Or republican and Conservative

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Truth, Justice and the American way

Many people, Left and Right look to the President and the Courts to fulfill the roles assigned to Congress. So, the great intellectual potential of the supposedly greatest deliberative body in Earth is wasted.

And we allow the President far too much power to govern by questionable executive actions, and the Courts to rule by simple decree.

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“Quod scripsi, scripsi"

"Sometimes, the source of the beautiful dawning light that drives back the darkness, is your house burning"

They're all socialists to a degree. A small degree, mind you, but a degree nonetheless. Calling Obama, or most, if not nearly all of our politicians, "home-run hitter" socialists however, is pretty far off from reality. If the standard for a literal, dye-in-the-wool, dictionary-definition socialist is 50 homers, we at best (or worst) have most folks in the 5-15 range with some twenties and zeroes scattered in the wind. Most Democrats and Republicans, and our citizenry, enjoy our smidgen of socialism we have in society though Medicare, Social Security, public schools/libraries/parks/law enforcement/roads/etc. We understand that we need to better manage these programs for them to be effective in the future, but most folks would rather not want to do without them.

On the flipside, we like a free and open market for the most part and we don't want government to be too big or intrusive. We want folks out there building industries, making profits, and creating jobs. Nobody is out there campaigning on the slogan of "More government in your life!!", and "Nationalize the X industry!!", apart from a few extreme radicals out there on the fringe because they would, and do, get destroyed in the polls. The great majority of jobs and the economic engine of our country comes from the private sector, we don't like it when government intrudes too much into our private lives and businesses, and that's the way we likes it.

Or to put it another way, we like the good parts of socialism and don't like the ****ty aspects of the ideology.

Back to Obama; if he is a socialist, he's a pretty terrible one. The private sector has a bigger share of the job market than it did four years ago, the financial markets are much, much healthier than they were when he was sworn into office, space exploration is now on the cusp of privatization, the private health care market is more powerful, private corporate profits are still breaking records, and taxes are still low. Apart from the spectre of the undefined regulation, there's not much "there" there. The right-wing boogeyman known as Barakovsky, the uber Muslim Socialist tyrant/peacenik, never came to pass. There never was a single-payer death panel system put into place, socialism never ran rampant, the government never started nationalizing industries and business left and right, guns were never grabbed, religion was never silenced, never a surrender to terrorism; sh-t, we never even made legal. (Nothing to do with socialism, just sayin' life really never changed much. )

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"Bush tortured people, Obama just kills them."
---Noam Chomsky

Good post.......

Obama isn't anymore of a "socialist" than Romney will be.....

Or McCain would have been.....


The label game is too easy and worth less than a warm six-pack these days politically.......

The problem is that Congress often doesn't do its job, or does so poorly. The Courts have, for years, tried to provide the Congress with insight on how to word laws so that they have the desired effect without running afoul of the Constitution. The Congress refuses to listen.

The Court is the guardian of the Constitution, and accordingly some advice on how to word things so that it falls in line shouldn't be so quickly rejected. The Court cannot rule by decree.

The Court is bound to the Constitution. There are reasonable people on both sides that disagree with the Court. That means they are doing their job.

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The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.

-- Hitler, April 11 1942

Look, we're close to a rare agreement here, so I don't want to pick a fight.

But of course the Courts can rule by decree, whether we want to call it that or not, that's often what they do.

Remember when a Court ordered a town to raise its taxes a few years ago? Or forced busing of children? the Courts were never designed to wield that kind of power.

The Courts are supposed to be the guardians of the Constitution. I'll even grant that they usually are. But far too many Judges have embraced the idea that the Law is whatever they say it is, and that they need only base their rulings on their own, personal preferences.

The Courts are the only aspect of Government that we could even consider turning over to machines with the expectation that the machines would perform the duties better than men-- if we stick to their design, not to what they have become through usage.

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“Quod scripsi, scripsi"

"Sometimes, the source of the beautiful dawning light that drives back the darkness, is your house burning"

Machines that do not adapt become obsolete...

The Courts were designed to wield the power necessary to correct legal problems. And that's what they do.

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The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.

-- Hitler, April 11 1942

My experience is that people who call themselves "progressives" tend to have a rather narrow view of what constitutes "progress". It invariably always ends up just happening to coincide with whatever political views they hold at the time. Wonder why that is? Everybody thinks they are progressive, and it's not like there's some all-powerful committee to set that standard for everyone. The idea that a person thinks they can claim only their ideology is what happens to constitute 'progress' is rather arrogant, actually.

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What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand???

I tend to go along with what Washington calls progress...

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The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.

-- Hitler, April 11 1942

That is true with all labels. Who do you know that is a true conservative?

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Truth, Justice and the American way