Stupid People, and Other Arguments for Limited Government
I met some people recently who claimed that all U.S. birth certificates issued since the 1970s have language at the bottom holding the person so named personally responsible for a share of the U.S. national debt. Because of this language, so the claim goes, our government can sell anyone with such a birth certificate to pay that debt.
One of those telling me this claimed that her granddaughter’s Idaho birth certificate included this debt obligation language at the bottom. I found this rather difficult to believe, especially since the state of California seems to have neglected to put that language on the birth certificates of my two children, born in the 1980s. (Perhaps they gave me “special” birth certificates, because they knew that I would notice!)
So I went Googling for images of these debt liability birth certificates — and darn, I’m having a heck of a time finding them.
I do find a lot of claims like this, which uses a blow-up of the bottom of some document (only implied to be a birth certificate) that shows that the document was printed on paper from the American Banknote Company — and from there, goes off on a rant about how this makes the birth certificates into “warehouse receipts” through the Uniform Commercial Code. Another website making this debt obligation claim seems to think that ALL CAPS is somehow “different” from a mixed case version of your name.
Maybe you will have better luck finding them than I have had. I don’t find it hard to believe that some states may have American Banknote Company print birth certificate forms, since there has been a real problem in the past (and probably present) with criminals using forged birth certificates to construct or steal an identity. Still, where are the images of these birth certificates with the debt obligation language?
There are some other truly astonishing conspiracy theories out there allied with this.
For example, there is the “federal children” claim, which argues that congressional passage of the Sheppard-Towner Maternity Act (1921) created birth certificate registration where previously there was none:
Before 1921 the records of births and names of children were entered into family Bibles, as were the records of marriages and deaths. These records were readily accepted by both the family and the law as “official” records. Since 1921 the American people have been registering the births and names of their children with the government of the state in which they are born, even though there is no federal law requiring it. The state tells you that registering your child’s birth through the birth certificate serves as proof that he/she was born in the United States, thereby making him/her a United States Citizen.
The problem with this is that while family Bible birth and marriage records were generally acceptable if nothing else was available, many states had birth and death certificate laws far earlier than 1921.
I’m reminded of a poster from Despair.com:
“None of us is as dumb as all of us.”
“That government is best which governs least.” – Thomas Paine. The man said it all. How have we come to this? The founding fathers would be appalled if they saw what our Federal Government looks like today. Hopefully, some leader will run for president and some good people will run for Congress with one, simple, idea: SHRINK THE SIZE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. Stop the spending and send most federal workers home to find a real job in the private sector. The military, law enforcement, and the Post Office, that’s about all we need. The IRS is part of the Treasury Department, so I guess we’ll still have to live with that (although a flat tax would get rid of them, too, but that idea is probably too simple). Other than that, close most of the rest of the government down and make the states live up to their own responsiblities to their own people. Enough is enough. Funny how the words of great men, like Thomas Paine, never grow old and are as important today as they were when they were first uttered.
The Eagle has landed
atop the Twin Towers
carrying Kennedy.
There is plenty of data
to refute claims 1 and 2.
#3, not so much;
The 1st investigation into
the assassination concluded
that it was a conspiracy, and
the graph of troop level in
Vietnam goes up like a Hockey
Stick right after JFK was killed.
The Warren Commission had VP
Spiro Agnew as an “observer”
to make sure they settled the
question correctly; Remind you
of any current coverup ?
If the Constitution can be bastardized sufficiently to allow this to happen, then the document passes into irrelevance. We are witnessing the dismantling of the foundation of this country.
Is anyone else ready to declare that Obama, Reid and Pelosi and all the other potential signers are now officially domestic enemies as referenced by the United States Uniformed Services Oath of Office?
Conspiracy theorists propose various alternatives but haven’t presented nearly enough facts to make a case. Alex Jones presents a highly detailed circumstantial vision which attempts to weld a very few facts into a story. You could just as easily wield a complete fairy tale with what is actually known and be just as accurate. Aaaron Russo has an ax to grind and is intent on doing it. He also has very little factual information. More is definitely needed before a point is proven.
Granted there are those who benefited from the tragedy which always will draw suspicion. For instance WorldCom’s department of justice prosecution files were in WTC-7 which very conveniently collapsed for whatever reason. The owner of the World Trade Center capitalized on his $3 Billion recently purchased insurance policy. Yes this will give one pause but doesn’t prove shit other than providing a motive. However a motive without facts is just conjecture.
Please someone come forward with the real story. In the meantime, we have to settle for what follows:
That intelligence agencies, financiers, terrorists and narco-criminals have a long history together is well established, but the Nugan Hand Bank, BCCI, Banco Ambrosiano, the P2 Lodge, the CIA/Mafia anti-Castro/Kennedy alliance, Iran/Contra and the rest were a long time ago, so there’s no need to rehash all that. That was then and this is now!
That George Bush’s brother Marvin sat on the board of the Kuwaiti-owned company which provided electronic security to the World Trade Centre, Dulles Airport and United Airlines means nothing more than you must admit those Bush boys have done “alright” for themselves.
That Jonathan Bush’s Riggs Bank has been found guilty of laundering terrorist funds and fined a US-record $25 million must embarrass his nephew George, but it’s still no justification for leaping to paranoid conclusions.
That George Bush found success as a businessman only after the investment of Osama’s brother Salem and reputed al Qaeda financier Khalid bin Mahfouz is just ‘one of those things’ – one of those crazy things.
That Osama bin Laden is known to have been an asset of US foreign policy in no way implies he still is.
That al Qaeda was active in the Balkan conflict, fighting on the same side as the US as recently as 1999, while the US protected its cells, is merely one of history’s little aberrations.
The claims of Michael Springman, State Department veteran of the Jeddah visa bureau, that the CIA ran the office and issued visas to al Qaeda members so they could receive training in the United States, sound like the sour grapes of someone who was fired for making such wild accusations.
That one of George Bush’s first acts as President, in January 2001, was to end the two-year deployment of attack submarines which were positioned within striking distance of al Qaeda’s Afghanistan camps, even as the group’s guilt for the Cole bombing was established, proves that a transition from one administration to the next is never an easy task.
That so many influential figures in and close to the Bush White House had expressed, just a year before the attacks, the need for a “new Pearl Harbor” before their militarist ambitions could be fulfilled, demonstrates nothing more than the accidental virtue of being in the right place at the right time.
That the company PTECH, founded by a Saudi financier placed on America’s Terrorist Watch List in October 2001, had access to the FAA’s entire computer system for two years before the 9/11 attack, means he must not have been such a threat after all.
That whistleblower Indira Singh was told to keep her mouth shut and forget what she learned when she took her concerns about PTECH to her employers and federal authorities, suggests she lacked the big picture. And that the Chief Auditor for JP Morgan Chase told Singh repeatedly, as she answered questions about who supplied her with what information, that “that person should be killed,” suggests he should take an anger management seminar.
That on May 8, 2001, Dick Cheney took upon himself the job of co-ordinating a response to domestic terror attacks even as he was crafting the administration’s energy policy which bore implications for America’s military, circumventing the established infrastructure and ignoring the recommendations of the Hart-Rudman report, merely shows the VP to be someone who finds it hard to delegate.
That the standing order which covered the shooting down of hijacked aircraft was altered on June 1, 2001, taking discretion away from field commanders and placing it solely in the hands of the Secretary of Defense [Donald Rumsfeld], is simply poor planning and unfortunate timing. Fortunately the error has been corrected, as the order was rescinded shortly after 9/11.
That in the weeks before 9/11, FBI agent Colleen Rowley found her investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui so perversely thwarted that her colleagues joked that bin Laden had a mole at the FBI, proves the stress-relieving virtue of humour in the workplace.
That Dave Frasca of the FBI’s Radical Fundamentalist Unit received a promotion after quashing multiple, urgent requests for investigations into al Qaeda assets training at flight schools in the summer of 2001 does appear on the surface odd, but undoubtedly there’s a good reason for it, quite possibly classified.
That FBI informant Randy Glass, working an undercover sting, was told by Pakistani intelligence operatives that the World Trade Center towers were coming down, and that his repeated warnings which continued until weeks before the attacks, including the mention of planes used as weapons, were ignored by federal authorities, is simply one of the many “What Ifs” of that tragic day.
That over the summer of 2001 Washington received many urgent, senior-level warnings from foreign intelligence agencies and governments – including those of Germany, France, Great Britain, Russia, Egypt, Israel, Morocco, Afghanistan and others – of impending terror attacks using hijacked aircraft and did nothing, demonstrates the pressing need for a new Intelligence Czar.
That John Ashcroft stopped flying commercial aircraft in July 2001 on account of security considerations had nothing to do with warnings regarding September 11, because he said so to the 9/11 Commission.
That former lead counsel for the House David Schippers says he’d taken to John Ashcroft’s office specific warnings he’d learned from FBI agents in New York of an impending attack – even naming the proposed dates, names of the hijackers and the targets – and that the investigations had been stymied and the agents threatened, proves nothing but David Schipper’s pathetic need for attention.
That Garth Nicolson received two warnings from contacts in the intelligence community and one from a North African head of state, which included specific site, date and source of the attacks, and passed the information to the Defense Department and the National Security Council to evidently no effect, clearly amounts to nothing, since virtually nobody has ever heard of him.
That in the months prior to September 11, self-described US intelligence operative Delmart Vreeland sought, from a Toronto jail cell, to get US and Canadian authorities to heed his warning of his accidental discovery of impending catastrophic attacks is worthless, since Vreeland was a dubious character, notwithstanding the fact that many of his claims have since been proven true.
That FBI Special Investigator Robert Wright claims that agents assigned to intelligence operations actually protect terrorists from investigation and prosecution, that the FBI shut down his probe into terrorist training camps, and that he was removed from a money-laundering case that had a direct link to terrorism, sounds like yet more sour grapes from a disgruntled employee.
That George Bush had plans to invade Afghanistan on his desk before 9/11 demonstrates only the value of being prepared.
The suggestion that securing an oil pipeline across Afghanistan figured into the White House’s calculations is as ludicrous as the assertion that oil played a part in determining war in Iraq.
That Afghanistan is once again the world’s principal heroin producer is an unfortunate reality, but to claim that the CIA is still actively involved in the narcotics trade is to presume bad faith on the part of the agency.
Mahmood Ahmed, chief of Pakistan’s ISI [Internal Security], must not have authorized an al Qaeda payment of $100,000 to Mohammed Atta days before the attacks, and couldn’t have met with senior Washington officials during the week of 9/11, because I didn’t read anything about him in the official report.
That Rep. Porter Goss met with Ahmed the morning of September 11 in his capacity as Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has no bearing whatsoever upon his recent selection by the White House to head the Central Intelligence Agency.
That Rep. Goss’s congressional seat encompasses the 9/11 hijackers’ Florida base of operation, including their flight schools, is precisely the kind of meaningless factoid a conspiracy theorist would bring up.
While it’s true that George Bush Sr. and Dick Cheney spent the evening of September 10 alone in the Oval Office; what’s wrong with old colleagues catching up? And even though George Bush Sr. and Shafig bin Laden, Osama’s brother, spent the morning of September 11 together at a board meeting of the Carlyle Group, doesn’t mean a hill of beans as the bin Ladens are a very big family.
That FEMA arrived in New York on Sept 10 to prepare for a scheduled biowarfare drill, and had a triage centre ready to go that was larger and better equipped than the one that was lost in the collapse of WTC 7, was a lucky twist of fate.
Newsweek’s report that senior Pentagon officials cancelled flights on Sept 10 for the following day on account of security concerns is only newsworthy because of what happened the following morning.
That George Bush’s telephone logs for September 11 do not exist should surprise no one, given the confusion of the day.
That Mohamed Atta attended the International Officer’s School at Maxwell Air Force Base, that Abdulaziz Alomari attended Brooks Air Force Base Aerospace Medical School, that Saeed Alghamdi attended the Defense Language Institute in Monterey merely shows it is a small world, after all.
That Lt Col Steve Butler, Vice Chancellor for student affairs of the Defense Language Institute during Alghamdi’s terms, was disciplined, removed from his post and threatened with court martial when he wrote “Bush knew of the impending attacks on America. He did nothing to warn the American people because he needed this war on terrorism. What is…contemptible is the President of the United States not telling the American people what he knows for political gain,” is the least that should have happened for such disrespect shown his Commander in Chief.
That Mohammed Atta dressed like a Mafioso, had a stripper girlfriend, smuggled drugs, was already a licensed pilot when he entered the US, enjoyed pork chops, drank to excess and did cocaine, was closer to Europeans than Arabs in Florida, and included the names of defence contractors on his email list, proves how dangerous the radical fundamentalist Muslim can be.
That 43 lbs of heroin was found on board the Lear Jet owned by Wally Hilliard, the owner of Atta’s flight school, just three weeks after Atta enrolled – the biggest seizure ever in Central Florida – was just bad luck. That Hilliard was not charged shows how specious the claims for conspiracy truly are.
That Hilliard’s plane had made 30-round trips to Venezuela with the same passengers who always paid cash, that the plane had been supplied by a pair of drug smugglers who had also outfitted CIA drug runner Barry Seal, and that 9/11 commissioner Richard ben-Veniste had been Seal’s attorney before Seal’s murder, shows nothing but the lengths to which conspiracists will go to draw sinister conclusions.
Reports of insider trading on 9/11 are false, because the SEC investigated and found only respectable investors, who will remain nameless, were involved, and no terrorists, so the windfall profit-taking was merely, as ever, coincidental.
That heightened security for the World Trade Centre was lifted immediately prior to the attacks illustrates that it always happens when you least expect it.
That Hani Hanjour, the pilot of Flight 77, was so incompetent he could not fly a Cessna in August, but in September managed to fly a 767 at excessive speed into a spiraling, 270-degree descent and a level impact of the first floor of the Pentagon, on the only side of the building that was virtually empty of people and had been hardened to withstand a terrorist attack, merely demonstrates that people can do almost anything once they set their minds to it.
That none of the flight data recorders were said to be recoverable even though they were located in the tail sections, and that until 9/11, no solid-state recorder in a catastrophic crash had been unrecoverable, shows how there’s a first time for everything.
That Mohammed Atta left a uniform, a will, a Koran, his driver’s license and a “how to fly planes” video in his rental car at the airport means he had other things on his mind.
The mention of Israelis with links to military-intelligence having been arrested on Sept 11 videotaping and celebrating the attacks, of an Israeli espionage ring surveiling DEA and defense installations and trailing the hijackers, and of a warning of impending attacks delivered to the Israeli company Odigo two hours before the first plane hit, does not deserve a response. That the stories also appeared in publications such as Ha’aretz and Forward is a sad display of self-hatred among certain elements of the Israeli media.
That multiple military wargames and simulations were underway the morning of 9/11 – one simulating the crash of a plane into a building; another, a live-fly simulation of multiple hijackings – and took many interceptors away from the eastern seaboard and confused field commanders as to which was a real hijacked aircraft and which was a hoax, was a bizarre coincidence, but no less a coincidence.
That the National Military Command Center ops director asked a rookie substitute to stand his watch at 8:30 am on Sept. 11 is nothing more than bad timing.
That a recording made Sept 11 of air traffic controllers’ describing what they had witnessed, was destroyed by an FAA official who crushed it in his hand, cut the tape into little pieces and dropped them in different trash cans around the building, is something no doubt that overzealous official wishes he could undo.
That the FBI knew precisely which Florida flight schools to descend upon hours after the attacks should make every American feel safer knowing their federal agents are on the ball.
That a former flight school executive believes the hijackers were “double agents,” and says about Atta and associates, “Early on I gleaned that these guys had government protection. They were let into this country for a specific purpose,” and was visited by the FBI just four hours after the attacks to intimidate him into silence, proves he’s an unreliable witness, for the simple reason there is no conspiracy.
That Jeb Bush was on board an aircraft that removed flight school records to Washington in the middle of the night on Sept 12th demonstrates how seriously the governor takes the issue of national security.
To insinuate evil motive from the mercy flights of bin Laden family members and Saudi royals out of the country after 9/11 shows the sickness of the conspiratorial mindset.
Le Figaro’s report in October 2001, known to have originated with French intelligence, that the CIA met Osama bin Laden in a Dubai hospital in July 2001, proves again the perfidy of the French.
That the tape in which bin Laden claims responsibility for the attacks was released by the State Department after having been found providentially by US forces in Afghanistan, and depicts a fattened Osama with a broader face and a flatter nose, proves Osama, and Osama alone, masterminded 9/11.
That at the battle of Tora Bora, where bin Laden was surrounded on three sides, Special Forces received no order to advance and capture him but were forced to stand and watch as two Russian-made helicopters flew into the area where bin Laden was believed hiding, loaded up passengers and returned to Pakistan, demonstrates how confusing the modern battlefield can be.
That upon returning to Fort Bragg from Tora Bora, the same Special Operations troops who had been stood down from capturing bin Laden, suffered a unusual spree of murder/suicides, is nothing more than a series of senseless tragedies.
Reports that bin Laden is currently receiving periodic dialysis treatment in a Pakistani medical hospital are simply too incredible to be true.
That the White House went on Cipro September 11 shows the foresightedness of America’s emergency response.
That the anthrax was mailed to perceived liberal media and the Democratic leadership demonstrates only the perversity of the terrorist psyche.
That the anthrax attacks appeared to silence opponents of the Patriot Act shows only that appearances can be deceiving.
That the Ames-strain anthrax was found to have originated at Fort Detrick, and was beyond the capability of all but a few labs to refine, underscores the importance of allowing the investigation to continue without the distraction of absurd conspiracy theories.
That Republican guru Grover Norquist has been found to have aided financiers and supporters of Islamic terror to gain access to the Bush White House, and is a founder of the Islamic Institute, which the Treasury Department believes to be a source of funding for al Qaeda, suggests Norquist is at worst, naive, and at best, needs a wider circle of friends.
That the Department of Justice consistently chooses to allow accused 9/11 plotters go free rather than permit the courtroom testimony of al Qaeda leaders in American custody looks bad, but only because we don’t have all the facts.
That the White House balked at any inquiry into the events of 9/11, then starved it of funds and stonewalled it, was unfortunate, but since the commission didn’t find for conspiracy, it’s all a non issue anyway.
That the 9/11 commission’s executive director and “gatekeeper,” Philip Zelikow, was so closely involved in the events under investigation that he testified before the the commission as part of the inquiry, shows only an apparent conflict of interest.
That commission chair Thomas Kean is, like George Bush, a Texas oil executive who had business dealings with reputed al Qaeda financier Khalid bin Mafouz, suggests Texas is smaller than they say it is.
That co-chair Lee Hamilton has a history as a Bush family “fixer,” including clearing Bush Sr of the claims arising from the 1980 “October Surprise”, is of no concern, since only conspiracists believe there was such a thing as an October Surprise.
That FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds accuses the agency of intentionally fudging specific pre-9/11 warnings and harboring a foreign espionage ring in its translation department, and claims she witnessed evidence of the semi-official infrastructure of money-laundering and narcotics trade behind the attacks, is of no account, since John Ashcroft has gagged her with the rare invocation of “State Secrets Privilege,” and retroactively classified her public testimony. For the sake of national security, let us speak no more of her.
That, when commenting on Edmond’s case, Daniel Ellsberg remarked that Ashcroft could go to prison for his part in a cover-up, suggests Ellsberg is giving comfort to the terrorists, and could, if he doesn’t wise up, find himself declared an enemy combatant.
It has been known that governments have permitted terrorist acts against their own people, and have even themselves been perpetrators in order to find strategic advantage, but this is The United States we’re talking about!
I could go on and on and on, but I trust you get the point which is simply this:
1. there are no secrets,
2. an American government would never accept civilian casualties for geostrategic gain, and
3. conspiracies are for the weak-minded and gullible.
5. kochevnik:
your post goes far to prove the author correct.
it is like those children’s games you see in restaurants where you have a sheet of paper with dots all over it. and you have connected them with random abandon and come to an implausible conclusion which you cannot accept maybe incorrect.
my question is why you allow your emotions to get the better of you, (or the other possibility is you are just a useful idiot)
5. kochevnik:
I’ll let you know what I thin just as soon as I finish reading your post . . . should be early January. Meanwhile, don’t shift in your seat, the heavenly bodies that orbit your mass may be flung into the infinity of space.
…and the government invented AIDS and crack cocaine.
But for the really good ones, you have to go to the middle east.
My favorite is the zionist penis-melting robot comb from Sudan.
#8
Add “man-made climate change” to that list of goofy theories that the left believes.
Cut and Paste job
For your perusal: The Coincidence Theorist’s Guide to 9/11, by Jeff Wells.
Add, the Community Reinvestment Act, caused the subprime crisis.
Wild, bizarre, unbelievable conspiracy theories are a huge problem in every society. This isn’t a new problem, either. It is one of the stronger arguments for limited governmental power. If most of the population buys into bizarre, strange, or even profoundly dangerous foolishness, there is a limit to the amount of damage that the majority can cause if the government’s power is limited.
2 Things:
a) this problem flows from a lack of curricula in our schools. Civics, the way state and federal government interact and where their boundaries end, the mechanics of the legislature for both state and fed should be mandatory from fourth grade onward. People really have no idea how their state or federal government work–many of them are posting on Pajamas Media on a regular basis.
b) limited government is good, but state government can be just as dangerous as central government as we have seen over the entire lifetime of our union. It took the federal government to outlaw segregation and guarantee voting rights. YOu can’t simply dismiss that fact.
6@not that narcissist:
>my question is why you allow your emotions to get the better of you,
>(or the other possibility is you are just a useful idiot)
Yes I am one of those emotional types who errors on the side of hard physics over people who willfully ignore facts. I’m glad you figured out Silverstein didn’t commit the world’s greatest act of Zionist lightning, but instead was a victim of some Arab dude from Sherman Oaks remotely flying airplanes from a cave on the other side of the planet. Please enlighten us with more of your profound wisdom, please. We useful idiots desire to be even more useful.
My main question: What do you employ in place of physics?
14. kochevnik:
6@not that narcissist:
you even mis-interpret the term “useful idiot” they are not useful as in being able to fix a car or repair plumbing. but rather useful as in undermining freedom.
I guess Darwin missed you this round.
your quote is not an issue I have ever heard of. who the f@@k is Silverstein.
I have no argument with physics, just the way people see what they want to see even where evidence is either lacking or none existent.
5. kochevnik:
where are the links to the investigative “proof” of your points?
16. sickandtired:
>where are the links to the investigative “proof” of your points?
Google is your friend
17. kochevnik:
yeah but my friend goggle tells me your full of it
please allow me to try again as i can not see a way to edit or delete my post
yeah but my google friend tells me you are full of it
kochevnik, a lot of the stuff in your list, even if true, involves actors who had nothing to do with each other. The anthrax attacks were performed by a deranged biologist who had nothing to do with Al Queda or the Administration. Of course the owner of the WTC took out a terrorism insurance policy, specifically paying out extra for “multiple attacks,” given that the WTC had been hit by a double bombing eight years prior. Why wouldn’t he insure himself against multiple terrorist attacks after getting hit with a double attack once before?
“The strongest argument for a government of limited powers is that you should never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.”
This is serious bumper-sticker material right here. Make it (it’s your line so you get the copyright) and I’ll buy one.
Hey
Your argument is several levels less repugnant than most
very good
:: ))
#13 moho – in “a)”, you accuse people of being ignorant of civics (as well as indulgin in your usual name-calling). In “b)”, you demonstrate your own ignorance. Yes, these things were enacted at the federal level, but the Amendments necessary were ratified by the States.
The powers of the federal government come from the States, as they are the final arbiters of the Constitution. In fact, they can at any time bypass the feds by convening a Constitutional Convention.
Fools or knaves. Limited government protects us from both.
Actually, it is fools AND knaves. The fools are the tools of the knaves, the knives which with they gut us.
No lack of stupidity out there. Thers the old standbys like ALWHORE and SCREECH DEAN. Theres always the doddering fool Jimmy Carduh. Theres anyone who blogs on Huffpo or the Daily Kooks. Anyone who beleives anything written by stupid idiots like Paul Krugman or Eugene Robinson. Or certain Clinton appointed Federal Judges who beleive ACORN has a “right” to our tax dollars , and uses abjectly STUPID reasoning to support it. Or Copenhagen, a massive example of colossal ignorance and stupidity. I heard that Lord Munckton ran into some stupid idiot in Copenhagen and asked her a few questions about “climate change”. Talk about the Lack of an IQ. Of course, on Pajamas media, we have MO WHORE AND NOW AND NEVER THEN to show us just how CORRECT Lenin was when he referred to folks like them as “useful idiots”. Like all commies, Lenin only got it half right. He certainly got the IDIOTS part right.
#13, moho:
a) this problem flows from a lack of curricula in our schools. Civics, the way state and federal government interact and where their boundaries end, the mechanics of the legislature for both state and fed should be mandatory from fourth grade onward.
It “flows” straight from the mouths of the commissars and aparatchiks of the Left, who control public education lock, stock and barrel (and have got their hands into much of private education as well).
Other than that, moho is absolutely right, but reform of the situation would require left-wing teachers to suddenly become interested in teaching things like civics.
Project for a new american century
25. Knotacommie:
“Of course, on Pajamas media, we have MO WHORE AND NOW AND NEVER THEN to show us just how CORRECT Lenin was when he referred to folks like them as “useful idiots”. Like all commies, Lenin only got it half right. He certainly got the IDIOTS part right.”
Wow, good one! Tip your waitress! Try the veal! All those people who say conservatives are humorless pontificating drudges never met the dazzling wonderfulness the comedy universe knows as Knotacommie. I look forward to your next comedic treatise: “To Be Something Or To Knot Be Something – the Post McCarthy Argument for Negative Existence.”
Until then I guess I’ll have to slate my thirst for dreary colossal ignorance and stupidity by reading your posts. Thanks. You’re a real boon to humanity.
Count on Mr. Cramer to completely miss the point. Conspiracy describes the process much better. The truth is that the USA IS embedded in conspiracy – the conspiracy of a ‘connected’ few who rule over all of us by virtue of their historical control over the system. It is not competency that put them there in the first place, it was their network of power with their propaganda of self-aggrandizement (simply spin). Taking elections as an example, the fact that fewer and fewer people are actually voting any more is just the equivalent of those in an organization who leave in disgust because of the conspiratorial ineptness of the ruling clique.
Many people’s political positions are pretty wacky and don’t show up in the media but only in conspiracy books, etc. You can find people who believe in UFOs or that we should give up money or technology or whatever. That’s fine and they’re not really worth talking to.
On the other hand, some debatable ideas are excluded from debate just because they don’t fit in – like many other countries have legalized drugs and prostitution or mandatory military service, none of which are really discussed here.
I of course take the very controversial “Pro-America Pro-Responsibility Pro-Liberty Limited Government” positions. You would think that I wouldn’t have much disagreement, yet somehow I’m a crazy right winger because I think its a bad idea for all of us to put our money in a pile and have somebody like Rangel or Pelosi decide where it all goes.
If a majority of voters are stupid, doesn’t it follow that we need a dictatorship composed of smart people, in order to protect us from ourselves?
Your argument is a dangerous one. It cuts both ways.
If a majority of voters are stupid, doesn’t it follow that we need a dictatorship composed of smart people, in order to protect us from ourselves?
H.L. Mencken was close to truth when he described democracy as jackals leading jackasses. I generally prefer to err on the side of the masses, as foolish as they are, because the alternative are arrogant elitists.
Your argument is a dangerous one. It cuts both ways.
The fact is that there are a lot of fools out there, and a lot of arrogant elitists. The argument from that neither group should get too much power.
b) limited government is good, but state government can be just as dangerous as central government as we have seen over the entire lifetime of our union. It took the federal government to outlaw segregation and guarantee voting rights. YOu can’t simply dismiss that fact.
You won’t get any argument from me on that. State governments enjoy all those powers under the U.S. Constitution not reserved to the federal government–and minus those powers that the state constitutions restrict. Throughout most of U.S. history, state governments had broad powers. The 14th Amendment has significantly undercut those powers. (Maybe not enough!)
The only advantage of a state government that gets too big for its britches is that they tend to be more responsive to the people than the federal government. Not perfectly, and sometimes a minority can discover that “responsive” means “oppressive.”
Moho, I’ll take your argument more seriously about the dangers of Big Government (federal or state) when you stop operating as a one-man justification squad for everything the Democrats do.
Sorry for the delay in responding. I have gone from being unemployed to being overemployed: one full-time job (with benefits), one class that I am currently teaching, and preparing to teach Western Civilization I next semester. Who has time anymore?
Lets checkout the Big K and see if he can reference his sources of information. I want to know!
What ever became of the tenth amendment?
PS: Government can be limited by the people, at the polls.
Is it possible that a substantial portion of the people at the polls are not capable of rational, moral judgments and, hence, should not be allowed the franchise?
If so, how might those persons be identified?
“The strongest argument for ( ) is that you should never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.”
It happens in many elections. It’s happening with the health care bill.