Obama I saw on Yahoo.

[maestroanth]

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[maestroanth]

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[adimagejim]

That's cool. You've chosen to be a socialist. I am not. Being open about who and what we are is a great part of this forum.

We're both honest about where we stand.

Have a great weekend.

Jim

[adimagejim]

I have sympathy for the rights individuals granted under the constitution.

Corporations are nothing more than people bound together as workers and investors in a marketplace to make a profit. The government should never guarantee any investor or worker a profit.

There are laws written under the Constitution to protect the People (including the workers and investors) from fraud and abuse and they have recourse against incorporated bodies under the law.

The current mess is a governmental and corporate failure. The governmental entities charged with overseeing the potential for fraud and abuse to the detriment of the People did not do their jobs. Corporations did what corporations do when unfettered or unwatched by a Constitutional government, they maximized (sometimes unethically) profits. On both sides, some were lazy. some were greedy, some were power hungry. They all abdicated their responsibilities to one degree or another.

In theory, socialism could be an answer. But human nature says if you give all the power to one entity, it will succumb to absolute power and be corrupted absolutely. I cannot think of a single real world socialist state that has not had to enforce its point of view without a bayonet or gun or rationing of resources.

Again, the contracts with GM, AIG, Wells Fargo, et. al. have limits. Once those limits are breached (as they have been by the government on the GM and AIG contracts) then the violating entity has abrogated it's responsibility to the People under the laws and Constitution itself (workers and investors) and started pursuing an unconstitutional agenda.

I understand the left's concerns about the Patriot Act. It has the same potential. So did Lincoln's much more extreme suspension of habeus corpus. Or even worse, Roosevelt's internment of Americans of Japanese descent. Knowing the natural proclivities of the news media, if people were being hauled off to camps or jails in the middle of the night under the Patriot Act I think we'd have seen that on the front page, daily.

My point is simple. The US government is hauling off people's livelihoods illegally in broad daylight against it's own contracts now, today, for real. No theory. No could be. It is happening. The 90% we'll fix 'em tax is even worse. That's called a bill of attainder. Totally unconstitutional.

If your position is pitch the Constitution, give us a new socialist government. Then great, get it going and see if people are with you. But as of right now, we've got a Constitution and the government can't do what it's doing.

Jim

[maestroanth]

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[maestroanth]

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[maestroanth]

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[VanReal]

It's all based on idealism.  Personally, if I had to pick and Ideal doctrine (I think it's Plato)  where governmentally, the philosophers ruled (i.e. the philosophy kings)  raised from childhood being totally altruistic/smart then the artists (Like me) then the businessmen.  They would be in charge in that order.

1. philosophers
2. artists
3. business

In America, it is opposite though.

1. Business
2. Artists
3. Philosophy

I've had philosophy professors talked to me about this as well.  Actually I only know this shit from philosophy class I happen to agree with.

All Best,

Anthony

Hmm, philosophers saying that philosophers should be in charge.....

[curiosityandthecat]

Didn't someone talk about this before? I wanna say he was Greek... wrote some kind of book about Philosopher Kings or something. Didn't work then, either.  

[adimagejim]

Anthony:

Your point about believing in a system sounds a lot like nihilism. Belief in nothing usually brings anarchy. The great thing about the current social contract (Constitution) is that it has constant input from the governed (imperfect though it may be).

There are three basic foundations for government:
1. Theocentric - your divine right of the governors over the governed crowd. (Yuck!)
2. Anthropocentric - people choose their government to regualte human nature and reserve the right to make corrections as we go along in recognition of our imperfection. (Ours now.)
3. Messianic - where through some evolutionary or revolutionary step humans leave behind their current nature and behave out of historical character forever more. (Socialism, communism, collectivism.)

I'd like to believe in the last version. Really I would. But that's just it, it requires me to ignore reality about human nature and believe without any evidence something to the contrary of reason. It's the same reason I'm an atheist.  

The current social contract going is called the Constitution. If you don't like it, that's cool, you simply find enough people who want to throw it out and create a new one (in your case a socialist one or Platocratic one) or leave and find a place with a social contract by which you can abide.

Seems easy, but sometimes uncomfortable, if the shoe you're wearing doesn't fit your particular social contract standards.

Jim

[Recusant]

OK, we don't agree on the magnitude of the Obama administration's assault on civil liberties regarding it's recent interference in corporate affairs, adimagejim.  But when I heard about this; "Obama Mimics Bush On State Secrets" it certainly brought me closer to your position in saying that he's no appreciable improvement over Bush in the area of civil liberties. (I know you say he's worse, but I haven't gotten there yet.  I still foolishly hope I don't have to.)

  Surprise! (Not)  
 After accusing the Bush administration of abusing the state secrets privilege, his administration carries right on with the same sort of thing.  Quoting from salon.com's article on the subject:

 

Just in case anyone had any doubts about whether Obama himself personally approves of what his DOJ is doing, Robert Gibbs dispelled those at today's Press Briefing (h/t CarolynC and Sam Stein):
Q. Last Friday, the Justice Department invoked the state secrets privilege in asking a judge to dismiss a civil suit filed against the National Security Administration regarding its domestic surveillance program. And in its brief, the Justice Department argued that Americans have no right to sue the government for alleged illegal surveillance.
Does the President support the Justice Department's positions in that case?
MR. GIBBS: Yes, absolutely. It's the -- absolutely does. Obviously, these are programs that have been debated and discussed, but the President does support that viewpoint.
That was followed by this amazing exchange:
Q. Before he was elected, the President said that the Bush administration had abused the state secrets privilege. Has he changed his mind?
MR. GIBBS: No. I mean, obviously, we're dealing with some suits, and the President will -- and the Justice Department will make determinations based on protecting our national security.
Q. So he still thinks that the Bush administration abused the state secrets privilege?
MR. GIBBS: Yes.
Given that Obama is doing exactly what Bush did in this area, Gibbs' claim that Obama "still thinks that the Bush administration abused the state secrets privilege" must be one of the most incoherent and intellectually dishonest claims to come from the White House since the Inauguration -- either that, or Obama believes that Bush abused the privilege and that he, Obama, is also doing so.

[adimagejim]

This is what I meant way earlier in the thread about little but cosmetic differences between the two.

Talk and posturing are cheap. It's what you actually do that matters.

There you go, a factual critique from the far less than conservative lap dog salon.com.

All I want for us to do is judge by the facts, not hope and belief.

Jim