He can smoke road tar.

Yeah that old stuff is ... Amazing. A time machine.

You know that Liberals Ruin Everything They Touch.
Kind of like the Midas touch. But everything they touch turns Gold into Excrement.

Thanks again. I love reading the old pulps. The advertising is almost as entertaining as the stories.
I guess the San Francisco site took the Lost Legacy page down since I downloaded it yesterday. San Francisco residents seem to be able to ruin everything they touch lately.

He wouldn't even mention the word Objectivist. He had to be dismissive and say "Randian." That you're only following a woman and not her philosophy.

Not at all racism. A rather extreme way to scare politicians into shape via mortal threat. But there's no racism in it.

That would pretty much decimate most of government, fine by me! Let them have UBI until they find a way to contribute something of value to society.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodies, indeed.

I used ~ as "not." You remember A=A from Atlas Shrugged?
A ≠ ~A or, A does not equal not A, is just the inverse. Blue does not equal Yellow. Yellow is not Blue.

I remember now. My symbolic logic professor used to use politically charged premises to trick the students into getting the wrong answer. Logic is about logic. He'd pose a bunch of political statements that were absolutely stupid, but perfectly logical. Some students would follow their views and common sense and fail the exams. That's why many people don't like logic. It's really hard to separate logic from feelings and common sense.

Let's also end pensions for the Congress and President. You get paid to govern. You don't get paid to retire and do nothing useful.

And no more multi-purpose bills. No more "American Recession Plan, blah blah blah, ...and for other purposes" in the Title. One bill, one subject, no more 2000 page bills to hide the legalized stealing in.

Awesome. Numbers 8 and 9 I especially like.

Since the design of the government is corrupt it attracts corrupt people.

Absolutely.Hold them accountable for violaing their oaths or using their office for profit with loss of office, forfeiture of ill gotten gains, freezing any and all bank accounts until wealth can be assessed and 60% of the gross is seized and placed in the treasury, and a lifetime ban from politics, voting, and becoming a lobbyist. Lastly, PUBLIC shaming. Only negative consequences can reign in bad behaviors in sane/rational people. The higher the public trust, the larger the public transgression, the more damning the consequences.

Tattoo their forehead with their transgression, kinda like Hawthrone's Scarlet Letter.

The constitution doesn't limit us as much as it is to limit the government. We do not need every single possible right to be enumerated by the Constitution because then any right not listed would be considered illegal. That is upside-down. The whole purpose of the Constitution was to prevent another abusive taxing monarchy from forming again, as they wanted England to GTFO forever, and anything resembling it growing from within, to never arise. Well, it seems a 2nd Revolution is coming, we had a good run, we are only people, not perfect, the Constitution is pretty damn good, prophetic in many ways, but not in all ways. They could not predict birth control pills and how that would change society...They did however predict and observe corruption.

You're welcome. It appears the Lost Legacy Link isn't working, 404.

Here's the original Amazing Stories magazine with the Pedestrians story. You click the pages and they turn.

https://archive.org/details/AmazingSt...

I have imagined this is one possible way humans will evolve into their own demise. Too much brains, not enough brawn. It seems like the smarter we get, the weaker we get. There is a balance at work in the physics of the Universe and Life and we cannot tip it. Smart phones have made us stupid users.

No indeed. Otherwise is to invite incompetence!

The difference is that your greed is in working harder and earning more than the other guy, not in taking something that belongs to someone else.

Corruption, while motivated by greed, normally culminates in theft, which is not the same as earning something. It's our self respect and love for ourselves that protects us from corruption. The corrupt have no such feelings.

I like the suggestion on #2 about the pardons. Good thought.

#5 Tariffs and taxes are always going to be somewhat problematic in regard to equality of application. In fact, it can be argued that there is no such thing as equal application in such. What metric could be universally applied to all transactions? At least with tariffs there is a direct feedback mechanism outside of Congress' ability to skirt the system.

#7 Currently, when any particular agency of the Federal government is challenged on its interpretation of statute or its rule-making authority, the agency is given broad leeway or discretion in its application because of a couple of Supreme Court rulings, the most notable being Chevron (Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.). Thus, the precedent established by that ruling was called "Chevron Deference." It is one of the primary reasons for the expansion and growth of Federal bureaucracies' power because the precedent basically says that the burden of proof regarding a given agency's authority to interpret statute lies with the plaintiff rather than with the agency. In other words, given Chevron deference, an agency only has to argue that their interpretation is reasonably aligned with the authority delegated to it by Congress. In contrast, a "strict scrutiny" standard 1) places the onus back on the government agency to prove that its interpretation falls within the authority delegated by Congress, 2) that there is no other way to accomplish the task of the agency, and 3) that the means chosen by the agency must be the least impactful when conflicting with other civil liberties.

For example, right now, the EPA and Department of the Interior egregiously violate the property rights of land owners in their interpretation of the Waters of the United States Act by declaring any source of running water to impact the water system. Thus they can tell people what they can and can't do with their own land, not to mention what they put in the water (fertilizer runoff from farmers, etc.). A "strict scrutiny" standard would likely negate this encroachment.

#9. The point about war has not been lost on me. But turn the question on its head: do you want Congress to simply bypass this requirement by ALWAYS existing in a state of War? I think not. The other thing to consider is that this is a direct feedback method to Congress: if they enact policies which cripple the economy, they'll have to deal with revenue shortfalls until they rescind their disastrous policies. The other point I didn't bring up was that this system would automatically disallow funding programs for more than one or two years at a time. They would constantly be on the chopping block, ensuring that there was real competition for those funds.

I agree that we have too many federal employees. I would fire probably 80% of them if I were Emperor for a Day as I don't believe many of them serve a Constitutional purpose - let alone a useful one.

What we need (but probably can't get at this point--it would require a long, hard crusade), is a Constitutional Amendment declaring that the sole purpose of government is to protect human beings from force (including fraud and violence), and to punish same; and that the only functions of government are to be the Legislature, the Executive Branch (to carry out the legislation), the law courts, the police,and the military. Of course, there would still have to be provisions for legal registration of contracts, and notarization; and a bureau of patents and copyrights.---Government activities unrelated to any of these functions should simply be abolished.

No, I want some wisdom to be applied to any amendment(s) that replace those additional amendments.

I think there have been lessons learned about the effects of those amendments. Clearly suffrage and rights of all homo sapiens must be addressed.
My objection to the 13th, 14th , and 15th is that they were passed without representation of the southern states, and that is unconstitutional itself.
The 16th was arguably never ratified either. The 12th and 17th are converting the republican form into a democracy, which Franklin among others warned against.
The 22nd should be expanded to affect the congress.
There is need for an amendment that further restrict expansion of the central government using the commerce clause and other phrases.
The amendments that were added after the 10th should be seriously considered based on government actions in the past 200 years.

I never saw that symbol in such a statement before. I understand the "equals" sign with the line through it, but what does that curved line mean?

That would merely be an institutionalization of racism, however minimized by allegedly restricted to the near relations and direct descendants.--And just think about what happened in the French Revolution. (Reply to "Captain Kirk".)

Luxury or wealth from their own (previous) business, or from taxpayers? You don't want to have them less able to get out of office and go earn their own livings on their own, do you?