By Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger
“We pledge ourselves to use all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision which is contrary to the Constitution and to prevent the use of force in its implementation.
-The Southern Manifesto, Cong. Rec., 84th Cong. 2d Session, Vol. 102, part 4 (March 12, 1956)
‘This was an activist court that you saw today. Anytime the Supreme Court renders something constitutional that is clearly unconstitutional, that undermines the credibility of the Supreme Court. I do believe the court’s credibility was undermined severely today.”
-Michele Bachmann (R. Minn.), June 26 2012
Most people are familiar with the opinion in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, et al., 349 U.S. 483 (1954), in which a unanimous Supreme Court summarily outlawed public school segregation by tersely declaring, “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” 349 U.S. at 495. But many people do not know that Brown involved a consolidation of cases from four states. The “et al.” in the style refers to decisions on similar facts in Delaware, South Carolina and Virginia. And the response of Virginia to the ruling in Brown provides an interesting comparison with the actions leading to the current government shutdown.
In 1951 the population of Prince Edward County, Virginia was approximately 15,000, more than half of whom were African-American. The county maintained two high schools to accommodate 386 black students and 346 white students. Robert R. Moton High School lacked adequate science facilities and offered a more restricted curriculum than the high school reserved for white students. It had no gym, showers or dressing rooms, no cafeteria and no restrooms for teachers. Students at Moton High were even required to ride in older school buses.
Suit was filed in federal district court challenging the Virginia constitutional and statutory provisions mandating segregated public schools. Although the trial court agreed that the school board had failed to provide a substantially equal education for African-American students, it declined to invalidate the Virginia laws, concluding that segregation was not based “upon prejudice, on caprice, nor upon any other measureless foundation,” but reflected “ways of life in Virginia” which “has for generations been a part of the mores of the people.” Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, 103 F. Supp. 337, 339 (E.D. Va. 1952). Instead, the court ordered the school board to proceed with the completion of existing plans to upgrade the curriculum, physical plant and buses at Moton High School. When the plaintiffs took an appeal from the decision, the Democratic machine that had for many years controlled Virginia politics under the firm hand of Sen. Harry Byrd had little reason to believe that “ways of life” that had prevailed since the end of the Reconstruction era would soon be declared illegal.
When the Brown decision was announced, the reaction in Virginia was shock, disbelief and anger. Reflecting the prevailing attitudes, the Richmond News Leader railed against “the encroachment of the Federal government, through judicial legislation, upon the reserved powers of the States.” The Virginia legislature adopted a resolution of “interposition” asserting its right to “interpose” between unconstitutional federal mandates and local authorities under principles of state sovereignty. And Sen. Byrd organized a campaign of opposition that came to be known as “Massive Resistance.”
In August of 1954 a commission was appointed to formulate a plan to preserve segregated schools. Late in 1955, it presented its recommendations, including eliminating mandatory school attendance, empowering local school boards to assign students to schools and creating special tuition grants to enable white students to attend private schools. Enabling legislation was quickly adopted and “segregation academies” began forming around the state. Subsequent legislation went even further by prohibiting state funding of schools that chose to integrate.
In March of 1956, 19 senators and 77 house members from 11 southern states signed what is popularly known as “The Southern Manifesto,” in which they declared, “Even though we constitute a minority in the present Congress, we have full faith that a majority of the American people believe in the dual system of government which has enabled us to achieve our greatness and will in time demand that the reserved rights of the States and of the people be made secure against judicial usurpation.”
Throughout this period the Prince Edward County schools remained segregated, but when various court rulings invalidated Virginia’s various attempts to avoid integration, the school board took its final stand. It refused to authorize funds to operate any schools in the district, and all public schools in the county were simply closed, and remained closed from 1959 to 1964.
There are striking similarities between Sen. Byrd’s failed plan of Massive Resistance and Republican efforts to prevent implementation of the Affordable Care Act. There was widespread confidence among conservatives that the Supreme Court would declare the Act unconstitutional. When that did not occur, legislators such as Michele Bachmann, quoted above, attempted to deny the legitimacy of the Court’s ruling. Brent Bozell went further, denouncing Chief Justice Roberts as “a traitor to his own philosophy,” hearkening back to the days when southern roadsides were replete with billboards demanding the impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren.
The House of Representatives has taken over 40 votes to repeal the ACA, quixotic efforts pursued for reasons known only to John Boehner and his colleagues. And in accordance with the Virginia legislative model, the House has attempted to starve the ACA by eliminating it from funding bills. Following the failure of these efforts, Republicans have elected to pursue the path ultimately taken by the school board of Prince Edward County and have shut down the government.
Even the strategy followed by Republicans is largely a southern effort. Approximately 60% of the Tea Party Caucus is from the South. Nineteen of the 32 Republican members of the House who have been instrumental in orchestrating the shutdown are from southern states. It is hardly surprising therefore, that the current impasse is characterized by the time-honored southern belief in nullification theory as a proper antidote to disfavored decisions by a congressional majority.
In reflecting upon the experience of Virginia many years later, former Gov. Linwood Holton noted, “Massive resistance … served mostly to exacerbate emotions arrayed in a lost cause.” Republicans would do well to ponder the wisdom in that observation.
Skip: How can we solve this serious problem?
Probably with better science and understanding of “cancer.”
I believe cancer is misunderstood due to a focus on genetic changes that cause reproduction of cells. I think, following Seyfried, that is a side effect of a cell respiration malfunction that is common to almost all forms of cancer. Failure to recognize this as the cause has led to mostly fruitless research and interventions.
Thomas Seyfried’s recent book (2012), “Cancer as a Metabolic Disease,” is a very good start on an alternative interpretation. $114 (I bought my copy fairly early, for about $180). Extremely heavily documented with references to hundreds of academic studies and very solid biology; perhaps not for the faint of heart. But he does propose treatments that have already been somewhat effective based on the science; they just aren’t mainstream and are only beginning to be studied. Knowledge moves slowly in medicine; most medical doctors are medically conservative mechanics with people’s lives at stake. They are not researchers or even engineers, and they do what they know, even if minimally effective, until it is safe to do something different.
That is, by the way, an additional problem with for-profit medicine and for-profit malpractice lawsuits that could be much alleviated by socialized medicine; doctors cannot take the risk of trying something they know is better instead of the traditional remedies (chemo and radiation) for fear of being sued to kingdom come for malpractice. They don’t get in trouble or risk their license or fortunes by prescribing chemo and radiation, those are “defensible” on the grounds that it is what everybody prescribes, and it takes them little effort or thought because everybody knows how to administer it. So new ideas can take decades to penetrate the medical market, unless they identify an active danger in an existing practice or drug (then they can spread like wildfire because of fear of malpractice).
Tony C – Wouldn’t you say that a book costing over a hundred dollars has a for-profit motive, preying upon the desperation of people with a terminal disease?
Is it true that his remedy is a ketogenic diet? If so, from my experience with bodybuilding, I have always instinctively thought that to be a better remedy for cancer than chemotherapy. If I ever got cancer, this is the approach I would take over medical doctors prescribing chemotherapy.
The problem is that Obamacare would probably not allow this approach as a remedy. I think in years to come, they will force the wisdom of the medical profession on people rather than allowing them to choose for themselves. We are not there yet, but we are getting close. Remember how 95 year old John Wrana was killed for refusing medical treatment?
http://jonathanturley.org/2013/09/19/95-year-old-man-in-nursing-home-resists-going-to-hospital-police-arrive-and-shoot-and-kill-him-stun-gun-and-bean-bag-rounds/
This guy also says there are already cures for cancer and I’ve spoken to a number of people myself who have cured themselves of cancer and a number of other diseases. http://www.cancertutor.com/WarBetween/War_Evidence.html — My brother cured himself of asthma at almost 40 years of age using pulse electromagnetic frequencies and a parasite cleanse and have cured other people using the same techniques. Scientists, 15 or 20 years back at George Washington University were able to kill bacteria by using the same frequency the bacteria had. All living organisms have a frequency that they operate at and humans have many, such as between different organs in our systems. It is referred to as enzymes. If you shock a parasite, bacterial or fungus with their same frequency it kills them. Asthma must therefore be either a parasitic, bacterial of fungal infection of the lungs.
It’s just like ulcers – It’s just in the last 15 years that the scientific community finally found out that it was a bacteria.
Why is it that the AMA, pharmaceutical and insurance industries, primarily in the United States, try to discredit alternative cures? About 18 years ago one Paracytologist I interviewed told me his clinic was raided and he was literally run out of the country by the FDA for doing studies on curing parasitic infections on the human body. So he was forced to go to Mexico just to do certain studies.
Many people belief it was when government created licensure laws and college accreditations for the medical industry. It strengthened the power that the AMA had. Once Big Pharma got involved, drug pushing became the MO for the AMA. That’s the same time, the government started harassing and demonizing alternative cancer clinics even thought they were having some success.
Hoxey and Rene Cassie are both interesting stories of early cancer clinics.
DavidM: but you overlook other factors, such as the business side of the doctor,
Which should not exist, and is another reason to embrace socialized medicine, with market-rate hiring of doctors.
DavidM says: The truth is that more people die under a doctor’s care than those who are not under a doctor’s care.
And more people in cars are killed in car wrecks than are pedestrians.
More people die under a doctor’s care because when shit gets serious and people realize their illness is life-threatening, virtually everybody abandons their faith in God, superstition, positive thinking and home remedies and seeks out real trained doctors to save their life, and sometimes that happens too late to save their terminally stupid ass.
I won’t read your articles, the title says enough. Obamacare will NOT be repealed before the 2014 elections; I would bet money on that at even odds, but then I think it is immoral to take financial advantage of the mentally challenged.
Tony C. I met a women about 20 years ago and spoke to one of her MDs and her ND extensively, who practiced together in Naples Florida, She was reported cured of breast cancer in 1.5 years without any invasive procedures. She used both vitamins and minerals prescribed by the MDs. She eliminated most animal products out of her diet except eggs and fish. She attempted to remove as many known or believed environmental/chemical pathogens out of her diet and home and she did an assortment of body cleansing techniques known in the alternative medical industry. Based on what I’ve read over 35 years I believed them and use some of the practices myself. I’m in very good health at sixty-one and can still hit a golf ball over 300 yards and take no meds. Admittedly when driving with the wind. LOL… and it doesn’t have to be that strong a wind.
We so badly want to know specially what is going on at the cellular and even smaller levels that it sometimes detracts from pure results. Believing the minerals and vitamins play no significant role in our health is obviously stupid. I like to say that there are only two things that can make you sick. Either you have things in your body that don’t belong there or you are missing things in your body that needs to be there. Good luck in figuring them out because everyone has a different opinion.
The MD I spoke to was interesting in the above case. He felt that that he was better at determining what was wrong with people rather than treating them. The people have to treat themselves with what you have found they are deficient in or abstain from those things that they need to. Dr. Marinakis says that when people are sick, it’s often times their true will to live.
Got to hear this one: True story. A women is in the dental office where my girl friend Debi works. Debi has her list of all the medications she’s taking. Debi asked her one of the questions on the application, is she healthy and the women, without missing a beat say yes I’m very healthy. Debi couldn’t help herself and had to ask her, then why are you on all these medications, about 8 of them. The women’s response was “oh that’s medical”.
This is what we are up against guys.
Skip: Much of traditional medicine has its roots in folk medicine and superstition; because “folk” stumbled upon effective treatment, and ignorant of what was really happening biologically (or psychologically) they invented their own wild explanations. That doesn’t mean their treatments are uniformly failures; on the contrary their superstitions would not have taken hold if the underlying treatments did not provide any relief whatsoever.
The body doesn’t care why you take a useful drug like aspirin, its effects are primarily a matter of biochemistry, not placebo-effect inducing belief system.
It is kind of like comparing Astrology to Astronomy. I don’t subscribe to superstition. A large proportion of folk medicine has already been explored scientifically (both altruistically and for profit motive). The accidental discoveries of the past may still be used, but unless extremely obscure are likely already built into modern medicine, studied for safety, optimal dosage, and optimized for effectiveness.
Skip says: No one is going to care for you better than you and it is the quality of life we all seek.
That isn’t true, by a long shot. A conscientious, trained medical doctor with ten or fifteen years experience will care for the average person far more effectively than they could hope to care for themselves. The doctor will recognize more symptoms and often symptoms overlooked by their patient, interpret tests more accurately, and better decide on interventions, preventions, and medicines. They have a better understanding of anatomy and internal mechanisms.
There is an advantage to expert specialization.
Tony C wrote: “A conscientious, trained medical doctor with ten or fifteen years experience will care for the average person far more effectively than they could hope to care for themselves. The doctor will recognize more symptoms and often symptoms overlooked by their patient, interpret tests more accurately, and better decide on interventions, preventions, and medicines. They have a better understanding of anatomy and internal mechanisms.”
True sidebar about a doctors knowledge exceeding the patient’s knowledge, but you overlook other factors, such as the business side of the doctor, which is a reason why C-sections for births climbed very high among OB-GYN’s. The truth is that more people die under a doctor’s care than those who are not under a doctor’s care.
Following are two informative articles about Obamacare.
Obamacare is going to be repealed well in advance of next year’s election.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenhayward/2013/11/11/obamacare-will-be-repealed-well-in-advance-of-the-2014-elections/
Ronald Reagan Predicted The Obamacare Disaster Back In 1961
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenhayward/2013/11/05/ronald-reagan-predicted-the-obamacare-disaster-back-in-1961/
Tony C & DavidM
The allopathic Doctors in the U.S have a much lower cure rate of cancer than do Doctors in Europe and it is has nothing to do with socialized medicine. It is because the Americans use Chemo and Radiation much more often. I believe the cure rate is less than 3%. here in the U.S.
How can we solve this serious problem?
DavidM: In regard to Norway and health care, Norwegian average health care expenses are about $5388 per person compared to $8223 for the USA (2/3 as much) and about 9.4% of GDP versus 17.6% of GDP in the USA (the USA is 87% higher).
Much of that is due to the cost of a hospital stay in the USA; which costs an average of 3 times as much in the USA as it does in the average OECD country (over $18K in the USA versus $6.2K on average). This is not due to over-regulation in the USA, it is due to either socialization in other countries (so the hospitals have zero markup for profits) or strict regulation in other countries of pricing and markups (like we do in the USA for some public utilities).
According to the OECD this lower cost does not impair the other objective measures they use to judge the quality of care or services in other countries; they remain comparable to the USA in quality of care.
Which tells you not only is the extra 35% in costs profit-taking, but profit-taking is not a necessity to deliver quality of care. The earlier note is telling too, when the 35% profit is eliminated from the American model and the quality of care is recomputed, we are 10th instead of 2nd; which means the 35% in profit taking combined with the personal liability of medical costs reduces the overall quality of health care, presumably by pricing some people out of the market, or making them hesitant to seek medical attention when needed, over price concerns that end up making their condition either worse or fatal.
Skip: I think America’s are so sick because the have not been taught to properly care for themselves.
Maybe. I don’t subscribe to superstitious mumbo jumbo medicine, and I don’t get sick. About every third year I am sick for six hours. That’s it. That’s science for you.
Just remember Tony C. that Japan was found to be the healthiest nation in the world, with many centurions. The practice numerous alternative medicines.
You have to be careful with the U.S. healthcare system. They do not like to do studies alternative healthcare, focusing more on the more profitable pharmacological research.
They do not like to show support for international studies either for the same reason, although many exist.
Just remember ones health is generally worse as we age, unless we properly care for ourselves. No one is going to care for you better than you and it is the quality of life we all seek.
Nevermind. It posted.
Mike or Gene, can you help get a reply to Skip unsnagged by WordPress?
Skip: The post you are replying to was from David 2527, not me.
You are right.
Skip: Although I’m interested in healthcare, I do not find much usefulness in the benefits that socialized medicine will provide over the long term. It will most likely reduce some healthcare costs but the quality of care will most likely follow the costs. The idea is to increase quality and lower costs and I don’t see how socialized medicine can do that.
Then you are wrong; the costs are excellent in Norway and far less than they are here.
Socialized medicine does it the same way you imagine for-profit medicine doing it, only better. I don’t know why you don’t see that.
How do you think for-profit operations work? The vast majority of employees in a large for-profit operation work for salary or an hourly wage; if the corporation is more profitable, their pay is not changed at all. They don’t have any natural incentive to care if the CEO makes two million or three million, they don’t have any natural incentive for stockholders to earn 7.3 cents per share instead of 7.1 cents per share. Even in companies that engage in profit sharing, the additional money is tiny compared to their paycheck, and their individual effort is not rewarded. Work hard, work soft, whatever, they have no control over their pay.
If there is a profit motive moving the company, it is by the 1% whose compensation is tied directly to profits. It is their commands and demands that motivate the wage workers beneath them.
The same thing happens in the non-profit arena. It is the people at the top that motivate the wage workers. However, there is a critical difference in the psychology of both the managers and the workers, if they are chosen with care for a compassionate personality (which constitute more than half the population).
Namely, what motivates the workers, and the managers if they are promoted from workers, is getting the most good done within the budget they have. Unlike the for-profit industry in which managers are demanding more from workers for selfish reasons of trying to increase their own pay (not the worker’s pay), in the non-profit industry the managers push their workers to greater efficiency and productivity for altruistic reasons the workers can share, they both want to get more good delivered to patients for lesser costs. They both want higher productivity, greater efficiency, and more lives saved and misery relieved. Their compassion and altruism, when measured and reported, motivate them, even better than the prospect of making some rich guy incrementally richer.
The people you promote to managers are, just like in the for-profit industry, the ones that show promise and motivation to innovate, cut costs, organize, analyze and inspire those beneath them. You are just using different metrics, and because their success is not measured by dollars in somebody’s pocket but by measures of lives saved and improved, and they also know nobody is skimming a profit off their labor, they can all share in the “prosperity” of doing a good job and taking pride in serving humanity, and getting paid for it. For the 99%, the same they would get paid in the for-profit counterpart, with less resentment at being forced to serve somebody else’s greed.
Tony C. before you go getting your panties all bunched up, let me give you my perspective on healthcare. I was first of all speaking specially about the US. We are forty-third sickest nation in the world according to the WHO and our cost extremely high. One of my friends and business partners is a Ph’D is both alternative and Chinese Medicine. I think America’s are so sick because the have not been taught to properly care for themselves. The Japanese would be a good society to emulate as they are the healthiest nation in the world. The allopathic medical community in the U.S. is getting better, but they still have a long way to go before they match most European countries. I don’t see how government is going to solve this most crucial problem. Most of the time we’ve not even treating people properly so how are we going to make them healthier?
More to come.
Tony C. The post you are replying to was from David 2527, not me. Although I’m interested in healthcare, I do not find much usefulness in the benefits that socialized medicine will provide over the long term. It will most likely reduce some healthcare costs but the quality of care will most likely follow the costs. The idea is to increase quality and lower costs and I don’t see how socialized medicine can do that.
Apparently no one has studied U.S. Constitutional history and would rather go on gibbering about issues relating to Sociology 101. Have fun boys.
Tony C. You must be once again answering someone else’s post I have posted nothing on healthcare or religion. My last post was about questions of various abrogations of the U.S. Constitution.
Skip: I would answer NO, but that doesn’t not make me more sad.
How do you know? Sociologists use this discipline they call “statistics,” and they have ways of rating happiness and sadness in the lab, and the answer to this question happens to be one that contributes to a correlation with the outcome of those more psychological and detailed tests. That is why they ask it.
Those that answer NO to this question test less happy (in detailed one-on-one psychology sessions), on average, than those that answer YES, to statistical significance. They are more dissatisfied with their life. You can make excuses for why you answer NO, and rationalize why you answer NO, but that doesn’t change the statistics. It also doesn’t mean you should change your answer or can help the way you feel, but I would reason that suspicion, resentment, and hesitation to interact all diminish interpersonal connection and the forming of friendships, and thereby increase feelings of isolation, worry and defensive stress; which work against happiness.
Skip says: In the area of Health Care, we beat Norway, being rated number 2 (Luxembourg was number 1) with Norway listed as number 5. Does that mean that Norway should follow us in the area of Health Care?
Interesting question; and so I looked into their methodology. They have a document on their website describing the statistical basis; on page 30 of that document the discuss the anomaly of the USA appearing as #2.
The problem, they admit, is that the USA expenditures per person on Healthcare, one of 17 variables they consider, is a statistical outlier; and does not reflect the efficiency or quality of health care in the USA. Throughout the rest of the world they believe it is correlated with that. If they substitute the Norwegian expenditure per person (their choice, not mine) in the US healthcare version (and the Norwegian expenditures are considered to be quite efficient by most health care analysts) then the ranking of the USA drops to #10.
Here is a quote from that page:
To further explore the importance of the healthcare expenditure on the overall performance of the United States, we conducted a simple exercise in which we substituted US expenditure with that of Norway (ranked 5th on the sub-index). The result is that United States would rank 10th.”
The problem is that their methodology of including the expenditures per person as a proxy for actual healthcare delivered is … stupid. It ignores the problem we have in the USA of an exploitation of desperation, overcharging people because they have no choice. And it makes a system like Norway’s, that finds efficiency and cuts costs of delivering healthcare in several ways, to have delivered less healthcare instead of more, in other words it punishes a country getting more bang for the buck in delivering healthcare.
I will also point out your inconsistency in claiming that the difference between #1 and #11 is insignificant, but the difference between #2 and #5 is highly significant. US healthcare is far worse than Norways, it should really be less than the #10 it gets by using Norway’s numbers, because the difference in costs either come out of pocket or higher premiums in the USA come out of pocket. We also have medical bill bankruptcy in this country that does not occur in Norway.
Skip:
According to the most recent Eurobarometer Poll 2010,
22% of Norwegian citizens responded that “they believe there is a God”.
44% answered that “they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force”.
29% answered that “they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force”.
5% answered that they “do not know”.
Atheism abounds in Norway. Only 6% of Americans, vs 29% of Norwegians. And their government is not a theocracy at all; it is secular. Having an official religion does not make them a theocracy. 33% of Norway is Islam, by the way.
Personally I believe in a separation of Church and State. Do not fall into the trap of believing I endorse everything anybody does.
And I get a great deal of amusement out of grown men who think having a child’s nickname is appropriate.
Also, Tony understand the functionality of the Constitution just fine.
Apparently someone doesn’t know how the Supreme Court functions though.
Tony C. You must be responding to someone else’s post since I, long ago learned not to bring various religion systems into any serious discussions. My understanding was that many of the Scandinavian counties are quit secular as it pertains to operating their government, but as I noted, I’m not very knowledgeable on their culture or well versed on their history.
I do want to study their, especially Norway’s socio-economic systems in greater detail, since you have such a fondness for it. I have studies the (Scandinavian Countries) a little, but I don’t remember seeing anything overly impressive about their system. I think the Swiss have more of a direct democracy, but I did not see it as working to any greater of lesser degree than other countries at this point in their economic cycle. Being the Head Quarters of the Bank of International Settlement and other such powerful organizations is also an interesting, both bad and good, as to the potential commentary on their system. It is very hard, in my opinion to compare the quality of life of the majority in countries that have such diverse cultural differences.
FYI: I also strongly believe in the separation of church and state, often times to extreme for many, especially the religious right.
Gene H. Perhaps you do not like my name and find it childish but I can assure you that there are many adults that go by both the names of Skip and Chip, ironically my oldest half brother’s nickname. I have no preconceptions of what is a serious or childish name of not. Is that why perhaps Barry Soetoro changed his name? It worked, he’s now president.
David2527 – I do want to study up on Norway society to see what Tony C. is raving about.
Do you find it amusing as I do, that our world still has a number of Kingdoms. Our Constitution thankfully prohibits the use of Titles of Nobility. Now they just call themselves central and investment bankers, politicians and judges. Our modern novo/replacement aristocracy.
My “fear” is that there is no form of government that can provide long term stability while and that protects the rights of the majority from the tremendous power and influence of an oligarchy. It appears the various oligarchies around the world are not going to be easily replaced with significantly more compassionate individuals.
We can only guess at how many different governments have existed over the last 250 years around the world. Of course you would have to make determinations such as to our civil war that had numerous unconstitutional initiatives enforced. Florida wrote two entirely new Constitutions after the war. The first Constitution of Florida was in 1838 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Constitution –
Look what the English and the Irish have gone though in recent history and the multitude of wars around the world. The military contractors are making out well though.
One must ask the question, if government is so great and necessary, while do they fail so often. Secondly, what, if anything, can be altered or changed to stop them from failing so often. I can go on with a list of questions but that just gets us back to arguing over such things as “what is fascism exactly and what causes it”.
We all know doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results is idiotic.
Can we as a species, actually learn from our social mistakes or are we destined to make the same ones over and over again?
Skip: My name is Harry Karol Robinson – Now you know why my family and friends have always called me Skip.
?
Am I missing something? Is there something wrong with the name Harry, or Karol? Or Harry K. Robinson, or H.K. Robinson? Where does “Skip” come from?
If this is a “Boy named Sue” kind of problem, who needs to know your middle name?
Skip: You misunderstand the purpose of a Constitution.
Our Constitution is a framework for how laws should be made and power distributed. It’s entire purpose is to be immediately implemented to pass new laws and restrictions on people; doing so does not make it less legitimate, we created it so we COULD pass laws and restrictions, decide upon taxations and fees, and so forth.
We do not violate the Constitution by passing laws, nor does the Constitution have to be amended every time we pass a law, if we pass a law and The Supreme Court determines that it fits within the framework of the Constitution. Even if that law imposes new taxes or new constraints upon what we regarded as our freedom: The Constitution exists to set boundaries in how lawmakers can properly restrict our freedoms for the betterment of Society, without infringing upon our Rights.
Just because you think some of those restrictions are onerous or irritating or anger you or restrict your profits does not make them Unconstitutional.
Tony C. stated
Skip: You misunderstand the purpose of a Constitution.
And Tony you do make some valid arguments for someone who does misunderstand the purpose of the Constitution but you also make some erroneous assumption that should be evident to you as you read on.
However you’re opening up another highly debated aspect of law, but it is none the less interesting, so I will respond. There are both proper ways to amend the Constitution and there are unlawful ways to do so. That is perhaps why our founders though it was a good idea to have two enumerated methods to amend the Constitution.
I believe that I can prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt, that both the Congress and various members of the Federal Judiciary throughout history have unlawfully abrogated the Constitution at different times. Whether you would except the evidence depends on you. So I am going to throw the burden of proof back to you and the readers so that we don’t have to go back and force on specific issues.
Can you or anyone else reading these posts, give us one constitutional right that has in the past or is currently being usurped, and the court case or legislation, preferably both, that should have required either a Constitutional Convention or the Constitutional ratification process by the fifty States, to abrogate it’s original intent? In other words, has the intent of the Constitutional ever been unlawfully changed and how was it specifically done. One President even admitted that he had done it and another one, on his death bed actually appeared to have been remorseful for doing so.
One Secretary of State actually committed both fraud and insurrection by confirming and signing into law a constitutional amendment that was not properly ratified by the States.
Skip: We can only go back in history to try to figure out which system has worked best or try to come up with a system that will work better.
I disagree, we can also use the existing systems that create self-reported happiness in countries, like Denmark or Norway. We can also use the existing systems that create objective economic success and happiness, like that in Germany.
We can also use science and logic to devise solutions, the science of sociology (my sister is a sociologist), statistical psychology, criminology, and many others.
The current system, Democracy, will not be overthrown by revolution. People have too much at stake. Somalia might be overthrown by revolution, people there make like $500 a year with their net worth consisting of what they can carry. The USA will not be overthrown by Revolution until we reach an equivalent state of metaphorical pain.
If the USA is reformed, it will be reformed from within the walls of Democracy, with new ideas taking root. The Great Depression did not produce an armed revolution, but it did produce a governance revolution from within. The Union Movement and Civil Rights movement did not produce armed revolutions, but did produce governance revolutions from within.
That is the reality, nothing so easy as a quick fix with a bullet is ever going to happen here. It would take something about ten times worse than the Great Depression, literal starvation of much of the population, before I would worry about violent revolution in this country.
In the meantime, the task is to find a way to get the majority to oppose the greedy in a meaningful way. I admit that may not be possible, we may be (collectively speaking) too comfortable with what we’ve got to risk it for something better. Revolution is largely a result of a widespread attitude of “nothing left to lose.” The current United States isn’t in that mood yet, and won’t be for a long time. As long as most people are still watching TV and movies, taking their kids to sports outings, playing video games or World of Warcraft, shopping for Christmas presents, sleeping in the recliner on a Sunday afternoon with nothing to do — They are not on the verge of revolt.
Tony C wrote: “…we can also use the existing systems that create self-reported happiness in countries, like Denmark or Norway.”
I have some observations to make about this happiness comparison. The US is pretty close to Norway overall. Out of 142 countries, Norway was number 1 and the USA was number 11. The index was 3.534 Norway compared to 2.839 for the US. Is such results really all that much different?
In the area of Health Care, we beat Norway, being rated number 2 (Luxembourg was number 1) with Norway listed as number 5. Does that mean that Norway should follow us in the area of Health Care?
And if you look at the kinds of questions asked on the survey, there are some problems. For example, some of us would probably not rate very happy on this question: Attended a place of worship in the last week? Norway is a Christian nation (the state religion is the Church of Norway), so they rank high on this question.
Which makes me wonder, Tony, as an atheist who always puts Norway forward as a good role model, what role do you think their theocracy plays? Or what about their monarchy form of government? Should we follow those examples too, or just their socialism?
Another question that is problematic: Do you think most people can be trusted? I would answer NO, but that doesn’t not make me more sad. I’m sure the survey analysts would interpret it that way. Norway was ranked happiest based upon this single question. I think being trusting of others is stupid and leads to sadness when expectations are not met. In other words, the answer to the question can be interpreted differently in regards to happiness, depending on the mindset of the person analyzing the data.
The website for this happiness / prosperity study has an interesting exploratory / interactive interface that makes examining the data easy.
http://www.prosperity.com/#!/ranking
Davidm2527.
I must forgive, you comments on Norway were interesting. I find surveys only interesting to the degree that I can survey 5,000 individuals and conclude from their responses that 98.3% are opposed to socialized medicine with a degree of error of 1.7%. Of course, only registered Libertarians where surveyed . lol
Skip: So what happens when a nation state no longer meets the requirement of being lawfully constituted?
I presume you imply some people (we will call Takers) are gaining from that condition and others are being oppressed. What happens is the laws of force take over; the Takers will either win or lose. If enough of the oppressed gather together to risk (and lose) their lives to stop their oppression, then they lose. The Takers may have more firepower, and a bigger gang, and better Intel. Large swaths of the oppressed may be loyal subjects because of that, or by ideology or religion or just being born into oppression (like slavery) to think it is natural. A super-majority may refuse to stand up to the Takers for pragmatic reasons: They compute the odds of winning as so low it would be suicide to try and even then unsuccessful for others. Even oppressed people typically do not want to die for nothing.
So oppression can last for lifetimes; as it did for slavery.
And even an oppressed people can gain under an oppressive regime; Iranians still have some measure of limited freedom in work and association. Not religion, not speech, no right to a trial. Their government can kill them and / or take everything they own and / or imprison them for life without explanation or charges … but seldom do. They are not likely to be literally enslaved as chained free laborers living on gruel. The same was true in Iraq under Hussein. Saddam could (and did) occasionally seize their daughters and rape them to death for fun. They did not revolt because despite such predations, they still felt they had too much to lose and the odds of success were too low.
I think you already know what happens. To some extent, I think what happens is a consequence of people not understanding the nature of their Rights as a trade, that in order to have their own Rights they are obligated to protect the Rights of others. It is why pure Selfishness fails, if everybody is out for themselves exclusively, then they by definition have no obligation to contribute or risk anything to aid others, and then (in my formulation) nobody has any Rights (or their Rights are just unprotected, ineffectual rhetoric).
Society is not just a collection of individuals. Society is a collection of individuals bound by mutual obligation to each other to give meaning to Rights. They determine and define the Rights, and they are bound to honor the Rights and to punish violations of Rights even if that punishment causes severe losses. Which is what it takes against those that are deterred only by superior force; people have to fight and die to protect our Rights; both police and soldiers.
Tony C.
You’ve got the gist and I’m not going to tell you something you don’t already understand but let me try to put it in a little different perspective.
Like natural rights and “not” under all circumstances, when counties either collapse economically or are overthrown in the various potential methods, societies have over the last several hundred years found it best to establish a Constitution. A document which attempts to lawfully set the ground rules that is a consent of those being governed, placed upon those governing so that everyone knows legally where they stand as they attempt to gain life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is not whether this system is right or wrong, good or bad and surely not perfect, it just the best thing that the world has come up with to date, like natural or unalienable rights. We’ve reached a plateau that this is what most societies do when trying to restore or establish a new government.
Once the Constitution is established, some level of peace and harmony generally starts to occur but not always. Mankind has yet to figure out a system which enough people agree to, so significant levels of political and economic conflict still generally occur.
Like you pointed out, when those ruling no long abide by the established Constitution, nor attempts to properly alter the Constitution under the prescribed methods in the document itself, it is no longer the consent of the governed, thus are no longer operating under a lawfully constituted government; ending up most often with a rouge oligarchy or military Junta. When this happens, It is not difficult to see the negative results or prognosticate other potential problems.
At what degree the Constitution is being abrogated, making it no longer a lawfully constituted government is an issue. If one constitutional provision is abrogated and those governing make no attempt to lawfully correct the abrogation, you theoretically have an oligarchy that has taken over the government without the consent of those being governed. This is referred to in political science and law as an insurrection.
OK, one method to try to reconstitute the government, as you noted, would be to use physical force and overthrow those in power. As I see it however, this does not “over the long tern” get us off the plateau I previously mentioned. The system that most nation States are using “whatever” you want to call it, don’t want to get into that can of worms again, fails way to often around the world. Our Civil war, in my opinion is an example of this failure, as is our current _____________ oligarchy”. Let Gene H. fill in the blank.
Whether all individuals are willing to acknowledge the various abrogations by those governing is an obvious problem, as those well off under the current system will often defend it. Then of course you have the whistle blowers on the other side. You’re probably not going to hear much either out of the oligarchs themselves or the main stream media they control.
We can only go back in history to try to figure out which system has worked best or try to come up with a system that will work better. Those that except the status quo or fail to try to come up with a better solution are generally part of the problem.
I am looking into the Dutch. They have had a very long period of great wealth. I believe they turned down Franklin and Adams, during the America Revolution when they were trying to raise money for the cause. Perhaps they are not as principles as you regard them but then again, we cannot hold those who currently govern for the actions of several hundred years ago. However, part of their current wealth is very old money.
FYI: My family is reported to have fled to Leland Holland to escape religious persecution in the late sixteenth century before coming to America. Many of my ancestry fought in both the revolution and war of northern aggression, as some southerners like to call it. The slavery thing puts a huge caveat on their position but it is pretty easy to argue that the Northern States, especially NY, the stomping ground of the central bankers, were the antagonists, as they generally are.
Skip – I think you confused the Kingdom of Norway with the Kingdom of the Netherlands, indicated by your use of the terms Dutch and Holland, but other than that, you make some sense. I think when about 30% of the nation refuses to put up with the illegal governing nonsense, we will have revolution. I am about ready myself. First step is to draft a Constitution without the current obvious loopholes, and one based on the new technologies available which makes assessing the will of the people easier than in the past. Second step is to make primary leaders of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches unpaid positions — no wages, no cushy retirement pensions, etc. This would make them true civil SERVANTS and take away some of the monetary incentives they currently have. Third step is to get rid of the IRS and have a simplified flat tax system collected by the States. Fourth, get rid of unnecessary federal departments created during the last 100 years. Fifth, federal government never hands out money to States, but rather federal government applies for grants from the States to pay for its needs.
Depends on what he’s doing. Though, “Skip” and historical revision tend to not work together well.