LL 2008 Presidential Election Straw Poll v2

[redwards]

Originally Posted by Dumpy Dooby

Amending the Constitution is necessary if you intend to violate it.

Agreed. The claim was that Paul would never go against the Constitution. I think that's a bad position to come from. You should always go against the Constitution if a given unconstitutional policy is better, and amend the Constitution to allow for it.

2. Medicare, Medicaid, etc. are unconstitutional.

1. Citation and interpretation, please.
2. Presuming you can qualify that, maybe they shouldn't be.

[redwards]

Originally Posted by Publius

Maybe you should read about him and form your own opinion, instead of just parroting someone else, when that someone really knows very little about RP.

I find it amusing that you went after him for 'following someone who is uneducated about Paul', but didn't attempt to refute my characterization of Paul.

[DosEquis]

Originally Posted by Dumpy Dooby

1. That's not failure. Amending the Constitution is necessary if you intend to violate it.

2. Medicare, Medicaid, etc. are unconstitutional.

Um, no. Change can truly be for the better. It is just one of the greatest responsibilities that government has. It was made with the ability to be changed, such as considering black people 5/5ths of a person instead of 3/5ths. Or the removal of slavery to reinforce that all men are created equal.

[Dumpy Dooby]

Originally Posted by DosEquis

Um, no. Change can truly be for the better. It is just one of the greatest responsibilities that government has. It was made with the ability to be changed, such as considering black people 5/5ths of a person instead of 3/5ths. Or the removal of slavery to reinforce that all men are created equal.

The change you listed was done via an Amendment, so your argument is moot.

[Dumpy Dooby]

Originally Posted by redwards

Agreed. The claim was that Paul would never go against the Constitution. I think that's a bad position to come from. You should always go against the Constitution if a given unconstitutional policy is better, and amend the Constitution to allow for it.

He's in favor of amending the constitution when it's necessary.

1. Citation and interpretation, please.

No citation necessary. Constitution lists what Congress is allowed to do. It is a white list, not a black list. That is one of the unique things about it. In other words, it's your job to show me where the Constitution does allow those welfare systems.

But I'll go ahead and skip that whole part where I force you to look through the Constitution, and I'll tell you that specific welfare systems (Medicaid, Medicare, etc) exist because of the "General Welfare" clause in the Constitution. That's a gross misinterpretation because Medicaid doesn't fall under the category of "General Welfare," but legislators intentionally interpret it otherwise.

2. Presuming you can qualify that, maybe they shouldn't be.

They should remain unconstitutional.

[Publius]

Originally Posted by redwards

I find it amusing that you went after him for 'following someone who is uneducated about Paul', but didn't attempt to refute my characterization of Paul.

because it is so far off the mark that anyone that knows anything about Paul knows you're wrong, and they're refuting you just fine.

[redwards]

Originally Posted by Dumpy Dooby

He's in favor of amending the constitution when it's necessary.

No citation necessary. Constitution lists what Congress is allowed to do. It is a white list, not a black list. That is one of the unique things about it. In other words, it's your job to show me where the Constitution does allow those welfare systems.

But I'll go ahead and skip that whole part where I force you to look through the Constitution, and I'll tell you that specific welfare systems (Medicaid, Medicare, etc) exist because of the "General Welfare" clause in the Constitution. That's a gross misinterpretation because Medicaid doesn't fall under the category of "General Welfare," but legislators intentionally interpret it otherwise.

I'm not sure that I agree that healthcare wouldn't fall under the rather large blanket of a term like 'general welfare'. That seems to me to be a fairly easy interpretation to arrive at. I think I'd require a good reason why it shouldn't.

They should remain unconstitutional.

Why? Certainly public healthcare is one of those things that, like fully automatic weapons, the founders probably never conceived of. Both are quite common now, and should be considered accordingly.

I'm certainly not a proponent of wild fiscal irresponsibility, but it would seem to me that something is wrong in the country if the level of attainable healthcare is enormously disparate between the rich and the poor, and I can't really see how it would be otherwise. To some extent, it's that way anyway. I'd bet that a lot of minimum wage workers have no health insurance. I'm not really sure how pervasive medicaid is.

I think that the standard American solution of having health insurance tied to your job is really quite an odd system. Your health needs don't vanish when you lose your job, Cobra is expensive as hell, and when you've just lost your job, paying through the nose for health coverage is not really what you want to be doing.

Perhaps if healthcare could be decoupled from employment and a lot of market competition fostered, rates would drop enough for personal health insurance to become as common and attainable as personal auto insurance; that seems like the goal.

I appreciate what Massachussets has done in terms of the healthcare tax / tax-break system that they've implemented. Maybe that's the answer.

At any rate, I'm not prepared to write off the notion of healthcare legislation simply because Madison wasn't clairvoyant.

[redwards]

Originally Posted by Publius

because it is so far off the mark that anyone that knows anything about Paul knows you're wrong, and they're refuting you just fine.

You didn't.

[Publius]

Originally Posted by redwards

You didn't.

If I had anything to add to their refutation of your comments that I think is significant enough to warrant it, I'd post it.

[redwards]

Originally Posted by Publius

If I had anything to add to their refutation of your comments that I think is significant enough to warrant it, I'd post it.

You claimed I didn't know much about Paul. No one else has done that. They're simply arguing why he's right.

[Publius]

Originally Posted by redwards

You claimed I didn't know much about Paul. No one else has done that. They're simply arguing why he's right.

If you knew about him, you'd know he supports the idea of amending the Constitution if deemed necessary.

[DosEquis]

Originally Posted by Dumpy Dooby

The change you listed was done via an Amendment, so your argument is moot.

So was that amendment done simply because the constitution was in the way and they wanted to violate it (ie patriot act)? Or was an amendment done because it was necessary for the true equality of people (ie women and black people can vote)

That is my point. You said the only reason to amend the constitution is when you want to violate it. I say otherwise.

[redwards]

Originally Posted by Publius

If you knew about him, you'd know he supports the idea of amending the Constitution if deemed necessary.

Originally Posted by Publius

He only refuses to consider solutions that go against the Constitution though.

Apparently my sources were faulty.

[Dumpy Dooby]

Originally Posted by DosEquis

So was that amendment done simply because the constitution was in the way and they wanted to violate it (ie patriot act)? Or was an amendment done because it was necessary for the true equality of people (ie women and black people can vote)

That is my point. You said the only reason to amend the constitution is when you want to violate it. I say otherwise.

I see what happened. No, I didn't say that was the "only" reason to amend the Constitution. I said that if you do intend to violate it (i.e., progressive tax system), then it should be amended (i.e., Sixteenth Amendment).

[Publius]

Originally Posted by redwards

Apparently my sources were faulty.

The two statements are completely unrelated, nice try though.

[redwards]

Originally Posted by Publius

The two statements are completely unrelated, nice try though.

How do you figure? That statement was the origin of my point about being willing to amend the constitution. You said he would "refuse to consider solutions that go against the constitution," not, "he'd refuse to consider them.... unless he deemed it necessary."

[Dumpy Dooby]

Originally Posted by redwards

I'm not sure that I agree that healthcare wouldn't fall under the rather large blanket of a term like 'general welfare'. That seems to me to be a fairly easy interpretation to arrive at. I think I'd require a good reason why it shouldn't.

Actually, you're right. "General Welfare" is an extremely simple economic term. General welfare refers to goods that are non-rivalrous and non-excludable. Healthcare is both rivalrous and excludable. It is not a general welfare.



No, I didn't dismiss the rest of your post, but I didn't want to take this thread too far off topic. I'll definitely participate in another thread if you want to start one.