Motts growing nightmare

[apple0154]

Apple, you're complete inability to move beyond materialism is what's wrong with your arguments. The American Founders were not leftists, and hence, absolutely nothing about their worldview was in any way driven by materialism. The Natural Rights that constitute American liberty are grounded in principle. Principles such as civic virtue, ordered liberty, belief in a higher power and purpose, and honor.

Stop looking at this matter through materialist prisms, such as class warfare and welfare bureaucracy. People experience liberty through independence and self-determination, also known as equality of opportunity. Not through equality of circumstance!

"The US Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself."
-Benjamin Franklin

The opportunity is not here today. Acquiring a piece of land requires more than a fast horse in a land rush. How many people can take a rifle and go hunt dinner?

When the ideas in the Constitution were put on paper the reality was different. People were a lot more equal in the sense everyone was required to do the same thing the same way. If one wanted a garden they had to dig the soil by hand which changed with the invention of the tractor and other farming instruments. The same applies to almost everything else.

The reality of 1776 is no longer. If one insists on sticking with the same principals we have to ensure other things are as equal as they were in 1776.

There is no "equal opportunity" today unless the government makes it so. For example, survival largely depends on education and acquiring an education is not an equal opportunity for everyone because not everyone can afford an education.

From products to services technology has replaced the idea the average person can earn a living simply by working. What we consider menial tasks today, tasks most anyone can perform, were "trades" and "professions" of yesteryear. Thus, everyone had the same opportunity. With a decent work ethic anyone could earn a living because earning a living did not require specialized knowledge. Most people were capable of doing some required job regardless of their education.

Considering opportunities and circumstances/reality have changed over the last 200+ years wouldn't the Founding Fathers still have wanted each and everyone to have similar opportunities and chances to pursue the benefits of liberty?

You're right. It wasn't about materialism in 1776 because it didn't matter then. The person with no education and no money had just as much a chance to acquire a piece of land and do a job as anyone else.

That has changed. Isn't it time we all adjusted to the reality?

[DamnYankee]

The reality of 1776 is no longer. If one insists on sticking with the same principals we have to ensure other things are as equal as they were in 1776.

Massive fail, no possibility for recovery.

[Threedee]

The opportunity is not here today. Acquiring a piece of land requires more than a fast horse in a land rush. How many people can take a rifle and go hunt dinner?

When the ideas in the Constitution were put on paper the reality was different. People were a lot more equal in the sense everyone was required to do the same thing the same way. If one wanted a garden they had to dig the soil by hand which changed with the invention of the tractor and other farming instruments. The same applies to almost everything else.

The reality of 1776 is no longer. If one insists on sticking with the same principals we have to ensure other things are as equal as they were in 1776.

There is no "equal opportunity" today unless the government makes it so. For example, survival largely depends on education and acquiring an education is not an equal opportunity for everyone because not everyone can afford an education.

From products to services technology has replaced the idea the average person can earn a living simply by working. What we consider menial tasks today, tasks most anyone can perform, were "trades" and "professions" of yesteryear. Thus, everyone had the same opportunity. With a decent work ethic anyone could earn a living because earning a living did not require specialized knowledge. Most people were capable of doing some required job regardless of their education.

Considering opportunities and circumstances/reality have changed over the last 200+ years wouldn't the Founding Fathers still have wanted each and everyone to have similar opportunities and chances to pursue the benefits of liberty?

You're right. It wasn't about materialism in 1776 because it didn't matter then. The person with no education and no money had just as much a chance to acquire a piece of land and do a job as anyone else.

That has changed. Isn't it time we all adjusted to the reality?

Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined.
Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined.
Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined.
Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined.
Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined. Liberalism Defined.


"That, is why you fail." -Yoda

[Professor Baxter]

Liberalism Defined.

Same argument given by righties on birthright citizenship.

[Threedee]

Same argument given by righties on birthright citizenship.

Personally, I'm not going to worry much if we continue to allow anchor babies or if we amend to constitution to address it. I don't even know if abolishing anchor babies would effect illegal immigration much.

If we were doing a good job of securing the border, tossing people out who are caught here on expired Visas, mainstreaming more people onto green card programs, and whatnot, then it wouldn't have become an issue to begin with.

[Canceled2]

The word "welfare" appears twice in the Constitution. Once in the preamble and again in Article 1, Section 8, as the introduction and purpose of the enumerated powers..

The preamble to the Constitution states:

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Article 1, Section 8 states:

"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States."

In the second useage we can see that it follows the collection of taxes and how they shall be used; cobbled with the first useage we can see that the general welfare relates to using taxes for paying down debt and defence of the country; This interpretation supports the promotion of the peoples general welfare by protecting life and prosperity and encouraging productivity.

Never can it be imposed to suggest that "promoting" a nation of peoples "general" welfare constitutes taking money from the haves to give to the have nots. Another example of "general" welfare for the people would be taxes being spent on roadways; they promote the "general" welfare of all the peoples ability to go from one place to another...they certainly aid in productivity and defence.

hummhuhhummmhuhubhuhummm~~~