damaged people dot com

Well, maybe more of a psychotic profiteering war-monger, but in 1994 he was right on.

Me So Hypocritical

He seems to have a very astute grasp of the situation. Its almost like he had the ability to think about it for a long time, maybe while working in the private sector. You know, while he was at...what was the place? Oh yeah, Halliburton. Then when he came back to the White House, he was able to use his expertise to find a way to plunge the country into an endless war that would funnel millions of dollars into the corporation he used to work for, and who has just set up offshore offices in Dubai to evade taxes on some of their offshore enterprises.

Oh, wait, I'm just being paranoid. Dick Cheney is a patriot and deserves our respect for conning his way into his job. Some of you might remember he's the person George Bush hired to select his running mate.

Ladies and gentlemen they're called robber barons and they've been around since the beginning of history. In a democracy we're supposed to identify them and keep them from power. Good job Red States!

Red states, blue states, purple states I don't care. If the constitution is followed and enforced, neither Slick Dick or "robber barons" exist. If the federal government is reduced only to the responsibilities laid out by the law, there's no money for ol' DC to gain power.

The problem isn't with the states, it's with the federation and the idea of "democracy" on a federal level. If you put the rights and responsibilities back on the states, there's no money left at the federal level and most of these problems disappear.

By that reasoning, slavery might never have been abolished.

That comment seemed a bit terse and random, I'm afraid I don't know how to respond. Care to elaborate?

States' rights/autonomy was the fundamental issue at the heart of the civil war. I wouldn't exactly consider myself a federalist, but most state government have a rather difficult time keeping their highway and school systems operating, and these are their major responsibilities. I shudder to think what the states would do with that kind of money. Further, what do you do for states with depressed economies? Are they just s.o.l.? What about Louisiana after the hurricanes? Florida? Should we rely on Ted Stephens of Alaska to pony up money to help them? When someone asked him to share funds from the superfluous bridge being built in his state to aid hurricane victims (which it should noted was being dedicated to him in name), his response on the Senate floor was an angry "NO!"

I think its a little naive to think that the states being in control of their own finances would make problems go away. Laid out to the letter of the law doesn't exactly fit every situation and every circumstance.

Sorry if that seems terse or random, but waving the States'-Rights wand at the problem and expecting it to go away seems a little terse and random to me too.

Ah, I now see your point but I'm not sure I agree. The 13th amendment was proposed and ratified by the states, not mandated by the government. I'm having a hard time understanding how the abolishion of slavery could possibly be used as identifying how the federalist system fails.

Besides, it's the law, shouldn't we hold ourselves to it?