Bob Barr: The Original Federalists

Ever Wonder Why Conservatives Do Not Want To Conserve The Constitution? The Best Government Capital Can Buy. The Federalist Papers, once called by Jefferson, one of the great bodies of written political thought, and why they are NOT relevant to what goes on in our government today. It is neither a discussion of nor a great body of political theory. It is political theory put into practice. It is the written words which have the meaning upon which American citizens must operate. It is the Constitution, the Law of the Land. It's Purpose: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. The remainder, body and amendments, spells out how it is to be done and certain individual rights. No where in the Constitution will you find “profit”, “free market”, or the expression of any economic theory. To promote the general Welfare, We The People have the right, the responsibility and the Constitutional authority to regulate business and the economy. Considering that capitalism is anti-democratic in its structure and corporate capitalism is undemocratic in its structure, We The People need to regulate that economic very strictly and effectively for the promotion of the general welfare and to preserve the democratic republic. The economic and businesses of the nation have no Constitutional rights. Section 10 of Article I does restrict the authority of individual states such that No State shall ... pass any ... Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts. Interestingly, the minimum wage law regulates the labor market with a law which assures the capitalists that they can pay a wage of poverty, thus the nation state has passed a Law Impairing the ability to contract freely for a living wage or better, and thus impairing the ability to form an Obligation of Contracts. The result appearing as 40 plus million Americans working to live in poverty, a condition similar to slavery and itself an economic slavery (See Amendment XIII as the cause to why capitalists found a legislative way to get around this Amendment – and the American poor have sucked it up). And even with that law the capitalists have taken the jobs they own away from America and sent those jobs overseas to even cheaper labor markets than the one they bought with their political contributions. Ask a Free Marketeer why they want to regulate the labor market and further penalize the labor market with laws discouraging if not prohibiting the ability of the labor provider to negotiate through agency (a specialty of lawyers). Capitalism has no national obligations. Capital's obligation is to profit. Who came up with “no child left behind”? Ever wonder why public schools don't have capitalists teaching classes in capitalism, the current national economic, especially in the poorest communities in the nation, leading those citizens to become capitalists able to participate fully in the nation's mythical economic promise? Ever hear of Woodrow Wilson the educator? America is still on the Wilsonian Educational Model, just in case you hadn't noticed. Think about it the next time you hear the middle class talking head say something about the schools preparing students for jobs. If capitalism is to the the national economic, then surely the public schools should be teaching capitalism, not how to get be a worker. A successful capitalist has capital doing the job through ownership of the job. Capitalism has one requirement, capital; not human (people) attributes. In spite of the claims which emanate from the traditional middle class talking heads over our media formats, neither hard work nor education can guarantee any reward. Capitalist bought legislation is used to inhibit reward and stifle competition.

"but to say that water prices going up would lead to people dying of thrist is a leap" I didn't actually write that, and I thought a while if I should change my statement after I wrote it, but I stand by what I wrote. If water gets scarce the first people who die will not do so out of thirst. The circumstances of the watershortage are important. Most likely it'll happen in the summer during a hot period, and it'll happen slowly but steadily. The first to notice will be farmers, but if the tap stops running, even for a while, things start to get worse fast. Hospitals and fire departments will not be able to do their job 100%. Poor and old people will have a harder time because stores start to run out of bottled water. Heatstrokes will be the leading cause of death, and if it doesn't start to rain soon, well, use your imagination... Farmers will go bankrupt, fires destroy everything in their path, people plunder, fight, flee, but i'm sure the free market will solve everything... How the free market solves everything was clearly visible after Hurrican Catherina... Call me hysterical, call me nonsensical, but: "I'm not wrong!" In fact if all people can come up with is an "ad hominem" attack, that shows me I'm spot on :-) I'm just sick and tired of people going like: "the free market will solve everything!" Yeah, if we run out of water and food and oil and the climate changes, hell, even if an asteroid hits earth... then I TELL YOU PEOPLE, STAY CALM, THERE IS NO PROBLEM AND NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT, JUST ACT LIKE MINDLESS ZOMBIES, KEEP SHOPPING, AND DO NOT EVER QUESTION YOUR CEO errh... POLITICIANS, BECAUSE THE FREE-MARKET-SYSTEM IS HOLIER THAN JESUS AND MICHAEL JACKSON COMBINED AND IT WILL FIX EVERYTHING!!! Yeah, right... I'd rather be hysterical than braindead... (i also like to state that the free-market and capitalism are the most powerful engines for trade and wealth-creation, but it also is the worst strategy to make sure certain minimum standards do exist, wheather it is food and water, health care, social justice, education, legal justice, regulation of industry, the environment, etc.) EDIT: But I was wrong about one thing. Prices for water will not go down because of free-market-machanics. It will go down when it starts raining. It's a nature-thing, one which we as humans must cope with. Economics isn't the solution to a problem based in nature. The solution is science, engineering, an understanding of the natural world - and the numbers used to do those calculations don't have dollar-signs in front of them...

"My problem with Libratarism is that they seem sentimental for a time when women could not vote, blacks were slaves, and our nation was busy stealing and killing the native population." I think one can separate an admiration for the best points of the past from a desire to return to the worst practices of times gone by.

I appreciate Sokrates' passion and I agree with him that Mr. Barr has charcterised the "citizens united" case different than I would, but to say that water prices going up would lead to people dying of thrist is a leap. To say "You're hysterical and nonsensival" is a low blow and not a lot of fun. Barr made a great case for spirited debate...hurling one word bromides is not such fare. My problem with Libratarism is that they seem sentimental for a time when women could not vote, blacks were slaves, and our nation was busy stealing and killing the native population. After all Jefferson did say "I fear for my nation when I realise that God is just.": The Free market provides solution but it is not magic. Barr is right about the co opying of the Congress by parties and he's a bright guy has ideas to offer, also wish he would have lecured on the Federalist rather than just listing them and mentioning them.

You're hysterical and nonsensical.

Mr. Barr is totally misrepresenting the fundamental problem with "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission" and why Obama and many more criticize it. And his idea to let the market regulate watershortages?!? First of all: Since when is "having drinking water" being labeled as "Government Involvement in Green Energy" ?!? I bet he can afford ten bucks a gallon of water easily, and stopping his carwash might not be such a high priority. So if then a few thousand people die, demand will go down and prices stabilize. What does that make him? Here is reality: http://fora.tv/2009/02/01/Running_Ou...sis#chapter_07