doublegunshop.com - home Forums Ken Burn's Teddy R.

where zakly does the u.s. constitution address "taxation for vote-buying"?

Remove subsidies from every industrial sector, or entertainment, publishing, energy, military manufacturing etc and the US economy would collapse overnight. Forgotten who put Wall Street and auto industry back on its feet? Everyone in the US wage economy. Remember Ike warning of the "industrial-military complex" on leaving office? Big money rigs everything to its advantage.

I gotta ask, how can the very issue that you cheer lead for more big gov, be the exact same thing that you demonize as corporate welfare. Maybe more significant, can a white republican use the same tactic against a dem of color without invoking the wrath of all things racial and avoid issues that matter.

Preposterous assertions. The market would reassert itself, business efficiency would improve, innovation would occur, and the economy would stabilize. You're just attempting to rationalize crony capitalism. Wall Street should have been allowed to fail and reorganize. The auto companies should have declared bankruptcy. The bailouts only perpetuated the crony capitalism and insured political contributions at the expense of the taxpayers. You really are a big-government, statist, religious sociopath.

I gotta agree with Ken, King. Say with a little transition, like a dem might strategically position it between election cycles. How do we know it would work. Simple you told us, remember how terrific socialized medicine is supposed to be.

Your laundry list is small potatoes compared to the gubmnt taking over a sixth of the economy in the name of healthier folks on the cheap. Another example, how about stroke of the pen, regulating coal generated electricity out of business. Do you have any idea how many libs light their homes with coal power. Don't worry, you could still call me a hater, but you may do just fine if big bro doesn't hold your hand through all the little odds and ends of life.

Ken, if it's vote- buying when a Democrat casts a vote, why isn't it vote- buying for Republicans? Do you really think each person in the Democratic Party is only there for some government benefit? Your ability to interpret events and motives is truly profound. Think what you could accomplish if you turned your talents to the stock market. PS: This fact surprised me. During the Obama administration the federal government grew by the lowest rate since the Carter years.Craig, it's true teachers don't create jobs, but they make it possible for others to do that and foe workers to be able to perform them.

Universal healthcare is a good thing, Craig. There's no "supposed to be" about it. The US is the only developed country without it. US system is also most expensive, with tens of millions not covered.

You haven't said what you agree with Ken and I don't know what you mean by changing within election cycles. The whole idea of parties is to change things when they become the government.

Anyone believing "big bro" isn't holding everyone's hands whether they like it or not is smoking dope. And no, Craig, I don't call anyone a hater. I don't know anyone well enough here to make that call.

I believe from Mike's post above that he lives to a high standard of human values, which I've known all along. I don't have to know his political affiliations, his church, colour or sexual orientation.

It's the Democrats who are primarily responsible for the Welfare State. It was FDR who got the Wagner Act, and other New Deal programs through. It was LBJ who created the "Great Society" programs. True, it was GW Bush who championed the Prescription Drug program, but he was attempting to emulate the Democrats by becoming a "compassionate conservative", meaning another statist.

It's mythology that the government hasn't massively grown under Obama. In his first (and only) budget, constitutionally mandated to be passed yearly, by the way, He increased departmental spending by around 50%. Add that to the approx. 7% per annum baseline, and you have massive growth.

It's the public school system that has caused most of the problems we have today, by teaching and validating the very statist subjective morality that is at the core. A famous figure said a few years back: "If a foreign power had done what we ourselves have done to our own educational system, we'd consider it an act of war". Bill, you're the problem, not the solution.

The political problem we wrestle with here has been framed in the wrong terms, in my opinion. Rather than argue whether government should be larger or smaller,it makes better sense to me to find ways to make government smarter. Since the financial gains all go to those already rich, I have to believe they're the ones with an interest in keeping government stupid. The current roles government is supposed to play make sense to me. I'm no happier than anyone else at the inability to perform those functions effectively. Big, dark money makes it possible to elect knaves and fools. Citizens United was a fatal blow to democracy. Each of us has no influence whatsoever against the sheer force of big money. They do as they please regardless of election outcomes, and we're left here to argue about minute details. Unless the people can take back control of election financing, there's really nothing left to dispute.

Ken, for what it's worth, I never tried to steer what students think. I worked hard though to teach them how to think for themselves, how to gather evidence, weigh it and arrange it to make a case. You seem to worship " the Market" and expect it to solve everyone's problems if it were only unleashed. To blame schools for promoting moral relativism while adoring the forces of the market strikes me as a contradiction. I'm certainly no theologian, but I know Christ was no fan of the wealthy and had no use for 'the market'.