politics

The principle behind the Constitution is *not* to guarantee rights but to limit the power of the federal government. Rights are given by birth. Government is an invention of man. Slowman will never get that point. His core believes that the universe was created by and for government. He is a totalitarian.

their constitution. It is 200 years outdated, you have never followed man y of the key points ("all men are equal", unless they are of different skin colour, or different social classes), and yet it is treated with more holy reverence than any religious book.

ut the version we all use is from Leibniz.

nstitution is on a par with solid wheels made out of wooden boards.

No it isn't--you're projecting your philosophy onto something you have no knowledge of.

The Constitution lays out certain timeless principles, but leaves to the tradesmen the details you'd invest permanently in politicians.

At bottom, we trust people, you trust and empower elites. We advocate for people, you for elites.

And, despite his rhetoric to the contrary, that's exactly what's happened under O's Reign of Terror--greater injustice, greater inequality, more poverty, the overall death of small enterprises, and bigger than ever Too Big To Fails.

Cheers, James Arthur

More important, he has lived on the dole most of his life.

Yep, and despite all his advantages of birth, education at others' expense, and redistribution, too. You know, the things he thinks would "fix" America.

Cheers, James Arthur

e:

th their constitution. It is 200 years outdated, you have never followed m any of the key points ("all men are equal", unless they are of different sk in colour, or different social classes), and yet it is treated with more ho ly reverence than any religious book.

but the version we all use is from Leibniz.

constitution is on a par with solid wheels made out of wooden boards.

knowledge of.

I know quite a bit about it, which you won't believe because you are infatu ated with it and can't understand how anybody could know it and not love it .

tradesmen the details you'd invest permanently in politicians.

The Constitution did lay out that "all men are created equal" but the autho rs clearly understood this to mean ""all men are created equal, unless they happen to be born with a heavily pigmented skin". This turns out to have b een a time-sensitive understanding, and you are confusing sloppy drafting w ith timeless wisdom.

for people, you for elites.

But your constitution actually caters to the desires of a well-off elite. I t's tolerably subtle about it, but the US is now the most unequal of all th e advanced industrial countries, and it's deeply flawed political system se ems to be a major part of the problem.

You may see Germany and Scandinavia as victims of a ruling elite, but if th ey are, the ruling elites are a lot less rapacious and irresponsible than t he greedy crew that's now running the US for its own profit.

under O's Reign of Terror--greater injustice, greater inequality, more pov erty, the overall death of small enterprises, and bigger than ever Too Big To Fails.

All true - but it's been going on since Reagan released the reign of terror - more accurately the reign of greed - and Obama has been powerless to do anything to stop it precisely because the US constitution was designed to l et the people who owned the country run the country behind a rather thin ve neer of democratic representation.

Until Reagan the rich had been persuaded that spending enough on the less-w ell-off had been a good investment in the productivity of the country as a whole, and they'd been bright enough to appreciate that a smaller slice of a bigger pie could be bigger than a bigger slice of a smaller pie.

The hyper-rich in Sweden have had enough sense to keep this idea in mind, a nd the German constitution is designed to keep the rich in Germany consciou s that they need to keep their employees on-side, but the rich in the US we re seduced into letting their short-term greed overwhelm their long term in terests around 1980, and they've shown no sign of developing a more sensibl e attitude since then.

e:

to limit the power of the federal government. Rights are given by birth. Government is an invention of man. Sloman will never get that point. His core believes that the universe was created by and for government. He is a totalitarian.

Krw exhibits his incapacity to understand what other people actually believ e. I'm no more a totalitarian than George Orwell was. Government was created b y us to serve the needs of the societies which we form. I believe it needs to do more than the US government does for it citizens - but no more than t he Scandinavian and German governments do for their citizens. Nobody - exce pt perhaps rabid ideologues like krw and James Arthur - see German and Scan dinvia as subject to totalitarian regimes.

I got unemployment benefit for almost five years in the Netherlands. It was funded from an industry wide levy rather than tax revenue, so it wasn't an y kind of dole. I'd worked for wages for some thirty years before that, so John Larkin's claim is a downright and blatant lie. I've commented on simil ar claims here before, so John ought to know better - but the fatuous clown is devoted to believing things he wants to be true, and is incapable of di gesting information that conflicts with his preferred delusions.

blueprint,

Tres plus! I have yet to hear it expressed more concisely.

?-)

expense, and redistribution, too.

In fact I've never "lived on the dole" and while I did get unemployment ben efit in the Netherlands, it was for just under five years, and I'd worked f or wages for some thirty years before that.

My education was naturally funded by other people - whose isn't - but most of it was paid for by the Australian community, who invest in everybody's e ducation on the basis that they'll eventually get the money back in higher income taxes from the higher incomes earned by better educate people.

In fact the British and Dutch governments got the benefit of most of my inc ome tax, but the Australian taxpayer did well out of immigrants who'd been educated in the UK and the Netherlands, so it all came out in the wash.

America already has "redistribution". It spends more on its defense than th e rest of the world put together, which is about three times as much as it needs to - classically, the lead country spends a much on defense as it's t wo closest rivals. A lot of this money isn't all being spent on defense at all - a large chunk of it is "corporate welfare".

What the USA needs to do is to get its house in order and spend more money on health, education and welfare and less on making the people who own the country even richer.

print, as valid today as when it was first devised.

It wasn't all that good then - though better than the competition available at the time.

Since then, the competition has come on by leaps and bounds but James Arthu r can't recognise the advantages.

bitious, more noble, or more virtuous, than then.

Sadly James Arthur would like us to think that the founding tax evaders wer e smarter, less ambitious, more noble and more virtuous than their current equivalents. Since Jefferson managed to father six illegitimate children wi th one of his female slaves

the "more virtuous" seems less than credible.

What James Arthur ignores is that drafting a constitution also calls for kn owledge, and the founding tax evaders didn't have many example constitution s from which to work. Anybody tackling the job today has the advantage of b eing able to read US, Australian and Canadian history and see how the US co nstitution and several more recent constitutions have worked. Somebody a bi t more cosmopolitan than James Arthur might also look at the 1948 German co nstitution and contemplate how well that has worked over the past half cent ury.

Sadly James Arthur is blind to the insight that the founding tax evaders di dn't master constitution-writing at the first attempt, and in fact botched the job in several important respects. One of their mistakes may not strike James Arthur as a mistake at all - the US constitution is a Moderate Enlig htenment document, and leaves lots of room for the people who owned the cou ntry to keep on running the country. They never did it particularly well bu t for the first century or so they didn't have to do all that well to do be tter than the competition. In more recent years - and particularly since Re agan came to power - the people who own the USA have fallen into the error of grabbing more of the national income than they should - even considered in terms of their ow n self-interest - and haven't spent enough on raising the productivity of t heir working class.

It may prove to be a fatal mistake, comparable with George III's failure to spend enough of the taxes collected from his American colonies on keeping the colonists on-side.

Sloman? He would be at the Pearly Gates telling St. Peter that Heaven is built wrong, and that he should be in charge so that he can fix everything.

I'd be so surprised that there was anything there at all that I'd probably be shocked speechless.