kurtster wrote: 
Yeah, with total and complete lies! 

 aflanigan wrote: 
sweet jumping jesus!

fyt

see this gives me hope

we don't have a constitutional government now

regardless, we shouldn't stifle the evolution of human rights by concentrating all the power into fewer hands

and those powerful hands are for sale (lobbying/bribery)

for the right price, they create exceptions to the rule and back them up with force

and when we create (or sell those exceptions to politically connected cronies) we really don't have a rule anymore

forcing one obviously corrupt experiment on everyone is just wrong and it creates resentment and division among those fighting to use the power for their benefit

if our government really was a constitutional government then we'd at least have 50 or so different/unique experiments going on

who wants to bribe thousands and thousands when you can bribe tens or hundreds?

peaceful voluntary organization with respect to human rights should be encouraged

and we both know that it is not

dissension and disagreement against our forceful and aggressive rule is criminalized

we're fools if we think we can get virtuous and ethical results from a immoral and corrupt system

that will never ever happen and the sooner we're intellectually honest with ourselves and admit it and move to peacefully correct it, the better

regards

 Isabeau wrote: 
This is 2013, I barely remember Bush. It would behoove us all to realize Bush barely made any decisions when he was President, he sure as heck ain't making any now.

 kurtster wrote: 
Happy fishing my dear 

 Isabeau wrote: 

Only because you infered Iraq with 'WMD's/MissionAccomplished', I will remind you that at least Bush went to Congress and asked for a vote on the matter.  I will remind you that Bush's appointee to the SCOTUS, Roberts cast the deciding vote in favor of Obamacare.  I will remind you somewhere that soon after Obama was elected for the first time, somewhere in these threads I said that Obama would be Bush on steroids.  I have long compared Obama to Bush.

I am not the one sided partisan that you think I am, just sayin ...



  ps, that was then, this is now.  Surely you can do better than two wrongs make a right ...

 kurtster wrote: 
I do believe this particular function of the Constitution was especially enhanced during the George 'WMD's/MissionAccomplished' Bush Administration. 
We - no longer 'The People' but 'The Blind' - are definitely copping different feels of the same Elephant aren't we?  

 Manbird wrote: 

It is interesting — albeit not pleasant — to observe a civilization in freefall. Panglossian optimists continue to hope — as they would at the death-bed of a loved one — for a miracle to reverse the terminal course. The belief that someone in authority can change all of this; that new leadership or new machinery can make us better than we are, continues to drive minds that have been conditioned in institutional thinking. Most of us have simply accepted, with little examination, the statist premise so well articulated by Jacques Ellul: “e believe that for the world to be in good order, the state must have all the powers.” “Waiting For a Leader,” the title of a New York Times editorial written in response to New Orleans, reflects the same pathetic attitude one saw on the faces of victims at the convention center in New Orleans. This inclination is as fatal to a society as it is to those who passively await salvation by the state.

Western civilization will not be saved by the same forces that are destroying it. Einstein said it best: “a problem cannot be solved by the same thinking that created it.” Neocons and other deluded minds continue to dream of empire, as though the arrow of time can be reversed and, in the process, resurrect the fantasized world of Roman emperors or Napoleon. While the pretenders at various Washington, D.C. think-tanks continue to fancy themselves in purple and ermine robes, the realities upon which the world functions will continue their incessant march toward the decentralized, horizontally-networked systems that are rapidly displacing the command-and-control vertical structures that have long dominated mankind.

I do not recall the author of the words that have long been burned into my mind: “a man has a moral duty not to allow his children to live under tyranny.” At no time in my life has this obligation been called to accountability more than now, as our institutionalized thinking continues to play out, in exponential fashion, its implicit absurdities. The qualities that either foster or destroy a civilization are ultimately to be found only within the character and thinking of the individuals who comprise it. Our world is only as peaceful, free, loving, and creative as you and I make it; and can become violent, tyrannical, inhumane, and destructive only as our individual thinking produces such ends.

I have written of the common origins of the words “peace,” “freedom,” “love,” and “friend.” Most of us have long since forgotten what our ancestors must have implicitly understood, namely, that the intertwining of the qualities inherent in the meaning of these words is what produces a decent society. To institutionalized minds, the idea that a free and peaceful world is dependent upon people living as friends, with genuine love for one another, is passé. In our politically-structured world, “confrontation,” “control,” “ambition,” and “ally” have corrupted such earlier sentiments. These changes in thinking have been necessary to sustain the conflict-ridden world of institutional domination. A healthy society held together by trust and mutual respect deteriorates, in a politicized world, into one dominated by fear and incivility.

A complex system may experience turbulence and, later, reach a bifurcation point to which either a creative response will be made, or the system will collapse into total entropy. Modern society appears to be at such a point. The question before us is how we are to respond: by mobilizing our intelligence to generate systems that are supportive of life, or to allow the nature of our present practices to play out the destructive consequences of their premises?

 aflanigan wrote: 
Have a good one.

 Red_Dragon wrote: 

You win.  Time to call it a day.  That's two typos in three posts!

 aflanigan wrote: 
I don't even know what that is; how could I be doing it?

 Red_Dragon wrote: 

Anyway, I'm going to stick to the traditional spelling of sceptic, despite recent trends. And if you continue to harrass me, I'm going to toss you in the sceptique tank.

 aflanigan wrote: 
I have a contract.

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
What, are you subbing for Mary?

 aflanigan wrote: 
Yes, it does have its problems. Not least of which is its inability to provide education on the proper use of the letters c, k and apostrophes.

 Lazy8 wrote: 

Just because I have so far resisted your and Miamizsun's attempts to sway me to the side of libertarianism, doesn't mean I'm not sceptical of our ability to make our constitutional form of government work.  It has it's faults, and is entirely too prone to corruption.

To paraphrase Churchill, a Constitutional Republic is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried/proposed.

aflanigan wrote:
*Checks aflanigan's temperature*

You feeling all right bro?

 aflanigan wrote: 
Mark this day down, I approve this message.

 Manbird wrote: 
but your socks still don't stay up

 Isabeau wrote: 
Can't go wrong with a good old-fashioked Dip Needle, Kelvin Pattern style. 
It's like gerbil kung-fu.