|
|
#41
10-27-2007, 02:33 AM
|
|||
|
|||
Re: (Re)Writing a New Constitution
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] *sigh* Yes, they're constitutional. There are only two possible legal challenges to the constitutionality of SS. One is the reserve clause which was struck down because the constitution allows the federal govt. to tax in the interest of the general public good. [/ QUOTE ] With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators." - James Madison, the man who freakin wrote the Constitution. Yes, the Supreme Court has "struck that down" by completely ignoring the obvious and very clearly stated original intent. The Justices who made this "ruling" were blatantly legislating from the bench and are traitors to this country and everything it stands for. [/ QUOTE ] Like always, you have completely missed the point. The point is that in that particular case were the court to have approved of the definition of taxes purported by the plaintiff, it would have narrowed the scope of the federal governments taxing ability strictly to the taxes specifically mentioned in the Constitution. It is clear that the founders did not believe the taxes listed in the constitution were the be all end all of federal tax power, as is inferred your own freaking quote. [/ QUOTE ] No, not the taxes in the Constitution, the spending. They're legally allowed to tax as much as they want, but they can only spend it on the specific things that Congress is outlined as having power to legislate. [ QUOTE ] For a rapidly evolving and changing society, precedent, and how we interpret that juxtaposed with the present circumstance, is a better way to make legal decisions than a constructionist perspective anyway. [/ QUOTE ] And of course, that rationalization always completely fails due to the fact that there's a process for amending the Constitution. 
|
|
#42
10-27-2007, 02:46 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: (Re)Writing a New Constitution
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] *sigh* Yes, they're constitutional. There are only two possible legal challenges to the constitutionality of SS. One is the reserve clause which was struck down because the constitution allows the federal govt. to tax in the interest of the general public good. The other is that a payroll tax for social spending isn't actually mentioned in the Constitution. This was rejected because the definition of taxes used by the opponents of social security would be so narrow that if the court found in favor of it that it would rule out the ability of the federal government to tax "providing for the general welfare", which is a right given the feds specifically in the constitution. So the OP is right in that if you want to do away with entitlement programs you need a new constitution. http://www.socialsecurity.gov/history/court.html [/ QUOTE ] why did fdr have to change the supreme court (stack court) then to get his programs? [/ QUOTE ] He didn't. He tried and failed. [/ QUOTE ] No, he failed to pass the legislation that would allow him to appoint a ton of extra Justices, but he definitely suceeding in packing the court 5-4 in his favor through the standard appointment process.
|
|
#43
10-27-2007, 10:32 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
The Law of unintended consequences....
[ QUOTE ]
3) I would end the income tax in favor of strictly business-related taxes. The payroll tax would also be gone. [/ QUOTE ] Simpler is better but does this apply to American exports? If so, you would bankrupt many American businesses by making them uncompetitive. A national sales tax is better. Taxing businesses just means the businesses raise their prices and pass the costs to the consumer. Paying a sales tax makes the tax visible and personalable. Otherwise you get utopian jerks voting to raise the business tax every year because these nitwits think someone else is paying for it. [ QUOTE ] 8) Believing that a non-transparent government is a larger threat to democracy than any external threat, the need for transparency would win out over intelligence gathering in cases where the two conflicted [/ QUOTE ] Naive....we would have a crappy intelligence service. A free press is where we get transparacy and the press has outed several intelligence operations over the years.. [ QUOTE ] 9) I would write in explicit protections for the electoral system so that national elections are verified by multiple independent firms at each local level. This would mean that, in effect, there would be literally thousands of firms verifying election results. Each voter would get a printout of his ballot prior to exiting the booth and an opportunity to verify the balloting before exiting. He would then walk out and drop it in a real ballot box. The electronic voting would mean that votes could be tabulated quickly but the paper ballot (presumably verified by the voter) would be there for cross-referencing. This is integral to the protection of the republic. [/ QUOTE ] This I like, especially if it requires photo IDs for voters to vote. Vote fraud is more rampant than people think. [ QUOTE ] 10) Money would largely be removed from politics. Business entities could not contribute at all to campaigns. Only people could contribute and only to an inflation-adjusted amount of say, $5,000. There would be no loopholes allowed at all. No $10K-a-plate fundraisers, no PACs, no organizations like the Sierra Club, the NRA, or unions. [/ QUOTE ] Complete dictorial crap.... The bill-of-rights allows people to assemble and speak out against the govt. Organizations like the NRA consist of individuals. If they are not allowed to pool their money to buy newspaper ads and commercials, then you have crippled free speech. The incumbents would have an even greater advantage than they do now. What we need is NO restrictions on campaign donations except for foreign donations.....and 100% reporting where the money came from. Then incumbents will be shaking in their boots. The current campaign laws keeps good people out of politics. Only those that are willing to jump through campaign law hoops can run.....or the ultra rich that choose to run for office themselves... Reagan was elected govenor of California because he got a handful of millionaires to support him.... Some people would claim the Pol would be bought and paid for. Well then the voters can vote them out-of-office or even have a recall election....but because of your campaign laws....no one would have the money to finance a recall election. You would make things worse than they already are.... No thanks... I'll pass.... [ QUOTE ] 11) Since good information is the key to keeping the citizenry informed, I would completely deconsolidate the media. [/ QUOTE ] Complete crap....Are you a dictator? The internet, talk radio, and cable news has broken the big three monopoly. The availability of Information has never been better in my lifetime. Technology accomplished this, not some silly law... You can't be god in every aspect of a free people although you seem willing to try. You need to learn the law of unintended consequences....which 99% of pols do not understand.... The damage this would cause would take a book to completely explain. [ QUOTE ] 12) Business practices that favor larger businesses over smaller ones would be explicitly illegal. Volume discounts, for instance, in business would be completely illegal. [/ QUOTE ] <sigh>.....this is getting worse by the minute. Perhaps you should make the laws of gravity illegal as well. [ QUOTE ] 15) Supreme Court decisions would be made by randomly-selected jurors and not by justices. Grand juries would select which cases would be heard. Many more cases would be heard because there would be there would be enough “courts” to hear all of the cases deemed worthy of hearing by the Supreme Court Grand Jury. The pay would be the equivalent of the pay of the justices so as not to discriminate against the working class (i.e., 2 weeks of Supreme Court duty would get you paid about the same as a 2 week paycheck for a current Supreme Court justice. [/ QUOTE ] Chaos.....complete chaos.... 50% of US citizens can not named the VP of the USA and you would have people like this on the courts? [ QUOTE ] 17) Bribery or extortion of a public official for the means of manipulating the system is akin to treason, punishable by death if convicted. [/ QUOTE ] Now this is good. Public officials that betray the public trust deserve harsh sentences... [ QUOTE ] 18) Attempts to manipulate the system by circumventing or exploiting laws is also considered treason if convicted by a jury and punishable by death. Treason can occur on the federal, state, or local levels. [/ QUOTE ] So if there is no law to explicitely stop someone from doing something BUT....someone decides a person is circumventing the law then they can be tried, convicted, and executed even though they did not break the law.....???? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] I guess a person that makes two $6000 deposits instead of one $12,000 deposit to avoid banking paperwork would be swinging from the gallows... Crap.....complete crap. This post is a case study in the law of unintented consequences which has been going on for 3000 years....but why stop now.
|
|
#44
10-27-2007, 01:00 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: (Re)Writing a New Constitution
[ QUOTE ]
Quote: Quote: Quote: *sigh* Yes, they're constitutional. There are only two possible legal challenges to the constitutionality of SS. One is the reserve clause which was struck down because the constitution allows the federal govt. to tax in the interest of the general public good. The other is that a payroll tax for social spending isn't actually mentioned in the Constitution. This was rejected because the definition of taxes used by the opponents of social security would be so narrow that if the court found in favor of it that it would rule out the ability of the federal government to tax "providing for the general welfare", which is a right given the feds specifically in the constitution. So the OP is right in that if you want to do away with entitlement programs you need a new constitution. http://www.socialsecurity.gov/history/court.html why did fdr have to change the supreme court (stack court) then to get his programs? He didn't. He tried and failed. No, he failed to pass the legislation that would allow him to appoint a ton of extra Justices, but he definitely suceeding in packing the court 5-4 in his favor through the standard appointment process. [/ QUOTE ] interesting, I guess my history a little weak there. but yeah, the facts are that originally and for a long while the supreme court struck down a lot or all of the "new deal", and it wasn't until fdr had been in power a very long time that he got his stuff through. I mean, originally the new deal was ruled unconstitutional by the supreme court, right?
|
|
#45
10-27-2007, 01:11 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: (Re)Writing a New Constitution
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] Quote: Quote: Quote: *sigh* Yes, they're constitutional. There are only two possible legal challenges to the constitutionality of SS. One is the reserve clause which was struck down because the constitution allows the federal govt. to tax in the interest of the general public good. The other is that a payroll tax for social spending isn't actually mentioned in the Constitution. This was rejected because the definition of taxes used by the opponents of social security would be so narrow that if the court found in favor of it that it would rule out the ability of the federal government to tax "providing for the general welfare", which is a right given the feds specifically in the constitution. So the OP is right in that if you want to do away with entitlement programs you need a new constitution. http://www.socialsecurity.gov/history/court.html why did fdr have to change the supreme court (stack court) then to get his programs? He didn't. He tried and failed. No, he failed to pass the legislation that would allow him to appoint a ton of extra Justices, but he definitely suceeding in packing the court 5-4 in his favor through the standard appointment process. [/ QUOTE ] interesting, I guess my history a little weak there. but yeah, the facts are that originally and for a long while the supreme court struck down a lot or all of the "new deal", and it wasn't until fdr had been in power a very long time that he got his stuff through. I mean, originally the new deal was ruled unconstitutional by the supreme court, right? [/ QUOTE ] It was 5-4 rulings for a long time then 1 of the 5 retired in 1937. A shame he couldn't have stuck it out 10 more years. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]
|
|
#46
10-27-2007, 03:29 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: (Re)Writing a New Constitution
[ QUOTE ]
10) Money would largely be removed from politics. Business entities could not contribute at all to campaigns. Only people could contribute and only to an inflation-adjusted amount of say, $5,000. There would be no loopholes allowed at all. No $10K-a-plate fundraisers, no PACs, no organizations like the Sierra Club, the NRA, or unions. [/ QUOTE ] So you want to keep the bill of rights intact, but you don't particularly care for freedom of speech, property rights, freedom of association. [ QUOTE ] 11) Since good information is the key to keeping the citizenry informed, I would completely deconsolidate the media. a. No company may own more than one network: cable, broadcast, radio, or otherwise. Each company may own a media website of its own making….(i.e. Fox News can own and operate foxnews.com but nothing else). b. Further, investors can not be invested in more than one media company. Mutual funds, hedge funds, and otherwise would not be able to invest in such companies out of the necessity of record-keeping. [/ QUOTE ] Property rights? What's that? [ QUOTE ] c. Every cable provider would be a separate entity with separate ownership. [/ QUOTE ] Yeah, great idea. They tried this in Vegas with casinos. The result: every casino was mob-controlled. Only after ownership was deregulated did Vegas get cleaned up. [ QUOTE ] d. Broadcast licenses would be granted to anyone who is legitimately operating a business, regardless of content [/ QUOTE ] Who determines "legitimate"? Why not just get rid of licenses altogether? And are you really proposing to have stuff like this in a constitution? You're going to end up with a 4000-page bureaucratic nightmare, like the EU constitution. [ QUOTE ] e. Cable providers cannot limit access by any network to their cable system. Channels may not be pre-packaged and are a-la-carte. Each cable network sets their subscriber rate and the local cable company uses the same mark-up percentage for each channel. [/ QUOTE ] Good lord. What's the point of this? price controls? Legisalation of business models? And what do you do when a cable provider only has room for 500 channels, but 501 companies want access to their system? And again, do you really think this is constitutional material? Wow. [ QUOTE ] f. Individual households have the final say on what channels are purchased and what content gets blocked [/ QUOTE ] Wait, they don't have that now? People are forced to buy a TV and pay for cable/satellite? Oh yeah, satellite. What are you going to do about people beaming radio waves from space? That's probably out of your jurisdiction. [ QUOTE ] g. Content is unregulated completely. If a bigot has money to burn or can turn a profit peddling his hate, then he has every right to do it. Cable companies, government, satellite companies, etc. have no ability to refuse the content. This is a necessary evil. [/ QUOTE ] Wait. How can you justify giving people veto power over what they buy for, but NOT justify giving people veto power over what they buy? It's OK for Joe to "block" ESPN, but it's NOT OK for CableCo to block ESPN????? Note that most of the problems you see with cable are caused by the fact that cable is controlled as a *local monopoly* in almost every part of the US. There's no competition for most cable companies. The fix isn't to add more rules, it's to remove the rules that create local monopolies. [ QUOTE ] 12) Business practices that favor larger businesses over smaller ones would be explicitly illegal. Volume discounts, for instance, in business would be completely illegal. [/ QUOTE ] What? Saving people money is bad? This is like a recipie for economic disaster. [ QUOTE ] 13) Antitrust legislation would remain intact and be more strictly enforced. Stifling competition (for the sake of stifling competition) would be strictly illegal. [/ QUOTE ] You just contradicted yourself, since antitrust legislation is used precisely for stifling competition. [ QUOTE ] Using legitimate business practices or superior ideas, employees, marketing, etc. to deliver a better end product is the only legitimate means of “stifling competition.” [/ QUOTE ] So leveraging political favors would be illegitimate, right? Well, that's exactly how antitrust legislation is used, so you'll have to scrap it. And why is volume discounting NOT a "legitimate means"??? [ QUOTE ] 14) With an unregulated marketplace, bad things will happen. Information, however, will be free-flowing. While lawsuits would still be legal recourse, it should be very evident to the consumer, “Caveat Emptor.” If an airline crashes to much, let the consumers decide. [/ QUOTE ] Note that what you're proposing is NOT an unregulated marketplace. You've just spent four pages listing a bunch of regulation. [ QUOTE ] 18) Attempts to manipulate the system by circumventing or exploiting laws is also considered treason if convicted by a jury and punishable by death. Treason can occur on the federal, state, or local levels. [/ QUOTE ] This should be interesting, considering that you're starting off with a bunch of crazy micromanaging laws that you're throwing into the freaking constitution. I can't possibly see any loopholes coming out of this stuff, no sir-ee.
|
|
#47
10-27-2007, 03:30 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: (Re)Writing a New Constitution
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] My constitution: Preamble: All men are created equal. Article 1: Thou shall not steal. Article 2: Thou shall not kill. Sign here: X__________________ [/ QUOTE ] PS: there's really only one article. DUCY? [/ QUOTE ] What if I steal anyway? [/ QUOTE ] Then you broke the rules.
|
|
#48
10-27-2007, 03:42 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: (Re)Writing a New Constitution
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] My constitution: Preamble: All men are created equal. Article 1: Thou shall not steal. Article 2: Thou shall not kill. Sign here: X__________________ [/ QUOTE ] PS: there's really only one article. DUCY? [/ QUOTE ] What if I steal anyway? [/ QUOTE ] That would be unconstitutional.
|
|
#49
10-27-2007, 03:59 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: (Re)Writing a New Constitution
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] My constitution: Preamble: All men are created equal. Article 1: Thou shall not steal. Article 2: Thou shall not kill. Sign here: X__________________ [/ QUOTE ] PS: there's really only one article. DUCY? [/ QUOTE ] What if I steal anyway? [/ QUOTE ] Then you broke the rules. [/ QUOTE ] And?
|
|
#50
10-27-2007, 04:45 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: (Re)Writing a New Constitution
[ QUOTE ]
Quote: Quote: Quote: Quote: My constitution: Preamble: All men are created equal. Article 1: Thou shall not steal. Article 2: Thou shall not kill. Sign here: X__________________ PS: there's really only one article. DUCY? What if I steal anyway? Then you broke the rules. And? [/ QUOTE ] there is enforcing legislation. like the amendment that prohibited alcohol didn't have enforcing legislation but it provided for it.
|
 |
|
|
Linear Mode
