
Originally Posted by
Sigfried
If that moral view is liberty, yes absolutely. I believe strongly in monopoly of power in order to ensure a power vacuum. If the federal government didn't ensure a freedom of speech, then many states may well exclude that freedom. The freedom to deny other people freedom is not freedom. Opression used to remove opression is not real opression. ODN is a decent example. We limit the kinds of things people can do with the intent of allowing most people to have civil discussions. Is it tyrany to kick out spammers and trolls? Or is it a way to allow mostly decent people to discuss important topics?
Ther is a line of thinking that any and all authority is bad. I don't ascribe to that. I think authority used for ill is bad. If authority is unchecked then there is no means for stopping it from being bad. However, provided you have the means to keep authority in check, then it is not bad in and of itself. It can in fact be used to stop bad people from doing bad things. Wihtout any authority bad people can act unchecked by any limitations. That is true Tyrany.
That is not the intent, or at least not mine. My intent is to keep bigots from opressing and mistreating those who are the target of their biggotry. They can think what they like and express what they like, but they can't act on those impulses that call on them to harrass the target of their narrow minded hatred. And of couse since they can speak their crappy thoughts, I can counter them with mine and they will have to listen as I tell them what idiots they are but I won't use force to silence them.
Legally I don't care how people feel. Socialy, well ya, I will marginalize the hell out of folks that are assholes to others. It's not like by accepting their bigoted views I am going to see any greater unity, their whole viewpoint is one of seperation and marginalization. But turning on them I create no greater disharmony than they already proposed themselves. All I am doing is standing with the people they are attacking, making it so instead of them corraling off and attacking a small group, they are the small group corraling themselves off with their hateful views while the rest of us stand in solidarity treating eachother as human beings of equal respect.
What exactly would have pre civil war states done to stop the patriot act? States have never really had the ability to stop federal actions unless the jurisdiction crossed into the state.
But it is not the hands of a few, it is the hands of all. Every state sends representatives that make up the bulk of the poewer of the federal government.
I think you utterly misunderstand the founding fathers. They had no special fear of central government, they had a fear of government that did not serve the interests of its people. Their central tenant was that government serve the people at the will of the people. If the people will a strong central organization and that best serves them then that is the best way for government to opperate. If disperate government with weak central powers is what the people choose and it serves them well than that is the best way for it to opperate.
What we have found is that to best ensure the liberties we hold so dear, we have had to organize a strong central government to protect said liberty agaisnt small tyrants who would deprive it of us on a local and regional basis. While some indeed feared that a strong central state might lead to a loss of liberty, many of them held most dear the liberty to exploit other peoople which is of coruse just tyrany in disguise.
Ah, you mean the most powerful and prosperous nation in the world, and the most powerful and prosperous the world has ever known? That nation? The one that really wasn't all that powerful or all that prosperous before the civil war but afterwards became the greatest and often most admired on earth and in history? Ya, we really got wrecked there! And to think if only we'd let the south succede based on the principle of federalism and perpetuate slavery into the 20th century we'd be all so much better off and our nation so much stronger and more free.
Sorry but you are living in a fantacy of your own creation. National unity and a commitment to individual liberty is what makes America great. Not the rights of local land barons to exploit people of a different skin color, religion, or ethnic herritage. That has not made america great, nor will it ever do so.
Not even close to reality. The states wanted to dictate that all black men were loosers. The federal government stood for giveing blacks and whites an equal say. I don't see who the federal government has been dictating as loosers in society. I can't think of any categorical federal rules that are making whole classes of people suffer unduly or elevating others.
Do you have some specifics for me, some actual example anywhere near as relevant as slavery where the federal power has led to some terrible outcome of abrigation of liberty? I can provide you with hosts of cases where the federal government has come to the rescue of citizens treated disparigingly by local authorities.
The vikiings abused everyone else. They raped, murderd, robbed and terrorized much of Europe for quite some time. They invented the lovely blood eagle. I love me some Vikings but they were right bastards to anyone they didn't see as part of their own clan.
Yes Nazis are bad. The Veit-Vong Khmer Rouge. Some communitsts are terrible, others not so much. The Veit-Cong arn't really in the same league. My point however was that non-centralized states can also be monstrous and that not all centralized states are monstrous. ISIS doesn't have a strong central government and they are doing plenty of evil these days. Evil and opression comes in all sizes. It only takes one person to think their life and desires take president over someone elses. Then it is only a question of how much power you have to do that kind of harm.
I never said it would return slavery. I only said that those who argued so strongly for state's rights at the time did so for the right to keep other human beings from having rights and many of those today most adamant about states rights seek the right to foster some other oppression protected by our bill of rights.
And if you knew your history you would know the 14th ammendment was part and parcel to the outcome of the civil war and was created with the intent of keeping southern states from disenfranchising black citizens in any way they could muster short of slavery.
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