Originally posted by dryhumpReally?:
You sir, are full of crap. Being a liberal used to mean that you worked in your community to make it better and spread your own wealth around to make your home place a better place to live. How many hours a week do you volunteer? How much money do you give to support local charities? JFK wouldn't even recognize the democratic party today.
Perhaps he could carry on the party policies, the policies of Nixon and Benson and Dirksen and Goldwater. But this Nation cannot afford such a luxury. Perhaps we could afford a Coolidge following Harding. And perhaps we could afford a Pierce following Fillmore. But after Buchanan this nation needed Lincoln; after Taft we needed Wilson; and after Hoover we needed Franklin Roosevelt.
But we're not merely running against Mr. Nixon. Our task is not merely one of itemizing Republican failures. Nor is that wholly necessary. For the families forced from the farm do not need to tell us of their plight. The unemployed miners and textile workers know that the decision is before them in November. The old people without medical care, the families without a decent home, the parents of children without a decent school: They all know that it's time for a change.
JFK Acceptance Speech at the Democratic Convention, July 15, 1960
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfk1960dnc.htm
Originally posted by dryhumpThis, surely, is what decent conservatives tend to believe and, hopefully, to put into practice! It's liberals (in the American sense) who tend to regard such personal initiatives (while laudable) as insufficient, and who think the state needs to step in to accomplish those social aims that individual action can't or won't.
You sir, are full of crap. Being a liberal used to mean that you worked in your community to make it better and spread your own wealth around to make your home place a better place to live. How many hours a week do you volunteer? How much money do you give to support local charities? JFK wouldn't even recognize the democratic party today.
Originally posted by no1marauderWhy all this sophistry if it was accepted that income taxes were acceptable, and why attempt to pass the 16th amendment, except to legalize what was up to that point deemed illegal?
More from Springer:
In the twenty-first number of the Federalist, Alexander Hamilton, speaking of taxes generally, said:
"Those of the direct kind, [b]which principally relate to land and buildings, may admit of a rule of apportionment. Either the value of the land or the number of the people may serve as a standard."
AND
In Pacif ...[text shortened]... thin the condition that unless laid in proportion to numbers the assessment is invalid."[/b]
Originally posted by no1marauderThe dictionary definition isn't what you are talking about. What you call Randian rubbish is actually rational thought. That makes forcing your will difficult. I still can't believe you try to sell the notion that you are libertarian, or defend natural law. Everything you say is diametrically opposed to both.
What a load. Empathy is easily defined; buy a dictionary. The rest is just typical Randian rubbish.
Originally posted by normbenignThat you don't understand libertarian thought or natural law theory is obvious. Right wing fanatics have tried to hijack both, but properly understood neither endorses the extreme laissez faire positions you take.
The dictionary definition isn't what you are talking about. What you call Randian rubbish is actually rational thought. That makes forcing your will difficult. I still can't believe you try to sell the notion that you are libertarian, or defend natural law. Everything you say is diametrically opposed to both.
I have no idea what you are talking about, but the dictionary definition of empathy is what the authors of the article are talking about. Your attempts at being Humpty Dumpty and changing the meaning for your own ideological purposes is laughable.
Originally posted by normbenignFind a history book and read it. In 1895, the Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote reversed 100 years of precedent and decided that a tax on certain forms of investment income was an unconstitutional unapportioned direct tax (though the majority opinion said that a tax on individual wages wouldn't be). This opinion lead to the movement which resulted in the 16th Amendment to end this type of judicial mischief. The income tax was supported even by conservatives like William Howard Taft; all three main Presidential candidates in 1912 supported it.
Why all this sophistry if it was accepted that income taxes were acceptable, and why attempt to pass the 16th amendment, except to legalize what was up to that point deemed illegal?
I'm quite interested in your reaction to the fact that the First Congress imposed a nationwide tax on pleasure carriages. How does that square with your assertions that the Framers intended the Constitution to lock in laissez faire principles and bind future legislators to these principles?