America without its institutions and laws is just dirt that people are standing on.

Joe Biden doesn't hate the institutions of the USA. He doesn't talk about them in broad strokes in every speech he gives in a negative way. He seems to recognize that 1/2 of the country doesn't like him, more or less, but doesn't talk about those fellow Americans like they are enemies of the USA.

By contrast, all the "can't trust the government" types, including the previous president, are saying in essence things that are fundamentally anti American. Which is not to say no oversight is needed, but oversight and regulation to stop power from running amuck are different and distinct compared to dissolving those institutions or hobbling them in favor of more centralized power in the executive branch.

Biden is delegating power across government bodies and institutions, rather than concentrating it on himself.

And he doesn't rage tweet at all hours of the day and night every fucking moment he has a plucky idea. Just look at the sheer volume of tweets that poured out of that monster https://www.thetrumparchive.com/

Almost like one guy is doing his actual job and one guy is literally sitting on his phone and watching TV all day.

And one guy seems to like America and working for the government and one guy cheers every time there's bad news. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-sean-spicer-newsmax-america-b1920400.html

>> ^quantumushroom:

Simpson is not a Republican. He is a RINO goofus.

At some point you're going to have to accept that "Republican" doesn't mean what it meant 70 years ago and that the fiscally responsible, small government types are the RINOs of today.

When people don't pay for life insurance and pass away do you blame the small government types?

You blame it on the people for not getting life insurance.
Same thing here, blame it on the guy for not paying for fire protection.

The difference is the small government types are the ones DEMANDING that fire protection be optional. This circumstance is EXACTLY what is to be expected when agreeing to fund fire fighting with user fees. Not everyone will pay those fees, and so not everyone will have those services.

If you want to insist that the fire fighters should have put this guys house out anyways you either want them to do it at cost to themselves, or you want to do away with user fees and "force" everyone to pay taxes for public fire fighting services.

@bcglorf, I'd like to introduce you to "correlation does not imply causation".

When people don't pay for life insurance and pass away do you blame the small government types?

That much we have to admit. And stop pinning this on user fees being at fault. Obviously it was the bureaucrats that caused this fuckstorm.

User fees are the red herring here.

It's not the bureaucrats, it's the natural result of minimal government types, like the Libertarians, and individual responsibility.

Minimal government with fire services paid for through user fees. That naturally leads to exactly this situation where individuals can choose to give up protection by not paying the user fee.

When did this guys individual freedoms being respected become the fault of big government?

First of all, let me say thank you for the reasoned arguments. As liberalsift's only "conservatarian" a heavy (voluntary) responsibility weigh on my shoulders. I'll attempt to address the talking points.


Native Americans practiced same-sex coupling. Thousands of years even before that, there's evidence of humans pairing off for mutual protection and cooperation - two prehistoric dudes have a better chance of taking down large game than if they worked alone. Two female cave girls have a better chance of surviving and avoiding being raped by cave dudes than if they were separate.

But what you're describing isn't marriage, and even if there were homosexual acts under these circumstances, it's not something the tribe would recognize. Even the ancient Greek pederasts scoffed at the idea of gay marriage.

Same-sex coupling has existed as long as humans have. Hell, even modern day penguins are known to engage in same-sex coupling.

We shouldn't be looking to the animal kingdom for comparisons, where cannibalism and killing other beasts' offspring is normal.

Before people cite the Book of Matthew, let me remind them that "Man shall not lay with another man..." doesn't refer to homosexuality. There wasn't even a word for it when the bible was authored. The line references how we are not to treat men the same way we treat women. And just how were women treated during the days of the bible's authoring? Like cattle - merely objects to be bought, sold, and bartered for. The line speaks that we should not enslave men the way we enslave women. The line speaks to institutionalized misogyny, and has NOTHING to do with homosexuality.

I have never heard this interpretation of Matthew so I remain...neutral.

The first amendment guarantees us freedom of religion. It also guarantees us freedom FROM religion. Every law needs a secular reason for existing. "God says it's wrong" isn't, nor will ever be, reason enough for a law. The 14th amendment guarantees equal rights and freedoms, even to people you don't like.

The First Amendment does NOT guarantee freedom "from" religion, this deliberate distortion is a 'gift' Progressivism. Equal rights and freedoms have very obvious limitations. You're free to ride a bicycle and you're free to drive a car on the freeway, but you're NOT free to ride your bicycle on the freeway.

The Judicial branch did it's job - protecting the people from themselves. Just because the majority voted for something doesn't mean jack shit. If it's unconstitutional, it won't fly, no matter how big the majority.

A judge made up things for a non-existent "right", similar to how abortion was made legal by non-existent privacy rights. Whether you agree with abortion or not, the ruling was inept and corrupt. There was a time when slavery was considered constitutional, so it's true that things change.

And why is it "Small-Government" types always try to use the government to enforce their religious views? Seems HYPOCRITICAL to me.

Some libertarians vouch for the "privatization of marriage" which means the State doesn't recognize any marriage but can only enforce contracts between (any) people. (Unfortunately?) we don't live in a libertarian society---far from it---and the State (with much thanks to Statists) has its tentacles in all manner of arenas and areas in which it has no business. The main reasons governments evolved was to preserve private property rights and keep enemies outside the gates. Marriage is a legal contract, and since it affects taxation and a slew of other things it is the State's business, for better or worse.

For me, the gay "marriage" debate ended with the arrival of civil unions. If a gay couple has the same legal rights as a married couple, then that is, in essence, the libertarian goal. As Elton John put it: "I don't want to be married. I'm very happy with a civil partnership. If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership. The word 'marriage,' I think, puts a lot of people off. You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships."

Obviously the 'loudest' gays are not happy with "civil unions", which brings me to my next point: there is indeed something special about the one man/one woman marriage. If there was not, these gay pawns (the latest pawns of Progressive Statist subversives) wouldn't be so adamant. Except for the fundamentalists, no one could care less about people's personal lives....but if you force a majority to recognize something as being on par with what they consider sacrosanct, then it will be received negatively.

I would be personally delighted if some judge ruled---against the will of the people---that all controlled substances drugs be made legal, prostitution be made legal, all excessive federal hurdles to owning firearms be abolished, perhaps the income tax be replaced with something else.......but it's not the way the system works. As a member of society I am as much a "victim" of traditional values as everyone else.

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Society is stupid. A large community of people in Germany decided killing Jews was ok (Godwin seekers you can now leave). It's a big reason we don't have a pure democracy: because people are STUPID. They're ignorant, they're fickle, they're quick to react to things they're afraid of and it is just plain stupid put somebody's rights to a vote, if that right isn't violating another person's rights.

Society is indeed stupid, but not all the time, and therefore the accumulated wisdom of centuries of trial and error shouldn't be readily abandoned.

----------------------------------------------------
Well, this is just one sifter's opinions. At present about 70% of Americans oppose same-sex marriage. Perhaps in 10 years only 30% will be opposed and society's values will radically change.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Same-sex "marriage" remains part and parcel of the "making shit up" argument. It's something that did not exist until very recently, and has never existed in any religion or society except in extremely limited instances with zero far-reaching consequences. ...

WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG.


Native Americans practiced same-sex coupling. Thousands of years even before that, there's evidence of humans pairing off for mutual protection and cooperation - two prehistoric dudes have a better chance of taking down large game than if they worked alone. Two female cave girls have a better chance of surviving and avoiding being raped by cave dudes than if they were separate.

Same-sex coupling has existed as long as humans have. Hell, even modern day penguins are known to engage in same-sex coupling.

Before people cite the Book of Matthew, let me remind them that "Man shall not lay with another man..." doesn't refer to homosexuality. There wasn't even a word for it when the bible was authored. The line references how we are not to treat men the same way we treat women. And just how were women treated during the days of the bible's authoring? Like cattle - merely objects to be bought, sold, and bartered for. The line speaks that we should not enslave men the way we enslave women. The line speaks to institutionalized misogyny, and has NOTHING to do with homosexuality.

The first amendment guarantees us freedom of religion. It also guarantees us freedom FROM religion. Every law needs a secular reason for existing. "God says it's wrong" isn't, nor will ever be, reason enough for a law. The 14th amendment guarantees equal rights and freedoms, even to people you don't like.

The Judicial branch did it's job - protecting the people from themselves. Just because the majority voted for something doesn't mean jack shit. If it's unconstitutional, it won't fly, no matter how big the majority.

And why is it "Small-Government" types always try to use the government to enforce their religious views? Seems HYPOCRITICAL to me.

where the hell are all the other senators and government type people ? why are all the seats empty and no hootin and hollerin going on ?

>> ^blankfist:
You're trolling, good sir. Your lies have no place on here. I think I've explained myself quite effectively how asking the same system to create a system of oversight is a bad idea. Troll somewhere else, please.


I'm trying to stay good-natured here, but calling someone a liar sounds a bit more like trolling than what I said.

It seems I accurately represented your position -- you're against oversight, and don't say what you'd do to address the issue.

In this case, we have more limits on government (no running), to cut back on government spending. All we need now is a local government type promising to use the savings to cut taxes, and we've got what sounds to be like the ultimate in a small-government legislative package.

It seems to me that objections to this as being stupid means taking a position counter to your prevailing ideological tilt -- a call to remove limits on government powers, and approve of the government spending more money, likely leading an increase in taxes. Presumably you would be in favor of that because it means empowering the government in order to achieve a social good (upholding the rule of law).

You put everything I support through a similar chain of logic, and come out the other end calling me violent, a statist, a socialist, a fascist, and just like Hitler.

Calling me a troll for holding up a mirror to that in a tongue in cheek way seems a bit uncalled for.

>> ^rychan:
I have no patience for anti-government types. Go live your libertarian / anarchist dream in Somalia.


Classic Libertarians and Anarchists are actually in favor of a very strong government that's run by the people. Libertarians in America are not like that in the least, no one would want to live in an American Libertarians World, it would collapse immediately.

I have no patience for anti-government types. Go live your libertarian / anarchist dream in Somalia.

In simple terms, a republic protects the rights of the minority by instating a constitution that gaurantees them certain protection regardless of the consensus will of the majority. In a true democracy, a majority vote could divy up the belongings of the minority with impunity. Very mob-like.

Republican and Democrat are names of political parties trying to push certain agendas, they have no correlation to the lower case government types. They both have historically shown on-and-off regard for the constitution. FDR confiscated gold, LBJ went to war without congressional declaration. Bush suspended rights of suspected combatants to due process and also failed to declare war (the reason we have that is because it enables total subversion of the whole rights thing. Want to arrest a political dissenter? Why not label them a terrorist?).

Not to mention the hundreds of programs created by both that are not authorized by the constitution as government functions. Although, to some degree, I have to agree that our constitution is poorly worded in many places and has numerous loopholes. For example, it bans "cruel and unusual punishment" without defining it. The 10th amendment is cast aside as a truism from its wording even though it was probably intended to restrict federal powers to those expressly given by the constitution. That was a real barn burner. Document just got way too fancy, many libertarians have made a dream constitution to replace it. Most of them start with "THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHALL NOT..." haha. Try slipping around that wording.

The Cuban hospitals that Moore DIDN'T want you to see....

http://newsbusters.org/node/14029

And one doubter in the above posts (who was much more polite than most here) asked for verification on the cost of Moore's 'free' health care utopia. I suggest reading this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Who-Killed-HealthCare-Americas-Consumer-Driven/dp/0071487808

It's a little older now, but they put the total cost of health care in the US at about 2 TRILLION dollars. The current Federal budget is 2.7 trillion dollars. Which means that if the government 'takes over' health care, then they're gonna need to effectively double the amount of money they 'need' to take into through taxation. And who's pockets is it going to come out of? And do you really think it'll stay at that amount? When has any program run by the government EVER run at or below it's 'projected' cost? (Short answer: they always go OVER budget. Way overbudget. Because they look on you as a never-ending sponge they can just keep wringing and twisting whenever they feel like it. Whenever government types get together to discuss a tax increase (which is what 'free' medical care will be), do you ever hear them say anything like "Well gee, I wonder if the people can afford this?")

Wikipedia puts the total amount that is currently spent in this country on health care at about 15% of the total GDP - 'more than any other nation'. The true culprits behind the spiralling costs of insurance and medical treatment are the trial lawyers who browbeat people into suing for ridiculous amounts of money. Doctors are flooding to Texas from other states because they put a cap there on the total amount that can be sued out of a doctor for malpractice. Doctors in other states are going out of business because they can't afford the malpractice insurance they need to keep these ambulance chasing lawyers off their backs.

This isn't information that you need a secret decoder ring to get people - it's right out there on the internet for anyone to find - if you've got the courage to look for it.