US and Russian warships line up in dispute over Georgia | World news | guardian.co.uk

I saw we had one coast guard ship...where are the other "ships"?

I don't know, I just posted a link to the article. Haven't been watching Google Earth for the ships.

Wouldn't be a surprise if we sent a few nuclear subs to the area, which of course, wouldn't get publicized. Of course, Russia has their own sub arsenal, so this could be "Hunt for Red October" played out for real!

maybe this is another "missle crisis in cuba" saga, where there is a lot of stuff going on we don't know about, being on the brink of war.

This is worth 5 minutes of your time.

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Nothing like common sense. Gotta love it!

I was just about to post that Luke.

ron paul still running for president.

I take it you are voting for Ron?

He's not running anymore unfortunately.

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I do believe you can write him in if you like.

He had a lot of great ideas.

He also wants to repeal the 14th Amendment. I don't think a sane person could really be in favor of repealing the 14th Amendment.

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If only we could piece together quality items from each candidate and make the best one...imagine the type of country this would be. lol

Yep.

According to Ron Paul, if a state wanted to reinstate Jim Crow laws, they should damn well be able to do so.

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Is he actually quoted as saying that?

That would be an effect of repealing the 14th Amendment.

-- not to mention the fact that the Bill of Rights would not longer be incorporated to the states.

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No it wouldn't and yes it would.


What you're talking about is federalism. Granting the states more power does not necessarily allow them to violate federal law (Jim Crow??? Seriously? The Civil Rights Act of 1964 would still be binding law, no?)

The Bill of Rights is part of the Constitution is the document no state may violate. Now I am not as fresh on my ConLaw as you are, but I fail to see how states would magically be allowed to ignore the Bill of Rights without the 14th.



Now obviously we have oodles of law under the 14th that we like and don't want to mess with, and I am certainly no advocate for touching the 14th. But I don't think your examples hold.

Without the 14th Amendment, where do the feds derive the power to enact 42 U.S.C. 1983? It may work in some cases via the commerce clause, but I don't think it'd have near the power since the commerce clause has been more narrowly construed since the Rehnquist Court than it was during the era of Justice Warren (as now, the thing regulated has to be an actual channel or instrumentality of interstate commerce).

Because the Bill of Rights was only until the 20th century thought to be a restraint on the federal government. The 14th Amendment incorporation doctrine is what makes it applicable to the states.

If you want to see a pretty decent history on the whole incorporation doctrine, there's a good wikipedia article on it:

Incorporation (Bill of Rights) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Probably not Jim Crow, at least as far as the Commerce clause can carry the Civil Rights Act.

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Which is still extremely far. Good history on the incorporation doctrine...seems like the 14th is used to incorporate about dang near anything sorta like the commerce clause was used to legislate about dang near antyhing.

In honor of the maritime beginnings of this thread which are long forgotten, I shall answer your post in naval parlance.

Aye aye.

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I think Ron Paul and other Libertarian minded folks don't want reform. They want revolution. What they really want isn't a return to some "constitutionalists" America (which probably never existed) but to start an altogether new country.

The number of things they want to dismantle, destroy, or other wise get rid of in the current form of American government is so radical it would be require a literal revolution--the shooting kind, not the Gingrich kind.

For all the flaws of the current system, the amount of sheer chaos caused by the "reforms" the Paulites advocate, would make the result likely more like the Russian and Chinese Revolutions than anything in American history.

The prime reason for this is that it would take a ruthless and totalitarian leader such as Stalin to impose such radical changes.

I'd add the caveat that the Civil War might be a similar analog. However, Paul's ideas are more radical and more disruptive than that conflict was.

I will agree with Paul's critique of the Iraqi war and general critique of the corruption of our system by corporate interests.

With the Libertarians, I rather like the personal liberty ideas they have.

Who was it that said, Libertarians are just right wing republicans who want to smoke dope--legally, that is.

Believe it or not, this country did, at first, follow the Constitution. We believed in federalism and a spreading of power horizontally amongst states on their own, allowing no one central government to control everyone all the time...which is what we ended up with 200+ years later.

I don't currently advocate a violent revolution...but what's the quote I'm about to bastardize: From time to time, the tree of liberty must be kept with the blood of patriots? The thing is: this country was founded on the idea that we COULD overthrow our own government if need be. The Founding Fathers were brilliant, saw the need they had, recognized that power is hard to keep dispersed among the many, and that we might again need to revolt. We should be READY and CAPABLE of revolt at any time our government is oppressing us. We're not "oppressed" right now, but I think we've slowly given up state and individual rights to the US government for a long time, and you can't undo that, and you can't get them back now.

I think you're overstating it, but it certainly would be painful and chaotic for a while before an equilibrium were reached.

Not true. The American Revolution did not have this.

I disagree. Never preemptively attacking another country; spreading the power back amongst the states; dismantling many federal programs; are all probably LESS radical and disruptive than the subjugation of an entire race.

Agreed. Our corporations are at once our strongest asset in the US as well as the more corrupt. Money = everything in a capitalism, and they have the most of it. What we truly need to help spread power back out it a more diverse MEDIA, not huge conglomerates. Democracy thrives on an active media which gives the populace information from which a BASIC understanding of issues comes from, not the pandering BS we have now. This is the most pathetic election in my mind because it is almost entirely based on Hollywood characters rather than issues that matter to people.

Haha, I have never heard that...I'm basically a right wing republican that thinks the government should STFU and GBTW when it comes to what I'm doing on a daily basis. It's there for MY benefit, not the other way around. The way it bosses us around now is akin to a waitress telling you how to eat your food. It's your food, you're paying for it, and you're paying for the waitress and supporting the restaurant. Without all those customers in there, there'd be NO restaurant. Kinda screwy when the waitress starts calling the shots, huh?

The American Revolution is somewhat an anomaly. Then, there were few real entrenched powers on this continent at the time. So, you can't really compare. That's why I mentioned the Civil War which is a far more typical experience.

Then, I would argue that the Civil War was just the end point of the revolution. Revolution's are evolutionary things most of the time.

I think you can agree the world in general and the US in particular is a very different place from 1776. This fact, by itself, is enough to make your opinion look hopeful at best, naive more likely.

To describe the transformations Paul and libertarians advocate as temporary pain is like saying a shotgun blast to the head is a temporary pain. It is, but it is permanent at the same time.

The dismantling of the government is not something that could be accomplished gradually or without conflict. It would have to be swift and definitive and some power would have to be exercised to enforce the dismantling and beat down the civil disruption that would most likely occur.

The power needed to cause the revolution might be gradual--certainly Stalin and Mao were not made powerful overnight, nor was that German guy who's name I won't mention for fear of Godwinning this argument. But in each case, the power was accumulated until it was complete enough to crush all opposition.

One thing Libertarians often don't count on is how often the first generation of revolutionaries are killed off while the supreme leader is consolidation power.

But, I don't think the Libertarian ideology tends to the realist. Libertarians are a singularly idealistic and unrealistic bunch.

There's one final comment I'll make. The framer dudes built in the system of amendment in order for the Constitution to be able to be adjusted as the time's dictated.

While most around here were still in diapers the last time an amendment was attempted (ERA, 1982 IIRC), it's a long and contentious process.

In order to affect the Libertarian agenda, 20 or so amendments would have to be repealed by the near impossible task of counter amendment. I suppose it's possible that it could be rolled up into one mega-amendment. It is also possible to transplant lips and wings on a pig, slap some lipstick on it and teach it to fly.

It is also just about as realistic.