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I see myself as a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. That's why GWB is my worst nightmare as he's exactly the opposite on both. Old school conservative are speechless at the president's willingness to spend without the slightest inclination to to worry about where the funds come in.

Our political system is busted and needs to be overhauled. Number one priority is that no candidate or party should ever be able to receive one thin dime from any business, or private individual, any time, for any purpose. It just leads to too much corruption on both sides of the fence. Candidates should be chosen by the people in genearal elections and be given a finite amount of free airtime to state their case and a limited and federally funded and exactly equal budget to campaign. For-profit businesses and the military-industrial complex now have a voice in govt. that is entirely too big - the founding fathers and dozens of pundits since their time warned us all against allowing that to happen and we let it happen anyway. the rights of the individual dwindle by the hour. The power of eminent domain is now used seize private property to build for-profit real-estate ventures. America is dead or dying and the yellow-ribbon crowd thinks things couldn't be better.

cb360 wrote:I see myself as a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. That's why GWB is my worst nightmare as he's exactly the opposite on both. Old school conservative are speechless at the president's willingness to spend without the slightest inclination to to worry about where the funds come in.

Our political system is busted and needs to be overhauled. Number one priority is that no candidate or party should ever be able to receive one thin dime from any business, or private individual, any time, for any purpose. It just leads to too much corruption on both sides of the fence. Candidates should be chosen by the people in genearal elections and be given a finite amount of free airtime to state their case and a limited and federally funded and exactly equal budget to campaign. For-profit businesses and the military-industrial complex now have a voice in govt. that is entirely too big - the founding fathers and dozens of pundits since their time warned us all against allowing that to happen and we let it happen anyway. the rights of the individual dwindle by the hour. The power of eminent domain is now used seize private property to build for-profit real-estate ventures. America is dead or dying and the yellow-ribbon crowd thinks things couldn't be better.

There have been periods, long periods, in American history when the 'rights of the people' have been considerably fewer than they are now. These things always go in cycles - so maybe things are not as bleak as you imagine.

Rights have to be fought for. They are rarely given on a plate by governments (of any colour). Governments have always attempted to limit popular freedoms. At present government is making inroads into the rights of non-corporate America, but that will change, it always does.

When I started reading up on American labour history, I was amazed at jiust how violent and bloody were the battles fought in your country to establish basic human rights, which for a long while lagged far behind those won in Europe. I'm talking about the reality of life for ordinary people, not the rhetoric of 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'

in fact, American labour has never achieved anything like the same rights that British or European labour has. The Wagner Act was just about as high as they got, and that was under attack before the ink was dry. But we too are going through a period where rights are being whittled away by government. Currently government and the media is trying to convince us that this is good for us.

The 'Founding Fathers' were antagonistic to the power of business in government because they were mostly from an aristocratic background and their wealth was founded on land and not on capital. But that didn't mean they thought power should sit in the hands of 'the people'. They clearly believed the people were not capable of governance - or at least, those of them who framed the constitution did. In that respect, your history is no different from ours.

Wow - I didn't expect that - a thoughtful, reasonable response to a post about politics. Thanks! I'm just a little bummed out currently... our supreme court recently ruled on an 'eminent domain' case in a way that gave greatly expanded powers to local governments to acquire private land. All the naysayers said this power would be abused to enrich 'insiders'. Sure enough, the ink not yet dry on the ruling, a town in New jersey is going to use the new rule to take land from one private individual... and give it to another private individual who plans on building a housing development - the exact same thing the first guy intended to do with the land! Eminent Domain was not intended to be used like that. Imagine you save for years and slowly build a piece of property as an investment and the city comes in and takes it for another individual to develop. How could our courts have reached this state?

Here's a link to an article about the case for anyone who cares

http://www.nj.com/search/index.ssf?/bas ... nnj&coll=1

Note - I have no problem
with the general idea of eminent domain - hey, I might not like it if the town needs my land to build a bridge that would benefit the whole community... but I'd UNDERSTAND it. But these new rules go WAY beyond that and it boggles the mind that there hasn't been more of an uproar about it.

An example of this new version of eminent domain was presented on 60 minutes several months ago. The city government in some town back east was trying to exercise it by condemning a whole neighborhood of fine older homes to give the land to a big-box store company as a store location. Under tremendous pressure, [including some death threats, probably], the plan was scrapped. This new application of eminent domain is the worst offense to people's rights I have ever seen. Theoretically, noone's property is safe. If the government feels your waterfront view home could reap greater tax proceeds if condos were there, they can take your waterfront view home and the waterfront view property and give it to another individual who wants to build the condos on it.
This was all approved by the US Supreme Court, as I recollect. So much for their interpretation of our rights as citizens. As I've said in every one of my posts, it's about money, oil, and power all of the time. This one is about money. We as citizens no longer have rights about what we may think is our property.

Exactly right oldnslo. It's one thing when a community desperately needs a highway or a bridge or a school or a military base or a water treatment plant. But taking private land for profit-seeeking developers definitely has the founding fathers we hear so much about, spinning in their graves.

The things you mentioned having to do with the public good have been the historical application of eminent domain, and, as you have said, have been generally accepted.

Exactly _ I wouldn't LIKE having my house taken for a water treatment plant, but I'd certainly concede that it was a valid use of eminent domain. taking land from a guy who bought it to give to another guy with ties to the city council is not a valid use. It reeks and i hope he has the stones to test the high courts new ruling.

why would anybody think that the supreme court decisions arent bought and paid for by big business??the entire government of the people by the people for the people disappeared long ago.the american citizen has the right to pay taxes and that is all.

I'm beginning to think you are right. That's one of the reasons why I don't think any business should be able to give money to candidates or parties.

As they said so often in the movie "Full Metal Jacket", "we're in a world of s.h.i.t", they were, and now we all are, too.