The most dangerous idea ever: why the tea party is...

TPP wrote: That and the Damn phone ringing....

I'm sure there's an app for that lol

Science Chic wrote:

We know the other two solutions don’t work, at least in their pure forms. The 100 percent model of a strong centralized government, e.g. Communism , doesn’t work. Very strong central governments end up stifling innovation and producing moribund economies. We also know that smaller decentralized governments don’t work. Isolated state governments inevitably turn into nasty little Balkan oligarchies with persecution of one minority or another. But no one has tried no-government solution, at least in modern times.

Personally, I doubt most Tea Partiers really want a truly libertarian government. Go to a Tea Party, sit beside someone and say that we should downsize the government and start with ending Medicare. Or Social Security. Or national defense. Or farm supports. Or highway construction. It won’t take you long to find a government program they’re in favor of. And of course when you add them all up, you end up right where we are now, which is why the new Tea Party Republicans aren’t really going very hard after entitlements. Lots of thunder, but no lightning there.

So if a truly Libertarian government isn't what is desired, then what is exactly, and how do we get there?

Don't know about anyone else here, but I've never been of the opinion that pure anything in government works - which is why the original idea expressed here 220 years or so ago about coordinate powers of government was unique. It was a combination of what worked best in each system. One level to represent with a single voice in foreign affairs and settle internal disputes between the individual states, one level to prevent that larger entity from entering into the domestic affairs that concerned the citizens of the states and subjecting them to the same despotism and tyranny that inevitably results when all the power is concentrated into a single entity and a final level whereby each person was given the opportunity to govern themselves to the limits of their competency. A trinity of government, if you will, instead of a single system - a hybrid containing the best properties of all three while at the same time eliminating most of their shortcomings.

Without that brilliance, we would have devolved into Balkinization - which is what was actually starting to happen under the original confederation where the states retained too much authority and the larger entity was in possession of too little - the result of which was tension and quibbling between the states. The Constitution established coordinate powers of government where both the states and the federal government reigned supreme in limited areas and the citizens reigned supreme in all others. What has happened over the last 100 years is a reversal of the original confederation where the general government possesses too much power and the states too little. It is just as bad, just as flawed, as the situation which led the Philadelphia Convention to come up with an entirely new solution rather than attempt to fix the existing one. I think the problem we have now is fixable without resorting to such drastic measures and that the best way to fix it is to restore the balance between the three systems that once existed. We no longer have that balance of the good parts from each type of government that the author mentions and are well on our way to becoming instead one of the centralized governments - complete with all of its failings. That consolidation of power, and the continuing desire to consolidate still more, is what has reduced this nation to its current state.

We need to remove from the general government the control of the domestic concerns which it has desired to include for itself among its power and authority and return it to only the foreign concerns that it was empowered to oversee. Strictly limited authority instead of authority with no limits other than the ones it establishes for itself. No state would have ratified the Constitution with the understanding that the general government would be so empowered - not a single one of them; the United States of America would simply not exist if that had been the intention and purpose of the Constitution because such broad and sweeping power in the hands of the general government would have been rejected outright by all 13 states. That is truth plainly spoken. With that knowledge, not belief, knowledge, comes the understanding that what currently exists was never intended to be how this people are governed. Rationalize and justify the current condition all you want, but at the end of the day that truth still exists. This is not the way it is supposed to be, it isn't the foundation of our laws - it is simply contrary to every intent and purpose of the Constitution.

Thanks for that continuing-but-tiresome lecture on 18th Century "founding father" trivia... We're always so "surprised" when you regurgitate the whole Sovereign Citizen, Federalist, original-intent, Constitution Party , LawAndLiberty , ReasonOfFreedom , PoliticsOfLiberty , TeaPartyPatriot excursions into what you THINK the Constitution says, or should have said. The Supreme Court interprets, and has done so for a little over 230 years. Their interpretations of what it means are what is important, and not the libertarian nonsense of the radical right. The "general welfare" clause was not "invented", but obviously it has been interpreted to mean something you don't agree with.

It's always so good to know, with such absolute certainty, what ALL of the 13 States would have done 230 years based on your interpretation of it.

Oh well.....

Whenever you don't like the message, attack the messenger. And then the Left tries to argue they only post with content backed up. LJ, try Metamucil, its not the content that is backed up in you.

Ah yes, interpreted meaning. Interpreted by a cabal of justices enthroned for life by an executive and a Congress which threatened to impose their will unless it was acquiesced to by the judiciary. We can certainly trust their interpretations of the Constitution can't we. No, I think not. I think that the language of the Constitution itself and the writings of the period which surrounded the arguments for and against adopting it are the best measures of interpreting it. I'll not substitute the musings of FDR and the 8 justices that he appointed to the court after threatening it to bend it to his will for the opinions and conclusions written by those who participated in both the writing of the document and the debate that surrounded adopting it. I will not accept as accurate the conclusions reached by his appointees who had no respect for judicial consistency, stare decisis or judicial restraint since acceptance would be granting to them that which they refused by their actions to grant to those that came before them.

And I will not accept your antiquated, original-intent "Sovereign Citizen" nonsense that's been modified by 230 years of settled law. I activated my right-wing-bullsh*t-detector quite some time ago....

So there we are...

LadyJazzer wrote: Thanks for that continuing-but-tiresome lecture on 18th Century "founding father" trivia... We're always so "surprised" when you regurgitate the whole Sovereign Citizen, Federalist, original-intent, Constitution Party , LawAndLiberty , ReasonOfFreedom , PoliticsOfLiberty , TeaPartyPatriot excursions into what you THINK the Constitution says, or should have said. The Supreme Court interprets, and has done so for a little over 230 years. Their interpretations of what it means are what is important, and not the libertarian nonsense of the radical right. The "general welfare" clause was not "invented", but obviously it has been interpreted to mean something you don't agree with.

It's always so good to know, with such absolute certainty, what ALL of the 13 States would have done 230 years based on your interpretation of it.

Oh well.....

I stopped reading anything Print Smith posts months ago. Vikings and Nymisis's posts are had to swallow as well, and if you can somehow swallow them, you can't keep em down. Pure garbage

VL, I'll ask them to use little words so you can digest them.

To address the quote of the first post in this thread; equating the Tea Party with Libertarianism is a non-starter. Tea Party is NOT Libertarian. That postulate is a leap.

archer wrote:

TPP wrote: That and the Damn phone ringing....

I'm sure there's an app for that lol

lol They do, it's called "Caller I.D."