OBAMA WINS!

[C-Hopkins]

The most important part of the Constitution are right at the beginning: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, 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."

There has always been the idea that the Union can be perfected and is not "perfect" in Enlightenment terms. What motivates the document is the search for Justice, and the emphasis is on the plural, not the individual: i.e., "We", "common defence", "general Welfare", "to ourselves and our Posterity."

Well, what if there is something that threatens "our" liberty, welfare and security? Oh, that might be mass-starvation, or mass-injustice, or individual disease. Are those things included in the Constitution? Many have said "no"; some have said "yes." Just because someone said yes doesn't mean that he's anti-Constitution. And, what makes anyone who isn't a lawyer or Constitutional scholar think that they know the document "better" than those who are, and that their interpretations --or ones they favor-- are the correct interpretations?

Re: the highlited'

Steve, I wonder whay you ask about this. Just curious.

[Steve James]

I ask because, imo, "welfare" is not a bad word. The only debate is about what it is and how much. But, my main point was the "we the people" means "all" the people. Yeah, I would include security for the aged and health care for the illl as "rights". All the amendments were meant to reinforce the primary object of the Constitution, stated in the Preamble. It's a very general statement, but it always refers to "us."
Couldn't resist:

[Dmitri]

Taking it all personally, reducing it to the level of a physical threat, intimidation, seeing it all in extremes of right or wrong... yep, you're right - you are very conservative

So if someone said "all English people are idiots" you wouldn't take that as an insult that relates to you?
That depends of course on the source -- if it's someone you don't know or care about, then of course you would ignore it. But what if it's a guy from another country who lives across the street from you and whom you see once in a while, sometimes maybe meet for lunch and chat, maybe even consider him a good acquaintance -- what then?

As an aside... There are some insults that hit too close to home in some people/cultures. E.g. where I grew up, any mention of one's mother in a remotely derogatory fashion would cause at least a thread of an immediate physical confrontation, often with knives. In other areas of Russia it wasn't a big deal -- and in the US I had to go through a big mental adjustment to be able to tolerate listening to the "yo mama is so fat" type of jokes.
Your last post wasn't helpful at all. Call me a grumpy old man or whatever you like -- I'm just letting you know how this one came across, FWIW.
I know you're a nice guy and generally mean well. I'm just sharing my opinion, FWIW, take it or leave it.

[Chris McKinley]

Graham,

Being called a racist is something I do take personally. It is extremely wrong. Are you defending an alternative position? Frankly, antagonizing needlessly and belittling someone's closely held values from the safety of a distance like a little pussy bitch is very.....well....Graham of you.

[GrahamB]

Taking it all personally, reducing it to the level of a physical threat, intimidation, seeing it all in extremes of right or wrong... yep, you're right - you are very conservative

So if someone said "all English people are idiots" you wouldn't take that as an insult that relates to you?

Not really, you doofus - I'm not 'English'. I'm British. If you want to split it down by country I was born in Wales, so there's no way I'm English. My nationality is British. Assuming British people are English is a common misunderstanding, so I'll forgive you, but you might want to brush up your world knowledge a little

[GrahamB]

Graham,

Being called a racist is something I do take personally. It is extremely wrong. Are you defending an alternative position? Frankly, antagonizing needlessly and belittling someone's closely held values from the safety of a distance like a little pussy bitch is very.....well....Graham of you.

My point, which you appear to have missed by a country mile, was that nobody called "you" racist, yet you immediately assume they did. Sure it was a mistake by whoever it was (can't remember) to generalise the right wing view as racist, but they never mentioned you personally. That was all I was saying big guy, take it easy.

[TaoJoannes]

Our spending is way out of control and we have rules for the federal govt to go by(the constitution).
Obama wants to increase spending more than anyone who tried to become presedent. I have also seen no reguard for the constitution from him.
These are my two largest issues. Am I the only person worried about this kind of stuff?

wait... I thought this thread was about Obama....but you're clearly referencing Bush, right...?
to paraphrase Bush:
"fuck the constitution - it's just a piece of paper..."

and "deficit spending doesn't matter"

[GrahamB]

Your last post wasn't helpful at all. Call me a grumpy old man or whatever you like -- I'm just letting you know how this one came across, FWIW.
I know you're a nice guy and generally mean well. I'm just sharing my opinion, FWIW, take it or leave it.

Hey, that was actually quite sweet - don't worry, we're cool, unless you get offended by 'doofus' that is

best,
G

[Ben]

The most important part of the Constitution are right at the beginning: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, 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."

There has always been the idea that the Union can be perfected and is not "perfect" in Enlightenment terms. What motivates the document is the search for Justice, and the emphasis is on the plural, not the individual: i.e., "We", "common defence", "general Welfare", "to ourselves and our Posterity."

Well, what if there is something that threatens "our" liberty, welfare and security? Oh, that might be mass-starvation, or mass-injustice, or individual disease. Are those things included in the Constitution? Many have said "no"; some have said "yes." Just because someone said yes doesn't mean that he's anti-Constitution.

I agree that it isn't a perfect document but if so much of america believes somthing to be wrong with it then why not change it instead of ignoring it?

And, what makes anyone who isn't a lawyer or Constitutional scholar think that they know the document "better" than those who are, and that their interpretations --or ones they favor-- are the correct interpretations?

I'm not claiming to know the document better. The truth is though that we don't have to interprit it at all because the men who wrote it wrote a lot of other documents on the subject explaining what they ment by it.
What makes a lawyer or constitutional scholar think they know the document better and that their interpretations of it are more correct than the people who wrote it?

[Steve James]

[youtube]What makes a lawyer or constitutional scholar think they know the document better and that their interpretations of it are more correct than the people who wrote it?[/youtube]

Imo, they "think" that amendments need to be interpreted. But, more important, there is a Supreme Court, with "Justices", and it was designed to be the arbiter of what (amendment) was Constitutional or whether the document was being interpreted correctly. That's part of the essential "division of powers." Now, if what you say would be true, then the Justices wouldn't need to be Constitutional scholars, would they? I was a carpenter, so I won't jump on Joe the Plumber. Actually, lots of the guys I've worked with in construction were really smart and well-read. But, I don't think many were better equipped to interpret the Constitution than the average lawyer (no offense Walter). That's not just because of the language; it's because there are histories and precedents to most of these decisions. Shucks, how many people have simply read the entire Constitution?

I mean, yeah, we could strike down the amendment that gave women the right to vote. The founders didn't intend it, but so what? It took many petitions and cases before, finally, the Court saw that such laws were unjust to citizens. The "citizen" of 1788 is not the same "citizen" of 2008. The beauty of the document is that it can adjust, as long as changes refer back to the Preamble.

[Chris McKinley]

Graham,

My point, which both you and C Hopkins missed, is that making a blanket statement calling all Republicans racist is calling me a racist by inclusion, whether you want it to be or not. At least C Hopkins had both the awareness and the honor to realize his error and make a retraction. One does not get to throw around such incendiary and offensive accusations flippantly without regard for consequence. I realize that in an environment such as the Off Topic forum, where there is almost total domination by people with the same viewpoint, in this case politically far-Left viewpoints, any discussion of charged political topics will tend to produce uninhibited escalation of those views. It's a well-known phenomenon of group dynamics that we know commonly as 'mob rule'.

That does not absolve people of their responsibilities to behave in the civil, respectful way that the forum's rules require. This exact kind of undisciplined, out-of-control hatemongering toward anyone not sharing the same far-Left views is what turned the EF.net site into an untenable place for civil discussion. We can kid each other with good-natured ribbiing all we want. I'll take as much as you want to throw at me that way. But there's nothing good-natured about certain words and certain types of accusations. Racism certainly falls into that category. There's not an easy way to make a joke out of calling someone a racist, especially in a post/thread that is obviously not humorous in nature.

[Steve James]

"

This exact kind of undisciplined, out-of-control hatemongering toward anyone not sharing the same far-Left views

Is calling someone a racist "hatemongering"... or a hate-crime? Naw, it's just a simple insult. I don't think it's hate mongering in this case because I don't seriously believe that anyone here hates Republicans. In fact, the farthest lefties here post threads about Republicans who supported Obama.

I can appreciate somene being sensitive to being branded ... as anything. I can even appreciate how someone feels when he's found "guilty by association." It sucks ass.

[TaoJoannes]

Graham,

My point, which both you and C Hopkins missed, is that making a blanket statement calling all Republicans racist is calling me a racist by inclusion, whether you want it to be or not. At least C Hopkins had both the awareness and the honor to realize his error and make a retraction. One does not get to throw around such incendiary and offensive accusations flippantly without regard for consequence. I realize that in an environment such as the Off Topic forum, where there is almost total domination by people with the same viewpoint, in this case politically far-Left viewpoints, any discussion of charged political topics will tend to produce uninhibited escalation of those views. It's a well-known phenomenon of group dynamics that we know commonly as 'mob rule'.

That does not absolve people of their responsibilities to behave in the civil, respectful way that the forum's rules require. This exact kind of undisciplined, out-of-control hatemongering toward anyone not sharing the same far-Left views is what turned the EF.net site into an untenable place for civil discussion. We can kid each other with good-natured ribbiing all we want. I'll take as much as you want to throw at me that way. But there's nothing good-natured about certain words and certain types of accusations. Racism certainly falls into that category. There's not an easy way to make a joke out of calling someone a racist, especially in a post/thread that is obviously not humorous in nature.

This entire situation could be prevented if you simply change sides and become a gun-hating, baby-killing liberal socialist traitor to the constitution.

[GrahamB]

Graham,

My point, which both you and C Hopkins missed, is that making a blanket statement calling all Republicans racist is calling me a racist by inclusion, whether you want it to be or not. At least C Hopkins had both the awareness and the honor to realize his error and make a retraction. One does not get to throw around such incendiary and offensive accusations flippantly without regard for consequence. I realize that in an environment such as the Off Topic forum, where there is almost total domination by people with the same viewpoint, in this case politically far-Left viewpoints, any discussion of charged political topics will tend to produce uninhibited escalation of those views. It's a well-known phenomenon of group dynamics that we know commonly as 'mob rule'.

That does not absolve people of their responsibilities to behave in the civil, respectful way that the forum's rules require. This exact kind of undisciplined, out-of-control hatemongering toward anyone not sharing the same far-Left views is what turned the EF.net site into an untenable place for civil discussion. We can kid each other with good-natured ribbiing all we want. I'll take as much as you want to throw at me that way. But there's nothing good-natured about certain words and certain types of accusations. Racism certainly falls into that category. There's not an easy way to make a joke out of calling someone a racist, especially in a post/thread that is obviously not humorous in nature.

I thought it was pretty self-evident that racism was bad. I thought I was conversing with people who would understand that already, so it didn't need to be spelled out as a kind of disclaimer before anything was said.

You talk some fine words about civility but call me "little pussy bitch"? Your fine words do not match your own actions.

Look, I know you've had a rough day, following through your logic the Republicans losing the elections means YOU lost the election just like, apparently, somebody calling right wing views racist means they are calling YOU racist, but you're going to have to grow up a little, and accept that it's not what they meant. It's YOU who are taking it the wrong way. Today was a day for change - maybe a little of that could creep into your heart?

I understand you're like that drunk guy in the bar just looking for a fight right now, so I'm going to do what I do when I come across that drunk guy in the bar looking for a fight- just leave and let them take it out on somebody else who is also looking for a fight. Take it easy big fella, and get a good nights sleep.

And just remember, that no matter what the election results are - you don't have to live with being Welsh. I do, and it's not easy

G

[nianfong]

graham, be a man and just apologize to chris for any offense.
chris, stop looking to pick a fight.

let's all just shake hands peeps. jeez.