The Texas Unmiracle

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='Marie-Therese' timestamp='1313554468' post='2289683']

LOLWUT???

The founders had a pretty freaking clear idea of what the executive branch was. It was, to put it bluntly, an[b] executor[/b]. The Constitution pretty clearly enumerated the job of the President (that would be Article II of the Constitution) and nowhere therein did it leave any ambiguity about some potential to morph the executive into some ruler of the populace. For your reference, here is the text of the Constitution (Article II, Sections 2-4) which reference the enumerated powers attributed to the Presidency. You'll find them startlingly lacking in ambiguity.



That's the job description. The President should have no more and no less authority than what is explicitly laid out here. Whether or not that is the case is obviously another discussion.

And to your last point, the answer is no. An individual wishing to take a position of authority should not openly advocate for a course of action which is in direct opposition to the position that individual wishes to hold. That is generally considered to be a conflict of interest. If he wants to change America, then let him say that. If he wants to make Texas an independent nation, then let him say that. But to somehow combine the two sentiments, I say that should disqualify him from holding the office of President.
[/quote]


I fail to see what is amusing. The Constitution has not been followed since at least 1861, ( well really 1798 but who is counting) so while I am quite well versed in what it says, what it says in meaningless. The POTUS is a ruler, and has been since old Honest Abe, and as a ruler has been accumulating power since at a pretty fair rate since Wilson, with occasional huge jumps in power like FDR. Authority and Power are not the same thing, the POTUS' Authority is formally quite limited, and while it has grown a great deal in practice it has notkept pace with his power. The President's actual power is now staggering, far greater than many kings of medieval Europe. Executive order is way out of control.

And you did not address my last point at all. I never said anything about cobining the two sentements, quite the contrary.

Perry said if things did not change then Texas might have to seceed, Perry is now running for an office in which he might be able to cause such change, thus Perry could indeed be running in an effort to prevent the dissolution of the Union, as states like Texas Oklahoma and Arizona get progressively more offended by the Federal government.

[Marie-Therese]

[quote name='Don John of Austria' timestamp='1313556211' post='2289709']


I fail to see what is amusing. The Constitution has not been followed since at least 1861, ( well really 1798 but who is counting) so while I am quite well versed in what it says, what it says in meaningless. The POTUS is a ruler, and has been since old Honest Abe, and as a ruler has been accumulating power since at a pretty fair rate since Wilson, with occasional huge jumps in power like FDR. Authority and Power are not the same thing, the POTUS' Authority is formally quite limited, and while it has grown a great deal in practice it has notkept pace with his power. The President's actual power is now staggering, far greater than many kings of medieval Europe. Executive order is way out of control.

And you did not address my last point at all. I never said anything about cobining the two sentements, quite the contrary.

Perry said if things did not change then Texas might have to seceed, Perry is now running for an office in which he might be able to cause such change, thus Perry could indeed be running in an effort to prevent the dissolution of the Union, as states like Texas Oklahoma and Arizona get progressively more offended by the Federal government.
[/quote]

1. You are missing a huge point. I never said the practical powers of the presidency weren't unchecked. In fact, I said plainly above that the misappropriation of power to the central State and thereby, to the president, was the entire reason that the country was in its present state. My point is specifically that the president was never intended to be a ruler. Such a position is expressly forbidden by the Constitution. The fact that the government has used the Constitution for little more than toilet paper is not the point here. The point is that to elect a president on the premise that his "rule" would be somehow better than another person's is to buy in to the same self-perpetuating cycle of government interventionism and usurpation of unlawful authority. The goal of the American electorate should be to GET RID OF RULERS. Full stop. We are at a precipice of choice where the country will submit to a new monarchy or we will make decisions which will return the government of the country back to the local level, where it should have remained. "Perry would be a better/more benevolent/more considerate/whatever ruler" is the entire crux of my point...if you elect someone based on that, then you submit yourself to being ruled. No equivocation. And as my initial post stated, voting for one of these clowns as opposed to another simply based on political polemics is pretty silly, because the only language they speak is money. I hold zero faith in any establishment candidate, from any party. The American political system is morally bankrupt and inherently corrupted.

2. And in terms of Perry, while I understand your argument, I think it's inherently flawed. You don't wave a red flag at a bull and then somehow state that your hope was to calm it down. Inflammatory rhetoric (which, regardless of whether people are serious, secession IS inflammatory rhetoric) doesn't give him any gravitas in terms of being a committed change agent. What it does is to tell people that this man is willing to break the mirror if the image is unsatisfactory. And as I said, multiple times, my point is not to argue the merits of secession. It is to say that that particular public position is not consistent with someone who is serious about administering the business of the country. Those statements tend to point up a considered bias toward Texas. That's not a bad thing, btw. The governor of a state ought to have some bias. However, those public statements don't engender confidence that Perry's decisions would hold the interests of the entire country at heart.

Edited August 17, 2011 by Marie-Therese

[Clare~Therese]

[quote name='Lil Red' timestamp='1313552407' post='2289653']
pretty much how i'm feeling.
[/quote]

Me too, except I can't vote yet.

[Jesus_lol]

[quote name='Brother Adam' timestamp='1313518373' post='2289234']

Why did he cut money from public education and why is he bad for doing that? From what I understand most public education systems are over saturated with money and under performing - they simply don't work. If I give you money to do something and you don't do it, I'll probably take the money away from you. Or was there just no money in the budget and he was being fiscally conservative and not spending what he didn't have. As a Catholic I am not a fan of public education which exists for the state to make citizens of the state. I think of it as an absolute last case scenario when a family cannot home school or send their children to private school.
[/quote]
[quote name='Brother Adam' timestamp='1313536895' post='2289438']

Sorry, but the bureaucracy is corrupted, specially where unions are involved. One local district receives over $130,000 on average per classroom. You would never know it based on the classrooms, but the BMW's and Benz's the district administrators drive is a dead give away. Reform of the use of the money they have is far more important giving more money. About 60% of my catechists are public educators and they all agree. The teachers may need more money for their classrooms and their kids, but usually the school districts as a whole do not.

[/quote]
so why phrase it as the education system needs less money? sure, improvements can be made, but that doesnt change the fact that education in the USA is severely underfunded, and as a direct result standards of literacy, knowledge, science, math are falling fast.

if you are paying a construction crew a really insultingly cheap rate and things arent happening right, and it turns out that the foreman is skimming off the top, the solution is not to give them less money. even if the division of funds is corrected, there is still an overall funding problem.


[quote]Personally, I would invite Oklahoma, Mississippi and Lousiana to go with us, and maybe Arkansas for purely geographic reasons. Maybe Alabama if they asked real nice like.
Seriously, I mean I understand that we are supporting the poorer states, Texas is a donor state but I really doubt that people would be willing to fight to hold Texas or anyone else in the union.
[/quote]
[img]http://exportingblue.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/2987025203_fc2c517522_o.jpg[/img]

It seems the majority of the states that Texas is supporting are the states that would be going with it in a seccession. the same states that have been fiscally conservative, "smart with money" right wing upstanding fellows.
the Typically liberal states are actually supporting most of the country, along with texas and a few others.

[quote]
Have you not heard the pitiful whining about the casualties in our 2 current wars? I do notthink that say new yorkers would be too keen on seeing the body bags that would come from a civil war today, it would make our 2 current wars look like a really rough game of football.
[/quote]

what in the hell are you saying here?
pitiful whining??? about soldiers lifes needlessly lost, about rampant friendly fire and coverups? about millions(!!!) of dead iraqi and afghanistan [i]civilians[/i]. if you arent unhappy with the casualty level in these wars then something is wrong with you.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='Marie-Therese' timestamp='1313557322' post='2289725']

1. You are missing a huge point. I never said the practical powers of the presidency weren't unchecked. In fact, I said plainly above that the misappropriation of power to the central State and thereby, to the president, was the entire reason that the country was in its present state. My point is specifically that the president was never intended to be a ruler. Such a position is expressly forbidden by the Constitution. The fact that the government has used the Constitution for little more than toilet paper is not the point here. The point is that to elect a president on the premise that his "rule" would be somehow better than another person's is to buy in to the same self-perpetuating cycle of government interventionism and usurpation of unlawful authority. The goal of the American electorate should be to GET RID OF RULERS. Full stop. We are at a precipice of choice where the country will submit to a new monarchy or we will make decisions which will return the government of the country back to the local level, where it should have remained. "Perry would be a better/more benevolent/more considerate/whatever ruler" is the entire crux of my point...if you elect someone based on that, then you submit yourself to being ruled. No equivocation. And as my initial post stated, voting for one of these clowns as opposed to another simply based on political polemics is pretty silly, because the only language they speak is money. I hold zero faith in any establishment candidate, from any party. The American political system is morally bankrupt and inherently corrupted.

2. And in terms of Perry, while I understand your argument, I think it's inherently flawed. You don't wave a red flag at a bull and then somehow state that your hope was to calm it down. Inflammatory rhetoric (which, regardless of whether people are serious, secession IS inflammatory rhetoric) doesn't give him any gravitas in terms of being a committed change agent. What it does is to tell people that this man is willing to break the mirror if the image is unsatisfactory. And as I said, multiple times, my point is not to argue the merits of secession. It is to say that that particular public position is not consistent with someone who is serious about administering the business of the country. Those statements tend to point up a considered bias toward Texas. That's not a bad thing, btw. The governor of a state ought to have some bias. However, those public statements don't engender confidence that Perry's decisions would hold the interests of the entire country at heart.
[/quote]


I fundementally disagree, I think someone saying " if we can't change this its going to have to be destroyed, so lets try to change it" is a perfectly viable and logical position. I understand exactly what you are trying to say I simply disagree, I think that says that he indeed would make his decisions with the interests of the entire country at heart, the interest of the entire country, those interest being the changing the relationship of the Federal government to the States.


I prefer the term dictatorship for what is happening here, most western monarchs were bound by custom, our President is decidedly not. The Constitution is indeed being used as toilet paper. Perry claims he intends to restore the proper relationship of the States to the central government. That seems like exactly what is needed, I don't know the man personally, I have met him, he seemed sincere enough, but he is a politician so I take that with more than a grain of Salt, but he seems like the only person in the race who has actually stated that this relationship must be changed. He has said it dramaticly, by stateing that if it doesn't the country will break. What would you have someone running for president say, if not that the Fedral government needed to return local control to the States?

[Brother Adam]

[quote name='Don John of Austria' timestamp='1313553856' post='2289676']
I concider waste a symtom of over saturation, having taught in Catholic schools where we saved our scaps of construction paper becuase we could not afford more, and having taught in public school where I got handed a P card and told to go down an buy up to 600 bucks of stuff for my room. Yeah I think it is got way more money than it needs. Money is notthe answer to education.
[/quote]

I agree, money has little to do with success in education.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='Jesus_lol' timestamp='1313557974' post='2289730']
[img]http://exportingblue.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/2987025203_fc2c517522_o.jpg[/img]

It seems the majority of the states that Texas is supporting are the states that would be going with it in a seccession. the same states that have been fiscally conservative, "smart with money" right wing upstanding fellows.
the Typically liberal states are actually supporting most of the country, along with texas and a few others.



what in the hell are you saying here?
pitiful whining??? about soldiers lifes needlessly lost, about rampant friendly fire and coverups? about millions(!!!) of dead iraqi and afghanistan [i]civilians[/i]. if you arent unhappy with the casualty level in these wars then something is wrong with you.
[/quote]


Well i would be okay supporting Oklahoma, Mississippi and Lousiana for a while, if you understand the economic geography of the area you would understand why. Control of the mouth of the Mississippi alone would be worth supporting Mississippi and Lousiana. The economic zone of control into the Gulf would certainly pick up a great deal of slack.

I am saying that america has become a nation of wusses which cry and whine about a miniscule number of casualties in long and brutal war. We have lost fewer troops in afghanastan in 10 years than we people died on Sept 11, a lot fewer. I opposed the Iraqi invasion, I opposed it vocally, ON PHATMASS for that matter ( oh how I wish the old board had survived the move) but we invaded and we beat the tar out of them and held the entire country for years with a level of casualties that is unprecedented in history. We should have applauded our military leaders as increadible instead we vilified them and actually acted as if we were losing.

Can you please direct me to a reputable source forthese milliaons of civilian casualties? The best i can find even from obviously slanted sources is fewer than 30,000 afghan dead and credible accounts on Iraq are near 100,000, that is including all indirect death and deaths resulting from excess crime causedby the disolution of public authority. Even if you tripled them, and then added them together you wouldn't reach 400,000 much less a million.

[Lil Red]

moving to debate table.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='Brother Adam' timestamp='1313528363' post='2289344']
Back to Perry, we have only covered one decision (not really even a policy) that Catholics disagree with. Why else is he the wrong choice? What makes Obama a better option? Where does he stand on the 5 non-negotiable issues for Catholics? What about national defense? How will he fix our fiscal problems? Immigration policy? Does he pull the full republican party line or deviate from it and where?
[/quote]

He stands with the Church on the 5 non negotiables.

[Ice_nine]

[quote name='Jesus_lol' timestamp='1313557974' post='2289730']
what in the hell are you saying here?
pitiful whining??? about soldiers lifes needlessly lost, about rampant friendly fire and coverups? about millions(!!!) of dead iraqi and afghanistan [i]civilians[/i]. if you arent unhappy with the casualty level in these wars then something is wrong with you.
[/quote]

Yeah the kind of attitude and disregard for human life makes my stomach churn. I guess that's because I'm a wuss? Can't stomach even one needless and unnecessary death too well it seems. If a few people minding their own business get their homes and lives blown to hell no boo-hooing that's the way the cookie crumbles.

If you (not you J_lol) think lamenting the loss of human life is likened to "whining" then I hope that God will soften your heart a bit more. That attitude is sad and kind of disturbing.

[quote name='Don John of Austria' timestamp='1313560319' post='2289751']
I am saying that america has become a nation of wusses which cry and whine about a miniscule number of casualties in long and brutal war. We have lost fewer troops in afghanastan in 10 years than we people died on Sept 11, a lot fewer. I opposed the Iraqi invasion, I opposed it vocally, ON PHATMASS for that matter ( oh how I wish the old board had survived the move) but we invaded and we beat the tar out of them and held the entire country for years with a level of casualties that is unprecedented in history. We should have applauded our military leaders as increadible instead we vilified them and actually acted as if we were losing.
[/quote]

So by your own admission "America" basically came in and bullied a country into submission for ten years and, congratulations, it didn't cost [i]that[/i] many lives? What did the American military really accomplish at the cost of (at least) hundreds of thousands of lives? If this many lives were lost and a reciprocal amount of positive progress were to be made I can understand how people could tolerate the body count a little bit better. But can you tell me what good the Iraqi invasion has done, or what "we" accomplished other than coming in with guns blazing and pwning their asses? That to me is what makes the number casualities even [i]harder[/i] to swallow. Apparently I shouldn't be upset about "America" coming into a country like a thug on a power trip and beating up on whoever is weaker. I don't understand your point.

[quote]Can you please direct me to a reputable source forthese milliaons of civilian casualties? The best i can find even from obviously slanted sources is fewer than 30,000 afghan dead and credible accounts on Iraq are near 100,000, that is including all indirect death and deaths resulting from excess crime causedby the disolution of public authority. Even if you tripled them, and then added them together you wouldn't reach 400,000 much less a million.[/quote]

I don't know what will pass your test of what is reputable, but why is the sheer number of deaths so important to you? I guess the Giffords shooting wasn't a big deal. Only six people were killed, what's the big deal? Is it because of the witnesses, the details, the faces of the victims made the occasion intimate enough for us to mourn the deaths? When we're talking about thousands of faceless Iraqis, Afghans, and US servicemen it becomes "whining"? Part of me wants to understand your point of view, while the other part of me just wants to write you off because I become disturbed when I try to ponder the logic behind what you're trying to say.

[dairygirl4u2c]

Quote

Should the nation follow the shining example set by liberal states such as California or Michigan?


I'd guess that Germany is more the sort of backwards, socialist hell-hole that Krugman has in mind.

----

he actually mentioned massachusetts specifically, and how it's faring better than texas, and he mentioned a couple other states, too. while noting massachusetts has obamacare implemented at its state level, essentially, and etc, yet still does better.
and, he noted that much of texas not doing as poorly, was due to the fact that texas has a highly regulated real estate industry... preventing what happened everywhere else. this is the opposite of 'government regulation is bad'.
of course, it's not as simple as regulation is good, or it's bad. common sense good reguation is good, and non is bad. it's not so black and white people.

Edited August 17, 2011 by dairygirl4u2c

[Winchester]

The main problem with Krugman's theory is that Perry didn't really apply the free market principles that Krugman claims to understand and oppose. But I do think it's funny that Krugman admitted government property control leads to higher prices.

And he also indicted easy credit, which is a cornerstone of his economic theory of printing tons of fiat money and giving it to people so they can drive the economy by spending every dime. If only the money attains the proper velocity!

Edited August 17, 2011 by Winchester

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='Ice_nine' timestamp='1313568409' post='2289798']

Yeah the kind of attitude and disregard for human life makes my stomach churn. I guess that's because I'm a wuss? Can't stomach even one needless and unnecessary death too well it seems. If a few people minding their own business get their homes and lives blown to hell no boo-hooing that's the way the cookie crumbles.

If you (not you J_lol) think lamenting the loss of human life is likened to "whining" then I hope that God will soften your heart a bit more. That attitude is sad and kind of disturbing.

[/quote]

War is an unpleasant buisness, having it happen in your own country is also quite unpleasant. However, and this may be a shock to you, people get killed in war, it is strange I know, but it happens. As a Catholic, death is not the worst thing I can think of, many many things are worth going to war over, this is knowing, in advance, that people will, shockingly, die in those wars.

[quote name='Ice_nine' timestamp='1313568409' post='2289798']
So by your own admission "America" basically came in and bullied a country into submission for ten years and, congratulations, it didn't cost [i]that[/i] many lives? What did the American military really accomplish at the cost of (at least) hundreds of thousands of lives? If this many lives were lost and a reciprocal amount of positive progress were to be made I can understand how people could tolerate the body count a little bit better. But can you tell me what good the Iraqi invasion has done, or what "we" accomplished other than coming in with guns blazing and pwning their asses? That to me is what makes the number casualities even [i]harder[/i] to swallow. Apparently I shouldn't be upset about "America" coming into a country like a thug on a power trip and beating up on whoever is weaker. I don't understand your point.

[/quote]

Well As I said, I opposed the invasion of Iraq, but the miniscule casualties we have suffered was not the reason, I was concerned that hussein might still have some sarin stashed away and that our casualties would be much higher, but that was not the reason either. We do not draft anyone, if you join the military you know what you are getting into, armies exist to fight, not as humaitarian organizations, when armies fight, casualties occur, if you do not want to fight, do not join the military.


Wht the iraqi invasion accomplished--- it removed Saddam Hussein from power, he was a monster who put children into wood chippers in front of thier parents to make a point. He ruled there for 25 years or so, and would still be ruling had we not removed him. That seems like a fairly serious accomplishment to me. He was also unfinished buisness, we made conditions in 91 which were simply untenable for him, and he could not comply with them, however, his lack of compliance made America look weak, and that realisticly had to be dealt with eventually.

I opposed the invasion because Hussein, monster that he was, protected his Christians, more than any other ruler in that area, and I figured when he was gone the Chaldeans would be persecuted, unfortunately I was right.

However there was not hundreds of thousands of deaths, in both wars, if you include all possible deaths, direct, indirect,crime etc, all military deaths on all sides, etc, then you still only get to 175,000 or so. That just isn't all that many for what amounts to 17 years of war ( 10 in one country and 7 in the other).

[quote name='Ice_nine' timestamp='1313568409' post='2289798']
I don't know what will pass your test of what is reputable, but why is the sheer number of deaths so important to you? I guess the Giffords shooting wasn't a big deal. Only six people were killed, what's the big deal? Is it because of the witnesses, the details, the faces of the victims made the occasion intimate enough for us to mourn the deaths? When we're talking about thousands of faceless Iraqis, Afghans, and US servicemen it becomes "whining"? Part of me wants to understand your point of view, while the other part of me just wants to write you off because I become disturbed when I try to ponder the logic behind what you're trying to say.
[/quote]

Well Saddam husein was responsable for hundreds of thousands of deaths of his own people, far more than have dies in our invasion, so the number of deaths directly relates to Proportionality, which is a serious concideration for one when discussing war. The number of deaths is important.

Mourning deaths is one thing, crying out to withdraw for the "quagmire" of Iraq is something else all together. the entire Iraq war cost fewer american lives than the first day of Tarawa, in a country of 300,000,000 people 4500 deaths over a 7 year occupation of a hostile country is just not a crisis. We should have been yelling "Veni, Vedi, Veci" fro the roof tops, instead we were having a national crisis about it. America has apparently lost its stomach for war, you may find that an acceptable social development, I did not argue aboutthat at all, I only commented that the north seemed to have lost it more than say Texas, and I thought that should an actual attempt at secession occur I did notthink the average urban northerner would be up for a civil war. I do not see anything in your post to make me reconsider that postion.


I fail to se what a crazy persons shooting of civilians on the street has to do with casualties of war.

[dairygirl4u2c]

he admitted that zoning can cause prices to increase on houses. at the most fundamental level, it's not secret that regulations, or taxes etc, can cause economic activity to be hindered. that's not what makes him a liberal, or not, that he might or might not concede to that point. that's econ 101
what makes him a liberal, is that foremost, he'd say sometimes those costs are worth it, liberal 101... and secondarily, and more characteristic of krugman and the smart liberals, is that he says sometimes regulations and such are actually good for economics, and that sometimes things like low wages can be more problematic, or that it's not always true that if only we gave the rich or those who pay taxes, everything they asaked for, that we'd all be better for it. (to exaggerate.), that economics are only maximized that way. and of course keynes is the econ 101 that many conservatives forget actually works, as much as they dont like it.

Edited August 17, 2011 by dairygirl4u2c

[Winchester]

What makes him a progressive is that, worth it or not, he believes the State has the right to pass whatever regulations it likes in its attempt to control society.

They don't believe it's "sometimes" worth it. They believe they always have the right to attempt to make our lives better through their decisions about how we will live our lives.