RoR: Forum

That is, hands-down, the finest article I've read on the government shutdown. Sowell is fantastic!

Post 1

Sunday, October 6, 2013 - 5:00am

The most recent Time magazine's cover shows Majority Rule scratched out. The cover story article includes: "Polls have been clear for weeks that the majority of Americans have no interest in flirting with financial disaster."

What a laugh. Whether those at Time magazine know it or not, federal government decisions are not made by opinion polls. I have little doubt that the folks at Time mean� we are now under minority rule and the minority is a few Republicans in the House of Representatives.

Hogwash. If we want to talk about minority rule, let's talk about a few Democrats. In the House of Representatives (435 members) there are 232 Republicans. In the Senate there are 52 Democrats (100 members). If 52 Democrats can have their way over 232 Republicans, that is way more "minority rule." An even smaller "minority rule" would be�2 -- Barack Obama and Harry Reid.

(Edited by Merlin Jetton on 10/06, 5:05am)

Post 2

Sunday, October 6, 2013 - 7:19am

There is alot of irony with Time's cover.

Our form of government is not based on majority rule; it is based on fettered majority rule. It has an individual bill of rights, not a majority bill of rights. And even the rules for amending that constitution are fettered majority based, not majority based.

It is the House of Representatives that is headcount based; it is the Senate that is not.

With some irony-- it is the House that is applying the drag to runaway unfettered pure Democracy; it is the Senate that is backing up the current government of one man's will.

The Left is on an absolute tear on many fronts to kill individual freedom and liberty in this nation, and one method of doing that is to push this meme of 'majority rule.' Not the consititutionally limited democratic republic I know as America. This is pure aparatchik left wing propaganda at its worst. They've lost all compunction about going full bore Soviet era street theater on America.

'Majority Rule' unfettered by no other principle than 'majority rule' is exactly what occers at a gang rape. A vote is held, the victim loses.

Screw 'majority rule' with a chainsaw-- that is the only America worth defending.

regards,
Fred

PS: And whoever thinks they shutdown government needs to take another crack at it. The aparatchiks in government are waging their own street theater-- as in, hiring more park guards and doing more work to 'close' the open air WWII monument, which if you've ever visited it is not enclosed, does not have interior buildings, can easily be enjoyed simply by 'walking around it' and needs park guards like a bull needs tits. They had to actually do additional work to barricade the memorial and make it inaccessbile then simply to walk away. "Enjoy at your own risk--don't trip over our own two feet" is all it takes. SPending all that extra money -- to turn away citizens from walking around the memorial THAT THEY PAID FOR, BOTH WITH THEIR OWN BLOOD AND TREASURE should have resulted in some imperial clueless fucks being strung up to hang from the street lights.

Plumbing is an honorable profession, but not when the plumbers mistake themselves for emperors. That is a plunger handed to public workers, not scepter. The season of culling is long overdue. 800,000 is a rolling start.

Post 3

Wednesday, October 9, 2013 - 3:53am

George Reisman says leftist fanatics (link).

Post 4

Friday, October 11, 2013 - 2:17am

On the question of the debt ceiling, a Reuters blog today, was about the 14th Amendment. Little did I know...

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.

"... shall not be questioned."

Read here:
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/10/09/a-14th-amendment-for-all-centuries/

Post 5

Friday, October 11, 2013 - 9:37am

This is another far-left attempt to mischaractarize the opposition to raising the debt ceiling and to continue to grow the government without any limits. The situation now is like insisting that anyone objecting to a drunken teenager using your credit cards must be a racist who wants to declare bankruptcy and, at the same time demanding that the cards have no spending limits.

It is hilarious that the far left is now all in a fret that the constitution be treated seriously. When before they wanted it to be reinterpreted, or ignored completely out of existence because it is arcane, and the language has changed, and we don't live in the same world, and it no longer applies, and that Obama should act outside of the constitution if needed to further their goals.

And they are painting anyone who wants to reduce spending so that the government will be able to pay its debts as akin to post-Civil War rebels who still wanted to have slaves. (The far-left doesn't appear to know how to have an argument without bringing race into it.)

The 14th amendment refers to payment of "debt" - that is payment of principal and interest on borrowed money. There is more than enough in monthly tax revenues to cover all principal and interest payments. That takes care of the 14th amendment AND the far-left's phoney argument about default. There will be no default - UNLESS, spending isn't brought under control and it continues to grow to where the economies crash, and/or the combined principal and interest outstrip the tax revenues, and that is where the far left is trying to take the country.

Congress has already passed legislation, and it is now law, that guarantees payment of principal and interest regardless of the debt limit or government shutdown.

Another totally phony argument by people short on intellectual integrity.

Post 6

Friday, October 11, 2013 - 11:44am

I was thinking of something else entirely.

Uninformed or misinformed conservatives say that you cannot refuse Federal money because it is "legal tender." That is nonsense. But this statement (Amendment 14 Section 4) seems to hold potential. Consider the Demand Notes of 1861 and the Legal Tender Notes of 1862-1863. These were representations of debt, acceptable by the government for payment, except for import duties, and "backed" (to use the term loosely) at the pleasure of the government in 20-year 6% bonds, which they might give you for your "greenbacks."

Unlike silver certificates or gold notes, these were not any kind of warehouse receipt or convenience. They were debt.

Now, fast forward... What is a Federal Reserve Note? Can you "question the debt of the United States" by refusing one? I know of no cases. However, it is a principle that Presidential Orders are problematic because you never know when or how they will be applied.

Also, suppose you invented a new alloy and the government wanted a few hundred tons and you said, "No, I will not sell to the government because I am not sure you are actually good for the money you promise." You could refuse on other grounds, perhaps: "I just don't like you guys." But you cannot question the debt of the United States.

Can the government require its citizens to buy bonds? They did not try that in World War II - but they did not need to... And they did not have Income Tax Withholding at the start of the War, but enacted it later. So, just to say, an emergency of some kind could force this.

The deeper question is one of law: Can the Constitution bind a private citizen? The Constitution limited and then outlawed slavery. It might be argued that that was a definition of law as being a slave was a legal status. But then the 18th Amendment prohibited "the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors ... for beverage purposes..." And that certainly interfered with private decisions.

I was unaware of the provisions of the 14th Amendment. I just lumped 13, 14, and 15 together as "Reconstruction" but I understand now the error in such a shallow perception.

Post 7

Friday, October 11, 2013 - 4:50pm

Marotta is kind of like a reverse Houdini - the only person I know that can bind himself so tightly with floating abstractions and the odd unrelated concrete till even he is unable to escape.

Post 8

Thursday, October 17, 2013 - 9:04am

Hey! They kicked the can down the road for another three months! And agreed to continue to agree to disagree.

Dems: roll back the sequestration.

GOP: don't roll back the sequestration.

compromise: half roll back the sequestration. (Translated: borrow even more from our children, and make the looming low-interest debt trap even worse.)

Why doesn't the GOP advocate increasing the sequestration? Compromise would at least be 'status quo.'

The infestation in DC is dug in like ticks, going nowhere.

Of course Wall Street reacts; the funny money with nowhere else to go is going to continue for a few moments longer, so get out in front of it...while you can. We'll worry about a year from now when it happens.

This is good news! ... for 15 minutes longer...

Post 9

Friday, October 18, 2013 - 7:56am