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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/23/2009 12:16:18 PM |
When the People, speaking through their duly elected representatives, agree upon a course of action, the only agency that has the power to tell them otherwise is the Judiciary, and they can only do so when the will of the majority would violate the rights of an individual.
There are other alternatives. In CA we have recall elections. Through ballot props we can change laws and the CA constitution as well.
When our predecessors gave the power to tax incomes to the Federal Government, the opportunity to rein in the government's power was lost.
Our ancestors were told that the Income Tax was "temporary" to pay for WWI debts.
There also is evidence that the 16th amendment was never ratified. However, I agree with you that the income tax increased Federal power. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/23/2009 4:02:36 PM |
Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR consulted with Congress
That is just not the fact. Lincoln most certainly did NOT consult with Congress in suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas, which he did more than once. That was the whole reason for the furor that resulted. It's hard to imagine a much more severe interference with the rights of Americans than suspending what may be the most basic of them all--the right not to be condemned to prison, or even death, without having had your day in court. And yet Lincoln acted on his own authority, without asking for anyone's consent.
Wilson had his federal police round up 50,000 suspected draft resisters in a single raid in New York. And far worse. (I realize, of course, that's nothing compared to Bush's jackbooted rule.) And I notice you again ducked the question of what Mr. Bush did--specifically but just repeat the vague assertion that he was "screwing with the Constitutional guarantees, " and say we were headed for 1984. You assert these things, but when asked to back them up, you have nothing to say. Without facts, what makes these things anything more than products of your imagination?
I suppose you would have liked the Bush administration to come out with everything it knew, in a war where the most important strategic asset was--still is--information. And that information often must be protected with strict secrecy. Of course, the jihadists who live to murder us (after first enjoying the sight of us on our knees) would also have known whatever we'd been informed of, making it far easier for them to realize their dreams. You completely dismiss that risk, but I wonder if you would have been so quick to do that if you'd had the responsibility Mr. Bush had on your shoulders.
The sanctioning effect of consulting with Congress is overstated. It comes from Justice Jackson's commonsensical statements in his dissent in the 1952 Steel Seizure Case, and it's been done to death. The Court loves to cite it when it feels like second-guessing a President in wartime. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/23/2009 6:05:54 PM | That is just not the fact. Lincoln most certainly did NOT consult with Congress in suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas, which he did more than once.
Well, not the entire Congress, no. But he did vet his ideas and concerns with Senators, and his writings indicate that he was very loathe to do it even as a last resort.
The only concerns the Bush administration appeared to have were on how to cover their rears as they went about doing whatever they were going to do anyway.
Bush: tried to claim that unlawful combatants had no rights, and that it was legal to subject them to techniques that we ourselves had called torture in the past. He authorized warrantless wiretaps in contravention of law and without congressional oversight. He authorized the acquisition and use of phone-company-record databases, also in contravention of law. Congress gave the phone companies immunity from liability for breach of privacy after the fact, but at the time it was done, it was illegal. Bush & company used government resources to illegally transport prisoners to foriegn countries where they most certainly were tortured by your definition, without trial. There is also the matter of the abuses the Blackwater contractors and others perpetrated in Iraq.
That's what we know about.
You might want to excuse those things in the name of war. I don't.
Wilson had his federal police round up 50,000 suspected draft resisters in a single raid in New York. And far worse.
Did any of those people in that raid get a trial? Were they able to post bail? Were any of them waterboarded?
Perhaps Wilson violated their right to peaceable assembly. If so, shame on him! But that doesn't negate Bush & Cheney's playing fast and loose with peoples' rights. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/23/2009 6:11:58 PM |
Our ancestors were told that the Income Tax was "temporary" to pay for WWI debts.
Well, perhaps it's time to crank up the effort to repeal it. I'll bet Repubican candidates could get a lot of votes by advocating such an amendment. I myself would have to think long and hard about whether or not to support such a repeal. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/23/2009 8:05:05 PM | I wonder how much of California's problems could be fixed by making it illegal for any entity ( Unions, corporations, etc ) that contract with the state to make political donations to politicians or parties; or, provide any other benefit to state officials or their families.
Because, right now, for example, the public employee's union control both sides of the bargaining table.
e.g.
Union Guy: "We want another 10-billion and a guarantee of no layoffs."
Senator Guy: "I represent the taxpayers. And, they find that excessive."
Union Guy: "We will kick back $250,000 of it to your re-election fund."
Senator Guy:"Oh, ok. Now the taxpayers just changed their minds. You got it."
Union Guy: "Nice doing business with you. Is that $10,000 on the floor by your foot?"
Senator Guy:"Uhhh.. that must have been there when you walked in".
Union Guy: "Of course it was. :) "
I WISH that was a joke. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/23/2009 8:41:44 PM | The 16th Amendment was never ratified? I'd like to see your evidence. According to Wikipedia (a notoriously left wing site):
Ratification {of the 16th Amendment} (by the requisite thirty-six states) was completed on February 3, 1913 with the ratification by New Mexico. The amendment was subsequently ratified by the following states, bringing the total number of ratifying states to forty-two of the forty-eight then existing:
37. Delaware (February 3, 1913)
38. Wyoming (February 3, 1913)
39. New Jersey (February 4, 1913)
40. Vermont (February 19, 1913)
41. Massachusetts (March 4, 1913)
42. New Hampshire (March 7, 1913), after rejecting the amendment on March 2, 1911
The following states rejected the amendment without ever subsequently ratifying it:
Connecticut
Rhode Island
Utah
The following states never took up the proposed amendment:
Pennsylvania
Virginia
Florida
I get the fact that you, or anyone really, don't like to pay taxes. It's a real pain in a**. But, as a nation, and as citizens of that nation, down to the state and local levels, we do enjoy at least some of the benefits of government. Roads, police protections, fire prevention, education. And I have never heard any of you from the right say that we should just eliminate our Armed Forces. So...you enjoy the protections and services of government, you applaud and praise the men and women who place themselves in harm's way to defend this country.
Tell me then, without tax revenues how is any government..Federal, State, County, Municipal..to pay for those services? If you have a better way, I'm sure that almost everyone, including me, would be delighted to hear it. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/24/2009 12:59:16 AM | Wikipedia is far LEFT. It is not a relevant source of information. Any dummy can write for wikipedia.
There is a book called "the law that never was"
http://www.thelawthatneverwas.com/new/theman.asp
75% of the states are necessary to pass an amendment to the constitution. They didn't ratify the 16th amendment. Read the above link.
oldfolkie - The USA survived over 100 years without an income tax.
Are you still delighted? | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/24/2009 9:30:48 AM | So Pirate if the article you posted is true why has no one taken this case to the Supreme Court, Match do you know any case law on this?
I hate taxes and if the Feds would take care of their original intent by the founding fathers and we wouldn't need these taxes.
My biggest problem with taxes is the money is never spent on what it was intended and there never is a sunset clause in it, these would make good constitutional amendments for CALI.
Example: borrowing against social security, the fund has more than enough money in it if we hadn't borrowed it in to oblivion, California's 3 billion in highway funds that were misappropriated elsewhere then they want to raise vehicle registration.
I know the legal argument that the legislators have the authority to do this, but if you did some of this in a private company you would go to jail. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/24/2009 12:28:59 PM | fzrhusker
The supreme court takes only a few cases a year which they choose. Going through the entire court system including appeals is a costly proposition beyond the means of most Americans. This guy is serious and he wrote a very scholarly work encompassing two volume and I believe over 1,000 pages of evidence.
Go to the link below for his brief to the state district court of Illionois.
http://www.thelawthatneverwas.com/new/00_images/16th.final.pdf | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/24/2009 10:41:43 PM | ^^^ Wait, hand me my gun, joie.
The first step is for everyone to get the freaking chemical toxin fluoride out of their increasingly lethargic systems. Some very objective scientists have come forward revealing the harm it causes people including the impact of systemic poisoning. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Austria, France, and The Netherlands are BANNING fluoride while most of America remains asleep on this issue. Don't be quick to assume this is a conspiracy--but be sure that greed and contracts are involved.
The antidote: Anything that binds fluoride, such as sodium borate. Stop cooking with Teflon. Take quick showers. Install water filters that address fluoride (most popular brands don't). Switch to natural toothpaste. Minimize your exposure to fluoride.
"Don't drink fluoridated water .... Fluoride is a corrosive poison which will produce harm on a long term basis." --Dr Charles Heyd, Past AMA president
People love a good revolution. The only reason why we are not reaching that point is because of some artificial reason. I'm sure its the fluoride.
"You have been led to believe the fluorine makes teeth harder. The fact is, it actually makes teeth softer." (George Meinig, a founder of the American Academy of Endodontics)
---References--
Sodium Fluoride-induced Morphological and Neoplastic Transformation Chromosome Aberrations, Sister Chromatid Exchanges, and Unscheduled DNA Synthesis in Cultured Syrian Hamster Embryo Cells, Takeki Tsutsui, Nobuko Suzuki and Manabu Ohmori, Can Res, 44:938-941, 1984 (March)
Sodium Fluoride-induced Chromosome Aberrations in Different Stages of the Cell Cycle: A Proposed Mechanism, Marilyn J Aardema, et al, Mutation Research, 223:191-203, 1989
Varner, J A, et al, "Chronic Administration of Aluminum Fluoride or Sodium Fluoride to Rats in Drinking water: Alterations in Neuronal and Cerebrovascular Integrity", Brain Research, 784(1-2):284-298, 1998, 1998, Feb 16.
Isaacson, R L, et al, "Toxin-Induced Blood Vessel Inclusions Caused By the Chronic Administration of Aluminum and Sodium Fluoride and Their Implications in Dementia", Ann NY Acad Science, 825():152-166, 1997, Oct 15.
Varner, J A, et al , "Chronic Aluminum Fluoride Administration, Part I: Behavioral Observations", Behavior Neural Biology, 61(3):233-241, 1994, May.
Burgstahler, A W, Colquhoun, J, "Neurotoxicity of Fluoride", Fluoride, 29:57-58, 1996 and
Li, X S, Zhi, J L, Gao R O, "Effects of Fluoride Exposure on the Intelligence of Children", Fluoride, 28:182-189, 1995 and
Mullenix, P J, et al, "Neurotoxicity of Sodium Fluoride on Rats", Neurotoxicity and Teratology, 17:169-177, 1995 and
Zhao, L B, et al, "Effect of Fluoridated Water Supply on Children’s Intelligence", Fluoride, 29:190-192, 199 | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/28/2009 12:43:18 PM | I blame the CA collapse on the Jerkinator.
He did not stand up to the legislature and it turned out he was a girly man. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/28/2009 5:42:08 PM | Economically, California is broke. Politically, California is broken. The reasons are the leftist Democrats have so gerrymandered the voting districts and beholden themselves to the public labor unions; they will probably retain power forever as members of a permanent political class. Gerrymandering and special interest groups do the “voting” these days—not the citizens. That means the permanent political class will continue to tax and spend forever.
The spendwhore legislature and spendwhore governator got slapped in the grill last Tuesday by fed up, over-taxed citizens who have had enough of Sacramento’s nonsense. Thank heaven for the state constitutional requirement for a 2/3 majority ballot vote for a tax increase. Imagine how bad it would be if the spendwhores needed a mere simple majority to tax and spend.
Some observers blame the California ballot initiative process as the foremost problem bedeviling California, but spending has outpaced the rate of population growth, economic growth and inflation. The moron spendwhores think that the record-high tax revenues the state was collecting each year until recently would continue forever and kept increasing their spending. The problem is that politicians know nothing about business and business cycles and how what goes up must come down. Tax revenues are shrinking now due to recession while spending commitments are locked into place to appease the various voting blocs. (But to his credit, Schwarzenegger did put redistricting reform and open-ballot propositions on recent ballots and they both passed. The thinking was that districts always elected extremes of either party. It will take a few years to see results from this.)
As the remaining small businesses and big corporations (who haven’t yet fled the state to escape onerous regulations) that are restructuring and laying off millions of people, why won’t the spendwhores lay off 10% of the government bureaucrat workers instead of threatening us with cutting school teachers, firemen, police and essential services?
California is infested with welfaristas and the pensionistas who suck the public trough dry. Los Angeles alone has 500,000 welfare recipients (the population of Atlanta!). California state employees are the highest paid public employees in the nation with an average pay that is $14,000 per year higher than the average pay for federal employees, and they also have the most generous public employee pension plans in the country. As Margaret Thatcher said, the socialists have run out of other people's money to spend. They can't find any more suckers willing to front them money, except for The Messiah.
I’ve seen it said that Democrats tax and spend, and Republicans borrow and spend. Modern government is rife with know-nothing theorists who engage in arrogant social engineering and wealth redistribution. They have allowed (planned on?) the dumbing-down of the citizenry by diluting it with illegal and unskilled human imports, and an education system that serves its administrators and teacher unions instead of producing citizens who can read and write, thus think and vote intelligently.
Now the spendwhore California legislators and governator want federal TARP funds (another government scam) to bail them out. Democracy (and Federalism) will be a failure if that is allowed to happen. Every other state’s politicians will then expect that our federal taxes be given to them after they foolishly mismanaged our state taxes. Next they will want our first born. If The Messiah bails out California so he can have his strings attached to it like he is doing with Detroit and the banking system, I will vomit shortly thereafter.
Go to Sacramento sometime and look at all the shiny new government office buildings. Here in San Diego, the state offices buildings and the DMV buildings are palatial and state-of-the-art. Those office buildings are filled with mostly under-worked people who exist due to our tax dollars. Meanwhile, those feather-bedded bureaucrats provide us with crappy roads, terrible schools, and a state government that works so badly you have to make the laws yourself via the initiative process.
The more I think about all of this, the more I don’t think I can wait… I’m going to vomit now. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/28/2009 8:56:16 PM | The more I think about all of this, the more I don’t think I can wait… I’m going to vomit now.
I'll hold your hair back, Sock.
~Boots~  | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/28/2009 9:12:31 PM | I beg to differ. Income tax started during the Civil war. the J. Paul Gettys and H.P. Morgans and such signed contracts with the Lincoln government that gave then like 300% interest. We have still not paid off civil war debts. There was no Federal Tax before the civil war.
Fricken Government messages may not be posted this short.
Do you see the subversive entities we are up against?
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 5/29/2009 3:25:47 PM |
Income tax started during the Civil war
You may want to check your copy of the U.S. Constitution on that. Mine says the 16th Amendment authorized the income tax:
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
Congress proposed this amendment to the state legislatures on July 31, 1909. In a proclamation dated February 25th, 1913, the Secretary of State declared that the amendment had been ratified by the legislatures of 36 states in all. The legislatures of New Jersey and New Mexico also passed resolutions ratifying the proposed amendment.
Under the Constitution, only Congress has the power to tax. So only Congress could have imposed any income tax during the Civil War. But if it had already had that power for at least 44 years, why did it propose the 16th Amendment?
In its early days, the U.S. government was financed largely by customs taxes. The Progressive Movement--one of the philosophical ancestors of American liberals/progressives/statists--favored a federal income tax as a way to make up for what its members saw as the excesses of laissez-faire capitalism. For them, the Morgans, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Astors, etc. were "robber barons."
I know I've always felt privileged to do my part to atone for their sins, by working so others don't have to. And what fair-minded American wouldn't feel the same? As our President's said, it's our duty to redistribute our wealth."We fleece you all for all you've got; give it up for the have-nots." That should be our motto, as good Americans. Come on--those old dead white male days are, like, OVER.
The Progressives also wanted Prohibition, which the 18th Amendment imposed for about 15 years. They saw alcohol as a social evil that destroyed families and harmed women and children in particular. Today's progressives are mostly OK with alcohol--for them, things like tobacco, red meat, and junk food have taken its place as mortal sins. (Have to get those high-risk plebes to switch to a healthy lifestyle, or we'll never control the cost of socialized medicine!) When the enlightened statist wants to sin a little by having rib eye or a Ben & Jerry's, of course, that's OK. So are their big cars.
Oh--almost forgot. The Progressives had another big fascination--eugenics. That's so embarrassing to modern statists that they love to lie about it. Our Secretary of State, for example, spoke a while ago about Planned Parenthood. She went on about what a marvelous woman the organization's founder, Margaret Sanger, had been. She never mentioned that Ms. Sanger (like many Progressives) was a total racist, who wrote and spoke a lot about the wondrous society we could create by preventing the birth of the feeble-minded, criminally inclined, and other undesirable spawn of the lower classes and non-white races.
To me, Ms. Sanger and some other Progressives were American fascists. And some of the Progressives' writings were admired by Mussolini and Hitler. But if Ms. Clinton says ol' Margaret was great because she was a pioneer of birth control, I guess she must be right. After all, she IS the world's smartest woman. (Or at least she was until Sonia Sotomayor came along.) Gotta go now--I feel a fit of empathy coming on. I'm going down to the boulevard to pass out money to the bums. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 6/13/2009 7:18:31 AM | | Cut everything in the state to the bone and start over, but the cowards in Sactown will never do it. The people spoke but they are still not listening. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 6/15/2009 7:00:33 PM | Hmmm ...
Seems like with term limits we do that every four years now. I'm wondering how it's working for us. In theory, term limits should ensure that no pols get too powerful, but what might actually be happening is that the only people who now find it worth their while to run are ideologues with axes to grind for a couple years or four.
These people won't be living with the consequences of their decisions as legislators and have no reason to compromise or, in fact cooperate. And so, instead of a budget crisis every decade or so, we now have them every year. We also have an initiative-driven earmark du jour. Both are signs of a systemic failure in the legislature that hasn't gotten better.
I was on the fence about term limits. It was probably good idea at the time it was passed. However, we've changed out at least two crops of legislators now.
It politics a profession or a sport? Maybe that's the deeper question underlying our current morass. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 6/15/2009 7:19:12 PM | You know which states are in trouble.... The ones that are extremely liberal... New York and California... And I'm not really saying politics. It's the social stances that are taken. We throw so much money at Illegal's and welfare... and over regulate and over tax businesses, to chase them out of the state.
Increased outcome... and less income.....
You can't stay healthy... when you're bleeding yourself to death. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 6/15/2009 8:52:06 PM | California Term Limits
Members of the Assembly are elected from eighty districts, serve two year terms, and since 1990 are limited to being elected three times. Members of the Senate serve four year terms and are limited to being elected twice. There are forty Senate districts, with half of the seats up for election on alternate (two year) election cycles.
The principle being what I believe Madison said:
"No politician shall make a rod against himself"
Here is my take on this. If you have a business and get elected to office then you will not pass unneeded regulations against your own industry or profession, so as not to complicate yours or your peers professional lives, or at least provide some protection against those who assail against your trade.
Now the problem with today politicians is they are mostly lawyers, who love to hear themselves speak, over complicate any issue and worry more about the minutiae of an idea than the idea itself. They have also written every piece of legislation to their advantage, so virtually no matter what you do in modern society you have to have lawyer.
Every man in this congress it is a great man, an orator, a critic, a statesman; and therefore every man upon every question must show his oratory, his criticism, and his political abilities.
- John Adams
"We did more in the first 3 years of congress than they did for the next 10, because the lawyers got involved" Thomas Jefferson | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 6/15/2009 10:17:33 PM |
The California Collapse
I start my new job one week from today in Arizona. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 6/15/2009 10:29:54 PM | 04... thats cool.... I'm actually being talked into going back north... Idaho/Utah area.... where Napoleon Dynamite went to school... LOL ...I would take off at the end of the month... which I am... but might just stay.
I haven't decided yet... but seriously thinking about it. Man I love riding my bike around thru those canyons up there.
But love the ocean view and breeze here in South Laguna... It's a hard one. | |
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| The California Collapse
Posted: 6/15/2009 11:10:24 PM | But Ace... If I go.... I'll still be here....
The thought of that just got me. | |
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