked is talking about either, but I do agree with him that the Republicans, under Bush have expanded the size of the government tremendously and more importantly (and this is where Republicans and Democrats differ most significantly) The Republicans use the most irresponsible methods possible to fund their programs.

Democrats try to levy taxes to pay for their programs. They don't have to worry about alienating themselves from their voters because their voters tend to understand how laws and taxes work. They understand the concept of "getting what you pay for" and that applies to government as much as anything else.

Republicans on the other hand, promise their voters that they will not levy taxes which makes their voters happy for reasons I honestly don't understand, unless it's just simple ignorance of the fact that Republicans STILL have massive programs to fund and will do it by borrowing money, which is so much worse.

so, in simple terms...

Democrats = (programs + taxes) = pay-as-you-go = responsible.
Republicans = (programs + loans) = national debt = irresponsible.

If the Republicans from Reagan to Bush were not allowed to borrow money, there would be no national debt crushing our economic system right now. (Nor would thousands of Americans have lost their lives in Iraq.)


1. I think it's a better idea than anything anyone else has come up with. Historically, state provided employment has HAS helped pull economies out of a recession. There has not been a single instance where tax cuts have done the same.

2. Obama has ALWAYS made it a point to source the funding and that $800 was no exception. He included the answer to "where will the money come from" as part of the act. When Bush asked for $700 billion (yeah, you forgot about that one didn't you), he didn't explain the funding at all. He just used the old Republican stand by... "Yes, Federal Reserve? Can you print out a few billion dollars so my Treasury Department can BORROW it from you? The American tax payers will pay you back, plus millions in interest, sometime after I'm gone."

Yeah, Republicans are sooo fiscally responsible :roll:


That's a reflection of the cost for healthcare for a booming generation of Americans projected over the expected population spike. $3 trillion actually sounds cheap when you consider the fact that right now (and we haven't even reached the spike yet) we are already spending $2.6 trillion WITHOUT Obamacare.

This is the argument that angry little peeps like you can't consider because you're too pissed off about a MUSLIM, COMMUNIST, BLACK man in office to understand anything he is doing. As soon as he say's "My fellow Americans..." You're already throwing tomatoes.

Kind of a drag because the rest of us would like to explore avenues to reduce and manage the cost of healthcare. Meanwhile, the Republicans have done NOTHING.

N-O-T-H-I-N-G....

...to reduce healthcare costs and because of that, current healthcare expendatures in the private sector have reached 17.6% of our GDP... Roughly $8,233 per American, which is two and a half times more per head than what citizens of most developed nations pay, including the British, French and Swedes.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/10/health-costs-how-the-us-compares-with-other-countries.html


Of course. :roll:

straightUp Loc: California

You sound like the kind of conservative I actually understand and respect. Old School Paleoconservative? (Not to pigeon-hole you, you sound too thoughtful for that, but as opposed to the Neoconservatives that drove the Bush Administration).

I'll have to check into 'Conscience of a Conservative'. Thanks for mentioning that.

Regarding the loss of those Constitutional Amendments... I just wanted to venture my own understood reasons, perhaps you have others.

4th... To protect Americans from unreasonable search and seizure. Gone! per the PATRIOT ACT! Specifically, because the PATRIOT ACT gives the executive branch the authority to decide who a terrorist is.

5th... to provide Americans with a fair justice system. Gone! via Bush Administration's military tribunal system that bypasses the Constitutional justice system embodied in the Judicial Branch... entirely. Again, the designation of "terrorist" is 100% subjective and entirely left to the Executive Branch to decide without ANY democratic input or process.

8th... to protect Americans from excessive punishment. Gone! per the Bush Administrations, acceptance of torture and suspension of habeas corpus, a law that we adopted from English Common Law that was created in the darkest ages of human history suggesting that even then, people had more sense of justice than the Bush Administration did.

10th - to limit the powers of the federal government to what is specified in the Constitution. Yeah, FDR... AND Bush, AND perhaps Obama... and probably every president in between to one extent or another.

In all honesty, the 10th is a critical amendment but also hard to defend. The problem is keeping a government relevant to the 20th and 21st centuries while keeping it limited to 18th century standards. The fact that these limits are still largely in place as the government enters the the 21st century with 314 million people under it's domain is a tribute to the wisdom of the Constitution's designers, but still, we really are pushing it to the limits of sanity.

I just hope that when the time comes, there will be people in the government that can recognize the "spirit" of the constitution (something the Constitutionalists have already lost) and have the ability to update the design for use with the future while preserving that spirit.

Maybe we can resurrect Thomas Jefferson. I know he refused to sign the Constitution but he DID have the insight to realize that times will change the parameters that shape constitutions.

zonkedout1 Loc: Wyoming

StraightUp, If you are going to argue the benefits of Obamacare to CrazyHorse, please consider your audience. Obamacare=Bad as it is the flagstone (current one anyway) of a dependency mindset. All the while, record unemployment and threat of amnesty threaten to make this compulsory legislation worse for us. In other words, the dems couldn't have picked a worse time stressing the economy. All of that seems bad to Republicans who don't understand that forcing people to stand on their own to feet is untenable. But I'm in your corner, no seriously, taking Keynesian economics and exploiting them to cartoonish proportions is good. Really. :thumbdown:

CrazyHorse Loc: Kansas

Quid Pro Quo,zonkedout1 & StraightUp: You don't need to do any mental gymnastics re the alleged benefits of Obamacare, it is an unmitigated absolute disaster, as even the politicians and unions are starting to understand.

straightUp Loc: California

An audience blind with obsessive anger has no bearing on my argument. It just means my argument won't be considered. Which is fine... it just confirms my suspicions about the type of people that come on this site, basically to rant and rave. Also, your reference to the flagstone of a dependency mindset is so far from relevant it's not even funny. It's just sad that these are the empty conclusions that political sheep come to.


threat of amnesty? Do you even know what you're talking about zonked?


You seem to be suffering from that common delusion that progressive policies are all about making people dependent on the state to wipe their ass. LOL. I guess it's easier to settle on ideas that can be expressed on a single bumper sticker, than to venture the education required to know better.


I just read another article in Foreign Policy, that suggests more economists are starting to understand the wisdom of Keynes, in light of the fact that austerity programs have failed miserably in every country that has tried it.

The suggestion is that you should cut government spending when times are booming not when times are bad. Now this is something that a person like me can consider without necessarily buying. But I don't expect anyone here to even consider it which is why they're primed for riding the bus off the cliff. And the pied pipers of the GOP know this, and are probably delighted.

Dave Loc: Upstate New York

Anyone who thinks identity politics is not played by the party that asks people to vote based on thier race, their gender, the sexual orientation must be less than fully conscious.

straightUp Loc: California

ANY peice of legislation can turn into a disaster if the opposition is willing to embark on childish sabbotage. It's not that hard to do when politics is 90% talk and we all know how full of crap politicians are.

Dave Loc: Upstate New York

Opposition has had to do nothing but let Obamacare flow - there is nothing that any oppostion has done to cause any of the current problems - and it takes a special kind of intellectual ju jitsui to suggest this failed legislation is due to anything other than the well established laws of unintended consequence

straightUp Loc: California

"THE" party? Are you frickin' brain dead? You really think only one party plays identity politics? The Democrats typically pose as the champions of minority groups and so yes, they highlight the need for minorities to be heard, but the Republican Party, which the Economist Magazine recently plastered on their cover as the "Party That Will Always Be for White People" is downright blatant about the need for white people to vote to keep the advancing minorities that will "destroy the country" at bay.

I was in North Carolina when Obama was elected the first time and I have never seen such seething prejudice spewing from the rotten mouths of belligerent loosers.

It was truely revolting.

Dave Loc: Upstate New York

Show me one ad, one statement where any prominent Republican openly called for any race to vote based on that race and you'll have something worth discussing. Anything even close to Obama telling Hispanics to punish the enemy.
Further, you do realize there are more aspects to identity politics than race alone, don't you. Finally, your empiracal observations about what you saw and heard personnaly would surprise only a fool - and if you don't think you can hear equally disturbing characerizations about other candidates you have to practice being a fool. For example, did you ever hear any venom spewed against W Bush from liberals? Do you really think Reagan's election resulted in everyone casting poetic praise upon his head?

As to personal observation, I was in Philly a few years ago when one Wilson Goode was campaigning against one Frank Rizzo. After weeks of Goode campaigning in black neighborhoods withe slogan - "vote black, vote Goode" - Rizzo once said in his campaign that people should vote white - that made national news and he was branded forever as a racist. Perhaps you too think that of Rizzo with no comment on Goode.

CrazyHorse Loc: Kansas

[quote=straightUp]ANY p[ei]ce of legislation can turn into a disaster if the opposition is willing to embark on childish sab[b]otage. It's not that hard to do when politics is 90% talk and we all know how full of crap politicians are.[/quote]

Quid Pro Quo, straightUp: Any piece of legislation can be a disaster. Well, maybe so; but in this case Obamacare is a self made bastardized unmitigated disaster. Once they read it and find out all the previous abortions of law that never made it in the first instance, that the dims wrote in the 2700 pages in the middle of the night; it will be impossible to fix. Obamacare's fundamental problem, is that it is a fundamentally flawed concept by which the dims wish to control everyone's life, that can not and will not ever work. All it will do is kill folks, including the democrat voting base, and break the country with trillions of dollars of additional debt. Already Obama has hired 16,000 new storm trooping IRS agents just to manage the paper work and monitor Obamacare. Even Obama's unions are now against it. Why is it do you suspect that every time the democrats go off on some power surge mental masturbation crusade, we tax payers end up with a few more trillion dollars in debt obligation tied around the necks of our children and grand children? Do the dims have no soul. I think not, only their secular ideologue god.

straightUp Loc: California

You sound very angry - with all your derogatory adjectives. I have to suspect that you are too angry to be objective. That would explain why you think the Democrats are to blame for the national debt. I'm not a Democrat myself, but at least I understand the difference between their standard approach and the Republican standard approach.

Democrats = (programs + taxes) = pay as you go.
Republicans = (programs + loans) = national debt = pay later when a Democrat gets in office.

So... some people hate the Democrats who want to levy taxes to pay for their programs... so they vote for Republicans that promise not to levy taxes and that's as far as their "thinking" goes, so they miss the part that the Republicans tend to borrow money to pay for their programs which creates national debt.

Indeed, since Reagan, every time the Republicans have control of the government the national debt spikes and every time it slopes down, is when the Democrats are in charge.

Here's the stats... (president and rate at which national debt grows).

Carter = 42%
Reagan = 188% (ouch!)
Bush Sr. = 56%
Clinton = 35% (ending with a surplus)
Bush Jr. = 89%
Obama = 53% (so far...)

http://www.skymachines.com/US-National-Debt-Per-Capita-Percent-of-GDP-and-by-Presidental-Term.htm

And don't even start that argument where the stats should be tied to Congress because Congress only gets involved when taxes are being levied. When Republicans borrow, it's called "off-line" spending, which means no Congressional oversight is needed. So a Republican president who presides over the U.S. Treasury Department can borrow money without any interjection from a Democratic congress.

So don't you even DARE talk to me about the "trillion dollars in debt obligation tied around the necks of our children and grand children" you SOB. I HAVE children and it's the people YOU vote for out of stupidity that put that obligation around their necks and that makes ME angry.

Dave Loc: Upstate New York

If you think those stats - perentage increase - are meaningful you are either purposefully trying to mislead or have no grasp of statistical significance.