Which is why the Constitution, as a whole, works. We have a series of checks and balances no one branch can completely get it's way.

Congress passes a law the Executive branch doesn't like, so the President vetos, but Congress can override that with a 2/3rds vote.

Congress and the Executive both like the law, but the Judicial declares it unconstitutional. Congress then turns it into a Constitutional Amendment that gets passed through and ratified by the states.

It's not a perfect system, but it is a working one always in progress (although stagnated since the 70s) and is one of the best around...

Why does what is constitutional matter? If it's a good law, we should pass it. If it's a bad law, we shouldn't.

I don't think we should fly in the face of the constitution, but the idea that the constitution is the end all be all of existence is kind of stupid.

Well, the Constitution doesn't really come into play, because it's a bad law.

@ The_Master_Warrior: "And that's complete bullshit that it will improve people's lives. Sure, it will give them free healthcare, but their taxes would multiply."

It is indeed possible that taxes would increase to fund improved healthcare - although I have already argued that some of it could be funded through cuts in uneccesary spending, for example both the UK and US currently spend too much on the military. Even if taxes did rise, as long as your taxation system was progressive, a moderate rise in taxes for those individuals and firms who could afford it would be a small price to pay for a dramatic improvement in the health of your citizens, surely?

"I don't know about you, but I don't want my hard-earned tax dollars paying for some illegal immigrant getting a free drive-thru murder (some call this "abortion") and then going into the next room to get some free "medical" marijuana."

What you are doing here is deliberately muddling several issues together in order to confuse the argument. Saying "I support universal free healthcare" does not mean the same thing as "I am pro-choice". The abortion issue is a seperate issue, and, to be fair, has been discussed at extreme length on this forum already. It is not relevant to this discussion of public healthcare as a whole, because you could have universal healthcare and, at the same time, potentially have quite tough controls on allowing abortions.

As for the issue of "medical" marijuana, again, that is a completely seperate issue and has nothing to do with the main issues being discussed here.


@Draugnar: "Worship it or not. Like it or not. They're both irrelevent. Our (mine, rlumley's, and TMW's) government was founded on the constitution and it is the framework by which the country runs. Without it, our government falls into anarchy (Sic would live that) and one of the few superpowers in the world would collapse."

Why? The UK does not have a constitution similar to yours. No change to our laws is ever attacked as "unconstitutional". Yet the UK has not collapsed into anarchy. How can this be?

"So, you can fuck up the UK with your communism all you want, but if you want to see communism in the US..."

I do not realistically expect to see communism introduced in the USA or the UK anytime soon. I support it because I believe it to be the best system which has so far been proposed, not because I think it is about to be achieved.

And as for your general point about "fucking up" the UK and Canada, I have to point out that on the healthcare question, in the UK we have a much, much better health system than you, we look after our citizens' health much better, it is fairer and.... wait for it... it is CHEAPER! So I think in health terms, it's America that's got things fucked up.


@ Draugnar (further) "I was just saying Jamie's complaint about people worshipping it was irrelevent as it is the framework of our government and, despite the courts occassionally subverting it and it getting in the way on occassion, it isn't going to just go away altogether and allow a communistic "all men are created equal, therefore no man shall ever have more than another" society to take over."

/fail. I have never argued that people are "created equal". Equality is a goal, not the base state. It is because men are NOT created equal that socialism is necessary.


@ Various people talking about the DCMA:

As someone who has repeatedly posted on here in favour of the music industry and anti the Pirate Bay and their ilk, even I would say that some elements of the DCMA are overkill. Draugnar has a vaild point when he talks about people making legal backups of their data...(But this is a side issue so let's not have the thread become a discussion of the DCMA)


@rlumley: "Why does what is constitutional matter? If it's a good law, we should pass it. If it's a bad law, we shouldn't."

rlumley +1

This was what I was talking about. (As you acknowledged above, and thank you for that - it's nice when we can agree).

"Stick to fucking up Europe and Canada, but "don't tread on [us]"."

Just cause it might be worth mentioning, I believe you will find Canada and Europe have in general better health care available to them. Please look at some of the videos i've posted (they don't pick a side, and are mostly talking about poverty) But show the US trailing behind several other countries when it comes to life expectancy and child mortality. Guess what, those other countries do have a more socialist health care system, like the NHS in the UK.

I'm not trying to 'thread on [you]', or change your country, i'm just trying to show by example that other systems work. Now, if you want to try and prove that our countries are fucked up, please go ahead (actually please create a seperate thread for it).

For now look up http://graphs.gapminder.org

from that data, Ireland, UK, Canada and Cuba have better(lower) infant mortality rates than the US while having while having lower incomes per person. So we are more health with less money. I think you will find that is a good use of our money.

Now as to how you should achieve this, that's really up to you. It could be done on a state level, but since people are free to live in whichever state they want i'm sure there would be a lot of inward migration to whichever states started offering universal health care...

The fucking up was in reference to Jamie's desiring communism to be the norm. Communism has been tried in other countries that lasted a lot less time than the UK or the US. I don't believe the UK or Canada is fucked up now, but trying to change a working government to a communist one would send the countries in question into complete chaos.

One theing to note, my "don't tread on [us]" is not a misspelling (I noticed you "corrected" tread to thread). It is an early USMC flag.

As far as being at the state by state level. If it does happen, people better be careful about moving from state to state as I'm sure the state legislatures will include a minimum time period to establish residency before you can take advantage of the programs.

As far as being a good use of money, that is your choice. My choice is to NOT support welfare babies pumped out by welfare mommies looking for a bigger paycheck. Universal healthcare would force me to do just that.

Spend too much on military? Tell that to the brave souls who were killed on September 11th. Or at Pearl Harbor. History repeats itself. If anything, we're not spending ENOUGH. Until radical Islam and Marxism are wiped from this planet, the military should have a huge budget.

Wow, paranoid much? Humans will continue to fight each other, it's in our nature, but I do think global demilitarization to a certain extent under UN policy is necessary for the peaceful continuance of our race (which is unlikely to last very long what with the easy mix of volatile religious extremism and Uranium). I prefer Socialism to Communism, as the ruskies kind of tainted Marx's dream. As Andrew Jackson believed, opportunity not privelage. We are spending enough as it is on our military, and we need to employ more DIPLOMACY instead of making foreign nations hate us more because of our incessant irresponsibe use of FORCE.

@ The_Master_Warrior: "Spend too much on military? Tell that to the brave souls who were killed on September 11th."

I don't see what is "brave" about being killed when your office building is hit by a plane. Tragic, perhaps, but to suggest they were "brave" implies that the workers in the World Trade Centre willingly made the decision to risk their lives in the fight against terror. That simply isn't a true description of events. They were just normal people who turned up for work as on any normal day, and died due to a terrorist attack. Their decision to turn up for work on a normal day cannot be described as "bravery". If you were referring to the police and fire crews who died in the collapse, well, yes, some of them showed bravery, but they are not part of the military. So I don't really get your point here.

"Or at Pearl Harbor."

That was nearly 70 years ago, and is therefore hardly relevant to a discussion about the current military budget.

"History repeats itself. If anything, we're not spending ENOUGH. Until radical Islam and Marxism are wiped from this planet, the military should have a huge budget."

/fail. The USA's attempts to use military force to tackle militant Islam are just inflaming the situation. Look at Iraq and Afghanistan. The presence of US troops in those countries is just making the situation worse. It is because of the USA's blundering, heavy-handed approach to world affairs since the end of the Cold War that they are such a target for extermist attack - many of these 'extremists' have only become radicalised as a result of the actions of your government.

I stopped taking this thread seriously when diplofool started posting...

History does indeed repeat itself, lok at Afghanistan, the USSR went to Afghanistan for a decade (79-89 according to wikipedia) Look how that turned out.

Again History is the reason Russia didn't change much (from a centralized tryanny in Moscos run first by the Tzars, then the Communists and now the much weaker but still tryannical when it can get away with it 'democracy' of Vladamir Putin - and don't get me wrong I like Putin) - For bonus points where was Karl Marx from?

Iraq is actually more likely to be stabilised and become a functioning country. It was a functioning country before the invasion, with a militrary, the public controlled to a certain degree. They knew how the system works, some of them likely even preferred the represive regime of Saddam Hussein to the current near-Anarchy weekly bombings, and risking of one's life every time they go outside - this is the only reason the US will succeed in Iraq - The people of Iraq want to live in a civilised ociety again - actually the US might do well to pull out and let the Iraqi's do the nation building.

And have you any idea what Radical (Militant) Islam has against the US (and western civilisation, ie the Europeans who support you) It is something to do with a decadent culture, but that's not enough to drive people to kill themselves attacking your country. The attacks on the world trade centre were a tactic because previous attempts to overthrow decadent western-friendly governments in the middle east had failed.

Now if you want to address what the US has done to encourage militant Islam into attacking you in the first place, that is well and good. Arms to Saudi Arabia - a Monarchy who the US supports, selling weapons for oil. Now it is fair to claim that it is these it is Saudi leaders who 1) send their kids to american schools in Saudi Arabia to get a good western education 2) introduce reforms to 'westernize' their country. (realistically this means taking the bits they and their well educated kids like about US and other western cultures while ignoring the bits that would mean giving up power to women/the public - but i may be wrong here, do your own research if you want more accurate information) - So you could argue that supporting these countries is good and right, for the spreading of democracy, hough the US has forver supported Monarchies, and Terrorist groups to keep out of power those groups it dislikes, instead of supporting democracies (which might have elected islamic/communist rulers - look at grenada, while you're at it look a haiti, US policy all over the world has lead to many failures - Yet we, Europeans would still rather have the US as our allies than anyone else because of the good things about America, in fact it has been government policy over the years which has been flawed, Foreign policy, and that has very little to do with the people - look at how Turkey has changed not since being part of NATO, but in the past decade due to their desire to join the EU - though Turkey is a secular republic, and thus the most western of Islamic nations, mainly due to having historical links to Europe... but that's geography as much as anything else) </rant>

(please note: the US 'defence' budget is ~$600 Billion, the rest of the world spends ~$850 Billion - if you just had the rest of the world on your side you could cut your spending down to 100 Billion and still have the largest budget in the world, and lead the most powerful militrary alliance)

I meant to say something about it being good that because of the US some countries are becoming 'westernized' (including things like increased freedom of speech, health care, education if not democracy) but the countries which the US chooses to interfere is largely based on oil content - ie Saudi Arabia, but not Yemen.

Basically you could argue the benifits of US involvement, which Osama Bin Laden opposes, but the US does not distinguish between a democracy which is willing to sell it oil and a monarchy whose first expenditure is going to be having the 9th largest defence budget in the world (Saudi Arabia - and i'm sure they buy a lot of their weapons from the US, so that is a 'smart' policy as far as trade deficiets goes)

So, yeah, you have a huge Defence budget, but that doesn't make you safer because your foreign policy is mesed up.

Now free yourself from foreign oil, (increased emission standards on your cars - to about the level the japanese have achieved, do this: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=13826548 to generate power - the US has large areas of desert, and this is a simple technology for generate lots of power - it involved heating water to make steam, which is how most nuclear power planets work, except it uses mirrors to concentrate the sun's power.... and there is a lot of sunlight in the desert, plus a mirror is much cheaper than a photo-voltaic cell)

Or simply us the Free market - quit supporting foreign oil producers -> the price of oil in the US will triple -> the American people will find alternatives (as if by magic)

The price of petrol in most European countries is much higher, because our governments are willing to tax it. We pay way more, and are thus more inclined to buying smaller cars with more fuel efficient engines, (or use public transport) This is yet another area where the size of the US government works against it, the oil and car-making industries have enough lobbying power to stop the US government from reducing domestic demand, and the public do not have the same sway over their government. Meanwhile most EU governments do have enough power to tax petrol at the pump, and enforce emission standards, (while still the public don't have the sway to stop them, this is an example of good govenance - imho - where industry is not allowed to dictate national policy.)

Okay, orathaic wants to talk enviornment. I can do that.

I'm not one of those ignorant nutjobs who think global warming isn't happening. It is. Science (usually) doesn't lie.

But the only way to slow it down significantly is to get tough on China real fast. That'll shut Ralph Nader up for a few months and help the enviornment. Most importantly, we're giving ourselves an excuse to economically attack a communist country.

Win-win-win.

@orathaic: "US might do well to pull out and let the Iraqi's do the nation building."

orathaic +1

@orathaic: "please note: the US 'defence' budget is ~$600 Billion, the rest of the world spends ~$850 Billion - if you just had the rest of the world on your side you could cut your spending down to 100 Billion and still have the largest budget in the world, and lead the most powerful militrary alliance"

I would love to be able to use this statistic in future, if it is anywhere near accurate. Where are you getting it from?


@ The_Master_Warrior: "But the only way to slow it down significantly is to get tough on China real fast. That'll shut Ralph Nader up for a few months and help the enviornment. Most importantly, we're giving ourselves an excuse to economically attack a communist country."

China is not a communist country.

@Jamie - you really don't know what happened at the World Trade Center, do you... The brave souls who died were a number of first responders who rushed in to save all those they could and kept going back in. 20% of the deaths were firemen, EMTs, and police officers (over 400). So many brave souls did die that day.

Sorry, TMW, to clarify, I agree that China's role in cutting carbon emissions is very significant.

I just wanted to correct you when you incorrectly claimed China was a communist country. ;p

@ Draugnar: "@Jamie - you really don't know what happened at the World Trade Center, do you... The brave souls who died were a number of first responders who rushed in to save all those they could and kept going back in. 20% of the deaths were firemen, EMTs, and police officers (over 400). So many brave souls did die that day."

You didn't read my post very carefully, did you Draugnar? I specifically mentioned the bravery of police and fire crews, which I don't dispute. I was just saying that I didn't see what TMW was getting at...

Do you have a mental impairment, Jamiet? It's a serious question.

@ Global warming

Umm, no. Earth has cooled in temperature for the past 11 years. But nice try. And the Earth's temperature is much more highly correlated with sunspot activity on the sun than CO2 emissions.

@ The_Master_Warrior: "Do you have a mental impairment, Jamiet?"

Erm, not that I'm aware of. I find this a somewhat insulting question. Why did you ask it?

Rlumley,

There is a lot of evidence to support the global warming theory but somehow there is also some evidence that the warming trend is actually due to the 11 year sunspot activity cycle reaching it's peak right now. This is strange....

@ Steven,

I know there is evidence, I just hate it when people assume Global warming is accepted science. (Which it's getting to be - but only because everyone thinks it is.)

That's why I choose my words carefully on the subject of global warming(theory!). I don't feel like it is proven fact yet. There is more that science hasn't uncovered about this phenomena and the next few years may surprise us all.

If there's evidence, that's what makes it accepted science. Find better evidence that says it's not happening, and you get to overturn the accepted science and get your name in the books.

Uh, no. Evidence alone doesn't make it accepted science. And there are many scientists that don't accept the global warming thoery at all, none of which are crackpots.

"Spend too much on military? Tell that to the brave souls who were killed on September 11th. Or at Pearl Harbor. History repeats itself. If anything, we're not spending ENOUGH. Until radical Islam and Marxism are wiped from this planet, the military should have a huge budget."

September 11th is the result of us meddling when we should let the rest of the world fuck itself and deal with it's own problems. If we didn't chase them down in their land they wouldn't come and fuck with us in ours. I don't care about making the lives better for people in Iraq and Afghanistan at the cost of American lives.

Why are American lives so worthless to you that you'd throw our brave soldiers at enemies around the world instead of keeping them safe here at home?

Every dollar you waste trying to kill ideas you're only killing Americans.

@Jamie: "I would love to be able to use this statistic in future, if it is anywhere near accurate. Where are you getting it from?" - i am quoting wikipedia, haven't looked at their sources, but i imagine that it is based on several different sources, (like the CIA factbook)

@rlumley: "Umm, no. Earth has cooled in temperature for the past 11 years. But nice try. And the Earth's temperature is much more highly correlated with sunspot activity on the sun than CO2 emissions."

but the earth's average temperature is largely based on ocean currents, and the expected cooling is much lower than expected. (so if you take the average over ~22 years it is still going up) When this cooling cycle (largely dependant on Pacific sea currents, if my understanding is correct) ends - around now - the average temp will increase.

Temperature on earth is also larely based on cloud cover (because clouds are white, and white things reflect more light into space than green/yellow earth or blue seas (as seen from space) though not more than white ice caps - however increased cloud cover will only result from an increase in evapouration (thus higher global temperatures, more rainfall, and in different places, causing both drought and flooding, depending on how lucky you are) - i don't really buy the sunspot theory - though the sun's energy output does vary on an 11 year cycle, if you blame global cooling on that you still have to worry about what happens in the hot part of the next cycle - how and ever, irrelivant of things which affect our climate, CO2 does insulate us, and increased levels will alter the average temperature. That is understood and accepted by all scientists (how big that effect will be is more difficult to tell - so don't go telling me some people don't accept this part of the theory - quote me specific blog entries/scientific literature if you have any - the burden of proof lies with you now that the IPCC has had it's word)

But no, I wasn't going to bring up climate change - I was talking about US energy independance. Do something smart with your money, and if China insists that they have the right to emit as much CO2 as the next industrial country per head of population (and they largely have agreement on that with the rest of the developing world) then they will be emmitting way more than they are at present to catch up with the US. Until you cap your emissions you will find it hard to get any agreement from the Chinese. (and your economy depends on their's so good luck in an economic war) That said, i know a few US states are actually doing something to about their own emissions (see: http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/24/local/me-green-fuel24 just as a little link i found - California to limit greenhouse gas emissions)

Anyway, a lot of my point must sound very anti-american, but that it only sounds that way because the points i am adressing are the things which I see America as doing wrong/badly. That doesn't mean i don't think America is generally a force for good in the world, and one of the best hopes for the future.

to re-iterate.
1) Education - your system lags behind a lot of other western nations, I believe you owe yourselfs better.
2) Health - As i pointed out in the abortion thread, if you believe society should protect life at all costs, then you are against abortion and I can't see how you are willing to let these lives live in pain, and die in misery. If you truely value life and believe society is right to step in and keep it around then how can you not also support universal health care - several European countries, and Canada have better infant mortality rates and better life expectancies - learn from the successes and also the failures of these nations. Again this is your choice, and it is my opinion that you can and should do better. (but spend your tax dollars where you want to)
3a)Foreign Policy - Policing the world - by going alone against he rest of the world you have chosen to shoulder a huge amount of the cost of 'policing the world' - admirable if you are successful, unfortunately by going it alone you also appear not as some international police man but as an Expansionist Imperial power, which as history should teach you has usually encouraged rebellion and opposition.
3b)Foreign Policy - Energy policy + Oil usage - the last time the US placed limits on car emission standards was during the 70s when the oil crisis hit (when Iran had a little Islamic revolution) Your government then proved it had the capability to enfore limits, and your industry proved able to design the technology to meet those limits. Japanese and EU emmission standards make for considerably more efficient cars. (and the policy is based on the fact that Germany and Japanese foreign policy can't guarentee ever increasing Oil usage, they can't afford it, and only through your foreign policy can you) I am cerainly of the opinion that you can o better here (for yourselves, but it would also save you much on militrary expences and allow you deploy your troops in the best places - not based on a policy of getting the most oil, but instead on a policy of successfully keeping peace around the world - something which could be a useful tool to improve popular opinion and decrease the likelyhood of another terrorist attack on American soil - oh and do it with European, Russian, and Chinese allies.

The fact the reducing your oil usage/dependancy suits the anti-global warming movement is secondrary to your own security. (if you actually believe the science behind the global-warming theory then preventing it is the most important thing you can do for your own securiy, but that's a completely seperate debate)

@ orthaic: "i am quoting wikipedia, haven't looked at their sources, but i imagine that it is based on several different sources, (like the CIA factbook)"

Where on wikipedia? Link please!

Plus does anyone know what The_Master_Bator was on about when he suggested I had a mental impairment? Other than being a total troll...