Uninformed & unthinking Americans fall easy prey to demagoguery

[Plane]

<<Remember it was he unreformed Scrooge who refused to give to a charity and insisted that the taxes he paid should be enough. After Scrooge leared to appreaciate other people and to love life , he became a conservative and was more prone to generosity.>>

And yet somehow, after the conversions of all the Scrooges in all the states of the U.S.A., the country remains today with 45 million Americans includnig 9 million kids without any health insurance and one of the worst public health-care records in the industrialized world. 

Maybe the problem is in people who take the lessons of 19th century romantic fiction and try to apply them to a 21st century real world.

This is your opinion, and I doubt its accuacy.

But for the sake of the argument lets assume the worst in boh directions.

Would I rather give up all the rights to choice I am accustomed to , or give up my health care?

NO two ways about it ,I want the liberty .

[Michael Tee]

<<NO two ways about it ,I want the liberty .>>

That's EXACTLY what I mean about selfishness and greed.  YOU got the liberty, THEY got the sickness. 

[_JS]

Why would you say this?

Would a strong political philosophy be disinterested in taxes or indiffrent as to how they are used , or care nothing how much or little power and choice was left in priviate hands?

No, it has nothing to do with public versus private, it never gets that far.

It is weak because it lacks any intellectual basis. There is no foundation on which the state is built. It is simply an individualist notion turned into an oxymoron about tax collection.

[gipper]

I think JS is being, at once, a tad simplistic and a tad ignorant. There is no precept I know of that can't elevate any given notion to preeminent standing in the organization of a state -- hypothetically. It can be a solid principle breeding prosperity or it can be a foolhardy pretender that leads to calamity. Assuming that whatever the deciding body is in that state (or community) insists on adherence to a foolish organizing idea, then it will persist until it brings ruin. Also, as people actually are, which for the most is engaging in the pursuit of their own interests, no matter how broadly and morally defined or narrowly defined they are, the result more often than not, I'd say, is a state that can persist until external factors over which they have no control cause the enterprise to fail. Roughly, but not entirely or even necessarily, in ways I won't expand upon, the first-mentioned mode of organizing the state is "ideological," while the second (begging latitude) is "anthropological."

[sirs]

<<NO two ways about it ,I want the liberty .>>

That's EXACTLY what I mean about selfishness and greed.  YOU got the liberty, THEY got the sickness. 

Yea, those evil founders, starting this country on such a greedy concept as liberty.  The nerve

[Michael Tee]

<<Yea, those evil founders, starting this country on such a greedy concept as liberty.  The nerve>>

Uh, not exactly, sirs.  Those "evil founders" left it to the citizens to decide what purposes the general revenues should be put to.  They never explicitly said the public revenues should or should not be used on public health and welfare.  They gave you a Constitution, a taxing power, and the freedom to decide what to do with them.

So it looks like you can't blame them after all for your own greed and selfishness.  Nice try, though.

[sirs]

<<Yea, those evil founders, starting this country on such a greedy concept as liberty.  The nerve>>

Uh, not exactly, sirs.  Those "evil founders" left it to the citizens to decide what purposes the general revenues should be put to. 

No, your revisionist rationalizations aside, they actually founded this country on Life, LIBERTY and the PURSUIT of Happiness, (which interestingly does not equate to a right to happiness.)  It's been subsequent congresses & Presidents mutating the founders' intent and constitutional boundries that were intended to inhibit, NOT facilitate government intervention on the populace

Nice try though

[Michael Tee]

<<No, your revisionist rationalizations aside, they actually founded this country on Life, LIBERTY and the PURSUIT of Happiness, (which interestingly does not equate to a right to happiness.)  >>

We both know what's in the Constitution, sirs.  And we both know that the Constitution allows a framework for citizens to elect representative who will pass legislation on various subjects with various objects.  Unless you are totally insane, I don't think you will argue that it would be unconstitutional for the elected representatives of the people to enact a national health scheme like Social Security or Medicare, only broader in scope, taking in citizens of all ages.

So the real issue does NOT involve the Constitution or its framers, but really what the citizens want their representatives to do for them within the framework already established by the Constitution.

<<It's been subsequent congresses & Presidents mutating the founders' intent and constitutional boundries that were intended to inhibit, NOT facilitate government intervention on the populace>>

Well, I'm sure that from time to time, unconstitutional legislation has in fact been passed, and when it did, the courts dealt with it appropriately.  Your statement is broad and general and really has nothing to do with this one issue, unless of course you mean to say that a universal health care scheme enacted by Congress would somehow be unconstitutional, which I don't think even you would be crazy enough to argue.

[sirs]

<<No, your revisionist rationalizations aside, they actually founded this country on Life, LIBERTY and the PURSUIT of Happiness, (which interestingly does not equate to a right to happiness.)  >>

We both know what's in the Constitution, sirs.  And we both know that the Constitution allows a framework for citizens to elect representative who will pass legislation on various subjects with various objects. 

We both know this was tangent was about the framers of the Constitution, and the framework it was to provide in order to govern this country.  Just becasue the Constitution has been stomped on, legisated around, and redefined by 20th century congress critters, depending on the current political wind, still does not refute that the original intentions of the founders, as WRITTEN in the Declaration of Independence & in the Constitution, was a country founded on Life, LIBERTY, and the Pursuit of Happiness, not to mention the RESTRICTIONS it was to impose on the Fed, not on the populace.  So just say it.....the founders of this country were greedy bastards, adovating this liberty garbage.  That is the tangent we've been referencing.

So the real issue does NOT involve the Constitution or its framers, ....

Actually, it was.  Try going back to where I entered the conversation, and you'll see that's precisely the issue I brought up

[Michael Tee]

Try to put those last thoughts into intelligible English, sirs, and I'll try to respond to them.

<<We both know this was tangent was about the framers of the Constitution, and the framework it was to provide in order to govern this country. >>

??

[sirs]

If you can't understand simple English, I can't help you Tee.  Let's go to the Teeictionary
Framers = Greedy bastards supporting the asanine notion of liberty
Constitution = the Framework by which the Framers put together their diabolical scheme of pushing liberty on us folks, who simply want the Government to take care of us cradle to grave.  Written just vague enough to turn the intentions of the framers 180degrees thankfully

[Michael Tee]

Thanks for defining "framers" and "Constitution<" sirs, but I was referring more to your unintelligible sentence structure than to your vocabulary, sirs.

<<We both know that this was tangent . . . >>

To what does "this" refer?

<< . . . was about the framers of the Constitution>>

What is the subject of the verb "was?"

<< . . . and the framework it was to provide in order to govern this country>>

Am I correct in assuming that "it" refers to the Constitution?

[sirs]

Thanks for defining "framers" and "Constitution<" sirs, but I was referring more to your unintelligible sentence structure than to your vocabulary, sirs.

<<We both know that this was tangent . . . >>

To what does "this" refer?

Apparently in Tee's alternate universe, every sentence is perfect, in every way shape and form, and folks aren't allowed to make any grammatical errors or ommissions.  Apparently the inadvertant absense of an "a" between was and tanget completely bamboozled even the all-knowing Tee, with this being the current thread

<< . . . was about the framers of the Constitution>>

What is the subject of the verb "was?"

The current thread topic Tee.

<< . . . and the framework it was to provide in order to govern this country>>

Am I correct in assuming that "it" refers to the Constitution?

To most rational people it would.  For you, who knows.  And why we're even having this current irrelevent Q&A is beyond me as well.  Time to move on, I do believe

[Plane]

I think JS is being, at once, a tad simplistic and a tad ignorant. There is no precept I know of that can't elevate any given notion to preeminent standing in the organization of a state -- hypothetically. It can be a solid principle breeding prosperity or it can be a foolhardy pretender that leads to calamity. Assuming that whatever the deciding body is in that state (or community) insists on adherence to a foolish organizing idea, then it will persist until it brings ruin. Also, as people actually are, which for the most is engaging in the pursuit of their own interests, no matter how broadly and morally defined or narrowly defined they are, the result more often than not, I'd say, is a state that can persist until external factors over which they have no control cause the enterprise to fail. Roughly, but not entirely or even necessarily, in ways I won't expand upon, the first-mentioned mode of organizing the state is "ideological," while the second (begging latitude) is "anthropological."

   That is a good point , President Lincon compared his own statesmanship to rideing a raft , one can choose to follow the left, the right or the center but the river is really chooseing your direction.

    There is a strong diffrence between an Idealist and an idealoge , one is the bunch on my side and the other is the sort on yours.



    The American way is lost with out Liberty and liberty can be lost in several ways , one of the ways is to be tied down to taxes till there are no choices in life and the ambitions of our individuals are frustrated till the whole of the public is frustrated.

     Is being sick so important that we must give everything entirely to the government in order to cope with it? Even if we do ,we will all sicken and die but with no chance to persue happyness in the meantime.

[Michael Tee]

Well, thanks for taking the time to explain the post to me, sirs.  Sorry I didn't get the meaning the first time round.

You're wrong, of course, as usual.

plane, for the sake of argument, assumed that government-assured health care for all meant a choice had been made between freedom of choice and health care.  He preferred freedom to health care.  I said that was greedy (because it forced others to forgo health care for the sake of plane's freedom.)

At this point, you entered the thread with a little bit of sarcasm.  "Those greedy framers . . . ."  As if the framers' guarantee of liberty was based on greed.  Also reminding me that whatever the framers' guarantee of liberty was based on, it was Constitutional and could not be subordinated to lesser goals, such as universal health care.

Well, of course the Constitution guarantees freedom (in the abstract) and of course that freedom is abridged without violating the Constitution in many different ways.  Laws are passed for example that prevent American citizens from trading with Cuba.  From selling nuclear technology to North Korea.  From posting child porn on the internet.  I am suggesting that a law creating Canadian-style universal health care could pass constitutionally in the U.S.  Whether it does or not is due to whether the citizens and their elected reps want it, not on the fact that it would limit Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms against the wishes of the framers.  The framers left in place a Constitution that is broad enough to allow for the abridgment of freedoms such as those claimed by plane for a wider goal, in this case health care, if the elected representatives so decide.