Topic: Who do you support for president? (Read 5101 times)

Whoa. The Constitution does not say you can't have a Christian government. It simply dictates the separation of church and state. This was not only to protect religious liberty; the main reason is because our founders had seen the corruption that the churches, especially the Catholic Church, had brought to Europe. Most of our politicians claim to be Christians, so in essence we do have a Christian government; just not a church government. I think that's an important distinction to make. However, there are town governments run by religious organizations: Omish settlements, Mormon towns in the midwest, and Native American reservations (a special case, but still relevant).

As for state's rights and the Civil War/ reconstruction: I think that the Civil War did more damage to America in the long term than most people believe. Lincoln, while an exemplary politician and a man of admirable character, unintentionally helped cause a distortion of how our federal government interacts with the states. In his days in Congress, Lincoln was a strong advocate for the 10th amendment, and had a very moderate stance on slavery; he opposed it, but thought that the best course of action would be to let the states get rid of it on their own, with limited federal involvement. These were tense times, however, and unfortunately Lincoln's only option in his presidency was to exert a lot of Federal power. Of course, he did this in order to preserve the Union, but it had the unintended consequence of increasing the federal government's power disproportionate to the states from what the Founders intended. We've seen increase in power occur with all of our national crises: the entitlement programs of the Great Depression, the hysteria created during the Cold War, and the Patriot Act (etc.) in the modern era. If we do not return the power to the states, America will suffer the fate of all past empires by restricting liberty and abusing power.

I wanted to vote for Vermin Supreme. : \

I think you may be conflating what rights are allowed to be prohibited with what is allowed to be established. Anything is allowed to be established at the local level and up if the constitution doesn't forbid it, but if the constitution says you have free speech or freedom of/from religion, that trumps all laws restricting that freedom all the way to the local level. I.e. if the constitution says you can't have a christian government, not only does that mean you can't have a federal christian government, but that even local town governments can't be established by a church. I'm all for states having rights to decide how they operate, but not for states to make their own decisions to restrict rights otherwise protected by the country as a whole. USA went to war to finally settle that issue.

That hierarchy only applies on issues expressly detailed in the Constitution. On most issues, the order should be Constitution > Local > State > Federal. Most people don't realize that this is what the founders intended.

That would require a constitutional amendment, since Constitution > Federal > State > Local. If the constitution forbids passing a law that restricts rights, NO ONE at any level can pass laws restricting those rights. All the cases you listed were precisely because someone tried to restrict rights on a more local level.

Of course not.  He simply proposes removing court scrutiny from such laws passed by states.


Whoops, there goes;

Katz v. United States
Lawrence v. Texas
Roe v. Wade
Massachusetts v. United States Department of Health and Human Services
probably several more I'm forgetting about

and anything that relies on the precedents from those cases.

President Obama.

He did a stellar job given the sickly obstacles that were put into place.

I want to see the "real" Obama on his second term...

Thank god! I was really worried there until I read your post 

Are you saying the majority in your state is illiterate?  Where do you live?

Well said.  Nothing worse than people that say "if voting could change anything it would be illegal" and acting as if that made them clever.

Instead of mindlessly spouting off useless quips from your unesteemed opinion, try forming a coherent statement backed by verifiable facts. It'll make you look like less of a pretentious prick.

The fun part: still 22 people that voted someone else than Ron Paul.

O my, the USA is screwed 

I would love to hear mark levin's opinion on this. Someone who gets to listen live should call.

Abortion is a distraction issue, people here really vote on that? Instead of rationally choosing the best option you are buying into the emotional appeals. Personally I think this is on purpose, neither major party really has a coherent platform. They both want big government and little government interference at the same time (depending on the issue). The idea that "liberals" want a "socialist utopia" is hypocritical when what "conservatives" want is "strong military". The military will just grow to fill the void created by cutting social programs. As an example, eventually everyone serves in the military so they get VA-offered socialized medicine. Then what?

My point is I think these irrational platforms are maintained on purpose. They may have arisen as the result of various historical factors and politicking, but today they serve to push out any rational voters and make elections a game of emotional appeals and "us vs them." Please don't vote based on abortion. Vote based on the role you think government should play in our society. Should it interfere alot, or little? History has shown that tools given to the government based on these wedge issues just get used later in perverse ways. The same amendment that "freed" the slaves was used to justify corporate personhood.

Forbidding the enslavement of people. I can "enslave" and kill a plant if I so choose, or any group declared not persons, like fetuses. All of the rights described by the federal constitution fly out the window when the federal government refuses to decide to whom they apply. Why not let states decide which rights to protect entirely on their own, if they can pick who gets rights anyways?

Not about grown human slaves, I agree. But pro-lifers would say that abortionists think that way, and bioconservatives would think that way towards non-human intelligences.

I think this would be a bad way to go about it.

Putting intelligence above morality is, IMHO, only going to have disastrous results.

You'd actually choose candidate A, who is morally weak but brilliant, over candidate B, who is merely of average intelligence but has rock-solid, no-compromise good morals (that you agree with?)

Then don't be too surprised when new, brilliantly creative forms of corruption are used to continue stealing public funds, oppressing political dissidents, and generally contributing to the breakdown of the system.

Exactly. This is why the Constitution is a beautiful and sublime document; it was designed for evolution. Once a law is made, that does not and should not mean that it can't be changed or revised. If in a hundred years the state of California decides that you can marry a plant, I don't see why that shouldn't be their decision to make.

Also, slavery has been generally unpopular since forever. It was extremely unpopular in America among the general population. That's not the point though.

+1

Who are the other trolls who chose Rick Santorum like I did?

But that's the point.  Thinking changes.  Morality evolves.  1000 years ago, 100% of people would have said owning slaves was perfectly fine and abortion was a heinous offense.  You could trawl medieval literature and never find a soul who disputed either of these ideas.  Now, 100% of people agree slavery is a hideous offense.  The moral status of abortion is changing as well.

Explodicle - you asked me to say what I think on the issue. Thinking about at what point a clump of cells is to be called human has to be arbitrary.  My view is that if it is capable of living outside the mother's body, it deserves legal protection.  There are abortion clinics where the clump of cells is removed and if it doesn't stop crying real fast, it gets killed.  To me, that is wrong.

The big point here is that none of this gets to be decided by the President; as Explodicle said, all he can do is play political games.  This decision is taken by the supreme Court.  If abortion is your most important issue, then you don't have a democratic way to act on it.  Even if a President is elected that shares your views, and appoints a Supreme Court judge to remove abortion, it still may not happen.  Look at what happened with Bush Senior and David Souter...a once in a generation chance to remove Roe vs. Wade was thrown away.