No, I didn't say progressivism isn't a legitimate viewpoint. I said the methodology used by modern liberals to achieve their goals has not been legitimately within the Constitution. As I've told you in the past, there are a number of liberal programs that I also favor, but without Constitutional sanction, I still think they're unconstitutional. Yes, I basically favor the "dead constitution." A constitution that can change meaning via reinterpretation amounts to no constitution at all. If we can say that yesterday (or two decades ago), the Constitution meant one thing, and today, it means another, then why bother having it?imreallyperplexed;455810[QUOTE said:]I think that you just told me that you are a conservative and don't really think that progressivism is REALLY legitimate (i.e. constitutional). I already knew that. I think that progressivism is TOTALLY legitimate (i.e. constitutional) and I think that the "living document" perspective is totally legitimate. (The opposite of a "living document" is a "dead document." Do you support the "dead document" theory of the constitution?)
I also think that you exaggerate and mischaracterize liberal and progressive views. You claim that liberals "love" and "trust" government while objecting (above) when I say that you "admire" the gilded age and arguing that you just don't "loathe/fear" it as much as liberals do. Given your precedent, I think that it is fairer to say that degsme and I do not fear or loathe the governement as much as you do.
I do not loathe my government -- but government, like fire, a hammer or an automobile, is a tool. And when a fire is let out of control, a hammer dropped from the top of a worksite, or an automobile is mishandled, bad things happen. The controls that were designed to keep this from happening to our governmental tool were written into the Constitution. I think that reinterpreting or outright ignoring those controls is as dangerous as letting the campfire sit unattended.
Here we agree -- and I don't think we agree on how small is "as small as possible," but where we really disagree is on the method for making it larger where we need it to be larger. What Degsme and a lot of liberals do, and have been allowed to do by SCOTUS since the 1930s, is to lump any new governmental power under one of two authorities -- a new power is either to benefit the "general welfare," or a new power is, no matter what it controls, a means of regulating commerce. We've started to see some departures from the latter reasoning in SCOTUS, with the rulings in both U.S. v. Lopez (1995) and the Obamacare ruling, but it still remains. The general welfare reading, and Helvering v. Davis essentially means that Congress can decide for itself if something is a constitutional usage in the name of general welfare, is both more pernicious and more durable.I certainly don't have total confidence or blind trust in the government. A good government depends on an informed and engaged citizenry. I am an engaged citizen. The government is capable of enhancing both individual liberty and collective prosperity. It is also capable of threatening individual liberty and collective prosperity. The government should be as small as possible but no smaller.
The result of all this has been exponential growth in government, into areas that someone like myself would say are outside the authorities designated in the Constitution. Degs, and possibly yourself, would say, "no, the authority comes from the general welfare authority." I can't see that as valid constitutional reasoning because if general welfare is not bound by the detail of authorities, there's really no need for the other authorites -- why write into the Constitution that Congress has the power to "borrow money on the credit of the United States" if it could do so simply by saying, "an ability to borrow money is good for the general welfare, so we are going to borrow money in the name of general welfare?"
"Promoting" the general welfare is something separate from providing it.On that line, I think that in addition to good roads and good schools, I think that the government has a role in regulating commerce (state governments for intrastate commerce and federal government for interstate commerce) and in promoting the general welfare.
I think the Constitution provided, within its original content, the means for changes to the Constitution and by extension, changes to our system of government. It's a living document in the sense that it can be amended to accommodate changes to society, not in the sense that we can read it as meaning one thing today and another tomorrow. SCOTUS doesn't exist to reinterpret the Constitution, but to determine if laws passed by Congress conform to the Constitution.I know that we disagree about what this means but the arguments that we might have about these things demonstrate that - in practice - the Constitution is a "living document" and that the Supreme Court and the judicial system is a "living institution." The Constitution is not a dead document and the Supreme Court is not a dead institution.
Although I largely agree and am by no means one of the many neo-cons who favors an all-interventionist, all-the-time military policy, at the same time the people who wrote the Constitution saw the Navy as a means of protecting U.S. world-wide interests and projecting U.S. power -- even Jefferson, who believed in a very limited government and military, didn't hesitate to send in a U.S. fleet in response to the Barbary Pirates.BTW, I don't think that a "strong military" is equivalent to "providing for national defense" or an aggressive foreign policy where the United States is the supreme military power in the world, the world's policeman, and the United States attempts to impose its will on the world. I do think that that is the establishment Republican foreign policy and the foreign policy preferred by the Dick Cheneys of the world and the bulk of conservatives. I do not think that the "founders" envisioned this sort of aggressive foreign policy. They envisioned something more modest.
As opposed to what? Obama has been only slightly less interventionist. And while that would indeed cross the line for millions of Americans, there is apparently a nearly equal number of Americans who would cheer. While I do not favor interventionism full time, as I said above, there comes a time when something must be done. America has been under attack by Islamo-terrorists since the 1960s. I know the man's every word is probably anathema to you, but in this one respect, I agree with George W. Bush -- it's time to stop swatting flies.Finally, there are also certain lines that I draw. If Romney returns to the Bush foreign and military policy and it is pretty clear to me that he is a disciple of Dick Cheney, I am sure that he will cross a line for me and millions of Americans.
This may surprise you, but I'm not an opponent of universal health care. I'm an opponent of Obamacare, and all other such plans for universal health care that don't involve amending the Constitution, which makes no provision for such health care (or insurance).It won't be pretty. I am also a strong proponent of universal health care (and that is, I admit, a progressive position).
Show me the authority for it. Even in Helvering v. Davis SCOTUS said there has to be a difference between the general welfare and the specific -- universal health care is clearly the specific welfare of individuals, not the general welfare mentioned in the Constitution (I stipulate that you'll disagree).I think that universal health care IS constitutional.
.If they repeal Obamacare, they will not attempt to achieve universal healthcare. That is a line that I am not willing to cross. I think that millions of Americans agree with me. I think millions of Americans will again take to the streets
Well, there are a lot of things we could discuss around the concept, but Obamacare doesn't provide "universal" health care insurance, either. Setting aside that quibble -- the overall law isn't that popular. Remember, even before it was passed, 80 percent of people in the United States had health insurance. The insurance for those who didn't have it doesn't kick in until 2014, and comes with the "penalty" or "tax" or "cornucopiea of infinite prosperity" or whatever it's being called this week, that is very unpopular. I don't see people taking to the streets to save it.
I don't think the government, other than making certain there's a stable currency and a limited regulatory environment, should be all that involved in the economy. It wasn't always, and while we had boom and bust cycles, they were fairly widely spread busts among long periods of prosperity. Too much regulation can be as bad as too little -- and I don't see anyone except conservatives attempting to put on the breaks. But really, that's a topic for another thread.