ICANT writes:
Well I am sorry but I don't believe all the propaganda that is put out by our government and the media.
Neither do I. Nor do I believe all the propaganda put out be either the extreme right or left wing-nuts. I investigate and then respond based on my own research.
in the 40's and 50's but I would dare say you were not a twinkle in the eye of your parents.
And this makes a difference how? I have studied history and have heard the stories from various friends and family living at the time. Just because I was not alive at that time does not make me totally ignorant of what occurred then. Are historians unqualified to discuss past history because they were not alive when these events occurred?
After the war was over things were tough in the area I lived in. But we all survived without big brother supplying our needs.
Really? I believe social security, unemployment and many of what you would term big brother legislation started with FDR in the 30s during the Great Depression when nearly 25% of the US working population was unemployed.
The government did not supply our food, healthcare, or anything we needed to survive. We worked for everything we had.
As many people still do. Though, I do though agree that there abuses in the welfare and other similar government sponsored systems I believe they do more good than harm. I believe the problem is more to do with ineffective enforcement and poorly written legislation than anything else.
I lived on a farm and worked on many farms. There was black and white working side by side. Each got paid the same amount of money. We went to the same Churches. We visited in each others homes in other words we were friends.
I applaud your seemingly equable treatment of other ethnicities and your hard work ethic. However, you cannot tell me that racism was not rampant in many parts of the country, much more so back than that it is now. If you do I would have to call you a liar.
I have lived in the South much of my life (Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Tennessee, and Virginia) and have seen racism even to this present day.
One experience I distinctly remember is when my father was at the time filling in as a temporary preacher at a church in the western pan-handle of Florida (what we call Floribama). He had been preaching there for several weeks when one day an African-American family walked into the church. The entire congregation was white and gave the family the cold shoulder and effectively ran them out (they left before the end of the service). At a church meeting immediately following the service that morning one of the elders stood up and started a racist rampage which most of the congregation was visibly condoning of. My father started getting red in the face and was visibly shaking (which my father and I do when we are incited with righteous anger). The elder than asked my father what he was upset about. Basically in a nutshell, my father told this elder and the entire congregation how ungodly and wrong they were and our entire family walked out of the church never to return.
I am positive this is not an isolated case and have witnessed racial slurs and hate speach from my earliest memories to present day. I have seen with my own eyes the progress this country has made in condemning and erradicating racial discrimination and intollerance. Racial intollerance and discrimination WAS a lot more rampant and vitriolic then than it is now. That is a fact.
In fact in the 50's I employed a couple of the ladies that had washed my clothes when I was a little boy. They helped take care of my kids. Later I started doing construction work and moved all over the state of Florida. When I went home on the weekends I had to visit those ladies so they could see the boys and know how they were doing. If I missed them they were very upset and felt I did not love them anymore. Many of my uncles and aunts could care less if I visited them.
Ok. Good story, not sure what the point is.
In our area we knew nothing of racial problems until it broke on the national scene.
Some areas had more racial problems than other areas but you cannot deny blatant racism and discrimination was more rampant and severe back than it is now.
The government did not tell us what to eat or what to buy. They sure did not tell us if we did not buy a certain product they would fine us.
Yes they did. Car insurance became compulsory in nearly every state beginning in the 1930s and 1940s.
"McCarthyism." Do you believe there were no people in the US in the 50's that had communist or Marxists beliefs?
Yes, but the # of communists in the country was less at its peak 80,000 in the 1940s down from 200,000 in the 1920s (compared with a population of 138,000,000 that is still only 0.05% of the population). By the mid-1950s they were down to 5,000 (0.003% of the population). The amount of power you and McCarthy accredited these people with is ridiculously stupid and ill-founded.
Yeah, I should believe good old McCarthy who was often intoxicated while Congress was in session, lied about his war record, censored by Congress for his outrageous and ludicrous accusations (him and his good friend J. Edgar), and died shortly thereafter of alcoholism.
Those and their offspring are the one promoting those ideas in America today.
How do you know? Wow, talk about stereotyping. So all the "communist" children inherit the sins of there fathers?
"Jim Crow laws." Weren't these laws put in effect in the 1800's not in the 1900's?
Now you are being deliberately ignorant. Jim Crow laws existed as enforced legislation until the mid and late 1960s.
Here are some examples that existed until the Civil Rights overturned them in the 1950s and 1960s:
Code of Alabama of 1940 Title 48, 301(31a) writes:
Separate accommodations for white and colored races. -- All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races, but such accommodations for the races shall be equal. All motor transportation companies or operators of vehicles carrying passengers for hire in this state, whether intrastate or interstate passengers, shall at all times provide equal but separate accommodations on each vehicle for the white and colored races. The conductor or agent of the motor transportation company in charge of any vehicle is authorized and required to assign each passenger to the division of the vehicle designated for the race to which the passenger belongs; and, if the passenger refuses to occupy the division to which he is assigned, the conductor or agent may refuse to carry the passenger on the vehicle; and, for such refusal, neither the conductor or agent of the motor transportation company nor the motor transportation company shall be liable in damages. Any motor transportation company or person violating the provisions of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, shall be fined not more than five hundred dollars for each offense; and each day's violation of this section shall constitute a separate offense.
This law was not overturned until 1956 in the US District Court but Alabama still blatantly enforeced this law illegally until the mid 1960s.
There are many more examples listed here:
Examples of Jim Crow Laws
ICANT writes:
Me writes:
"Segregation was awesome wasn't it!"
You don't think we have segregation today. Listen to the statements of Rev. Wright.
I don’t care for Rev. Wright either but racial and political slurs is not the same as advocating racial segregation. #1 he is not a governmental intetity and has almost zero political power, #2 he may have used racially inciting language but he never advocated racial segregation that I am aware of
ICANT writes:
me writes:
"women were kept in the kitchen."
What is wrong with the woman in a marriage staying home and taking care of the home and children?
Nothing. I don’t see anything wrong with this as long as it is voluntary and you do not guilt your wife or anyone else into doing this.
There is also nothing wrong with women working outside the home. As long as the children are adequately cared for what difference does make whether the father or the mother stay at home?
Men and women are equals, one should not be subservient to the other. Both my wife and I equally share household chores i.e. cooking, cleaning, taking out the trash, etc. When I am away on deployment or out to sea she takes care of nearly everything to do with the household i.e. paying bills, maintaining the vehicles, housekeeping, mowing the lawn, fixing broken things around the house, etc.
What is wrong with the man being a man and providing a living for his family?
Nothing. What is wrong with a woman wanting to provide a living for her family. If my wife had a better job and did not have the health problems she did I would have no problem staying at home and taking care of my family.
To say otherwise is male chauvinism.
ICANT writes:
Me writes:
"blacks in the ghetto."
Do you believe there are no getto's today?
Yes, unfortunately. But I don’t believe they deserve to stay there.
Do you believe that those who have worked hard all there life are responsible for those white and black living in poverty?
Having worked personally with many of these people, Most of the people do not CHOOSE to live in poverty.
Do you believe the government should take their hard earned money and give it to those that set around and never try to better themselves?
What an ignorant and bigoted thing to say. How about we take you out of your comfort zone and place you in a home where the father is not there and the mother is trying to do everything to make ends meet and provide food on the table for her kids.
All mankind is created with equal opportunities.
Bullshit. Are you saying that a kid starving in Ethiopia or in the projects has equal opportunities to a rich kid? What a crock of shit.
All men are not created equal if we were we would all be as rich as Warren Buffet or Bill Gates.
All human beings deserve equal human rights. Or have you forgotten the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
ICANT writes:
Me writes:
When was the last time you got arrested for eating a big mac?
If I ever eat a big mac they might.
Your delusional if you are serious.
I don't eat food prepared by people other than my wife, or by myself. When we have food at Church I eat what we prepare.
That is nice, what does this have to do with the price of tea in China?
ICANT writes:
Me writes:
Following precedents is not necessarily a bad thing as long as it does not clearly violate the Constitution.
Unless the first ruleing violated the Constitution.
Um, that is a given.
ICANT writes:
Me writes:
Can you give me an example where you think the US SC has done this?
Interpertation of amendment XIV, and relavant rulings, which told the States they could not pass certain laws.
I read the amendment and am not understanding what the problem is. Please elaborate.
ICANT writes:
Me writes:
Do you really think the US Constitution, infinitesimally small compared with modern legislation, can adequately address ALL the hypothetical legal, economic, cultural, religious, health, welfare, and other concerns of a complex government system with three branches, 50 states, 2.7 million federal employees, tens of thousand of federal offices and a population of over 350 million people. I think not.
If the Constitution is not sufficient to address a problem there is a way to fix it. The Supreme Court does not have the authority to fix the Constitution. They only have the right to examine what is written down and determine if something matches what is written not what they think is written.
That is not what I asked, I asked if you thought the Constitution in its 6 page entirety adequately address all the problems and issues present in our current society.
The US Constitution only gives the framework of how our government should govern and it provides all the checks and balances to do this. The US Constitution clearly indicates the US Congress has the power to legislate federal laws binding on all US States.
They could suggest to the President or Congress that the Constitution needed amending. The Congress could then suggest amendments to fix any problem. Then if 3/4's of the States ratified the amendments they would become law.
I think you are confusing legislation with amending the US Constitution. Amending the Constitution is different than legislating law. Amending the Constitution means changing the scope of powers granted to the federal or state governments. Legislation means creating new laws or modifying existing laws that fit within the scope of powers granted by the US Constitution.
The problem is they want to do things that the States would not ratify in a Constitutional amendment. So they interpet the Constitution rather than follow the Constitution.
That is your opinion and one in which you need to provide specific examples to back up.
That brings us to the Second Amendment and the Constitution.
They try to figure out all kinds of ways to control gun ownership without asking the States for aproval which they would not get.
Some states and local municipal governments have made restrictions on the 2nd amendment that are more stringent than federal mandates. How does this fit into your world of left wing conspiracy?
So the government trys to use the commerce law to get their authority which flys in the face of a statement that the government can not restrict the citizens of owning and bearing arms.
So are you saying the 2nd amendment gives you the right to own and bear any weapon you think is appropriate for you to use i.e. an uzi, machine gun, bazooka, etc?
I think our forefathers intended for the citizens and States to have any arms that the federal government could posess in case they tried to put the people under a rule like they came out from under in England.
I do not think the founding fathers wanted people to have guns and arms solely so they can revolt against the newly elected government. Arms back during that time were more of a necessity than they are now. There was few if any standing militias, police forces was non-existent, living off the land by farming and hunting was a necessity not a sport or luxury, etc. A lot of things have changed over the past 200 years. I still believe in the right to bear arms and gun ownership, I just believe that with our current and growing population gun regulation and registration is a necessity in order for law enforcement to track these weapons and bring the right people to justice for armed crimes.
The citizens would be at a disadvantage if all they had was pickup trucks, shotguns and other small arms to go against an organized army that had tanks and bombs.
Are you saying you want the general public to have tanks and bombs so they can be on an equal basis with the US military? Are you that stupid? Really?!?
You say that could never happen in America. Are you sure it could not happen?
Can what happen?
Remember absolute power corrupts absolutely.
This sword cuts both ways. Religion has the power to corrupt the government as well.
If you don't think so visit Cuba. Or visit a gentleman that lives in Miami who was second in command to Raul in the 80's and 90's in Cuba. I could introduce you if you desired. He was there when Castro took over in the late 50's and saw what absolute power could do.
America is nothing like Cuba. We do not have a dictatorship. We have elected representatives. If you don’t like yours, vote them out of office.
If you look at Cuba you will see those in power have anything they desire. There are drug stores that visitors can buy aspirn in. But the local population are not allowed to enter them must less buy anything no matter how much money they have. There is a big fellow about 225 lbs over 6' tall standing at the entrance to make sure the locals do not come in the stores. They have to shop in the stores desginated for them to shop in.
That’s nice, again what does this have to do with the price of tea in China.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
™ Version 4.2