This is the sort of ideology that Ayn Rand warned us about...
Seriously, just read through the ideas the book is expressing. It's as if the villains from Atlas Shrugged have made themselves manifest...
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Money is not the root of all evil, but the root of all good. Money requires people deal with each other based on mutual advantage not force. The absences of money in transactions always results in the most evil atrocities. Money was not important to Hitler, Moa, or Stalin and it resulted in the death of over 100 million people.
Your second hidden premise is that “hoarding resources” is evil. This is also nonsense. Didn’t you ever read the story of the hare and the squirrel? So called natural resources are not “natural” they are the result of human ingenuity. In the last two hundred or so years we have gone from almost 100% of the world living on the edge of starvation, to the point where less than 50% of the world’s population has to fear starvation despite an incredible increase in the number of people here on earth. You have bought into the environmentalist BS that human’s are evil and destroy resources. Environmentalists do not understand conservation of matter and energy and they do not understand entropy. We never suffer from a lack of resources, but a lack of ingenuity and productiveness. For instance, people in Colorado say they have to conserve water because there is a lack of it right now. But the amount of water on earth is exactly what it was 10 years ago, 200 years ago, a million and a billion years ago. What we have is a lack of infrastructure. They have failed to invest in systems to get the water where it is needed and this has always been a problem that humans faced.
The evil in the world now is based not on money and “greed”, but on altruism and environmental religion.
I suggest you check your premises.
However, I would recommend replacing instances of "you" and "your" with references to the owners of United Credit Economy website. When you say "you" and "your," it sounds like you're addressing me, since I'm the one who posted this topic, and I do not agree with the position expressed by United Credit Economy.
I'd buy you a beer if I could. Thanks and well done.
An example of stupidity on the Right:
http://dailycurrant.com/2013/05/16/ann-c...
Still, Ann Coulter has said some pretty stupid stuff before, even if this particular example was fake.
Seriously, the Right is guilty of some very serious attacks against individual liberty and individual freedom. Sure, the Left has done their fair share of attacking freedoms, but don't get so focused on those that you ignore the attacks coming from the Right. This is a twin-headed assault here, and we need to defend ourselves on both sides.
"(T)ake away abortion rights"; This particular "right" was awarded by an unelected group of 9 individuals that some could argue were a revisionist court waiting to happen. The "right" to murder a helpless human fetus is hardly an inalienable one...regardless of where that being is currently residing.
"(D)estroy freedom of religion"; You are making the liberal mistake of substituting 'freedom FROM religion' for the original thought...to make sure that there was never a government imposed State religion. It was never intended to ban any religious thought from our secular, or institutional, lives. Read the Founding Fathers tracts, and the declarations that they painstakingly composed...God is never far from sight.
"(R)efusal to grant LGBT rights"; Way beyond anything that the Founders would have ever considered. I am OK with giving the States their inherent rights to decide this by public ballot. Let the chips fall where they may.
"(A)ttempts to control the kinds of substances"; I give you this one, on a Federal level. Let the States make this their decision.
"(E)limiating the right of individuals to live where they want"; The Republic has a clearly defined border, and the Federal government is mandated to protect that border. No wiggle room here, unless you are of the One World Government ilk. But that puts you in opposition with almost all of America, and certainly in opposition with the rest of the world. Not much company there...and rightly so.
You are on the wrong side of history, but you will surely find some companionship somewhere on the internet. Even child molesters find solace there with a little searching.
And...Poe is NOT your absolution.
Way beyond anything that the Founders would have ever considered. I am OK with giving the States their inherent rights to decide this by public ballot. Let the chips fall where they may.
~~
Obviously the Founding Fathers never thought about LGBT rights, as there was virtually no knowledge about such issues 200 years ago. But now that we do have such knowledge, we cannot continue to deny equal rights to a persecuted minority any longer.
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
~ Thomas Jefferson
"The southern racists' claim of states' rights is a contradiction in terms. There can be no such thing as the right of some men to violate the rights of others. The Constitutional concept of states rights pertains to the division of power between local and national authorities, and serves to protect the states from the Federal Government. It does not grant to a state government an unlimited arbitrary power over its citizens, or the privilege of abrogating the citizens' individual rights."
~ Ayn Rand - The Virtue of Selfishness, Chapter 17: Racism
Thomas Jefferson (according to your quote) says "hand in hand with the progress of the human mind." I hardly consider LGBT to be progress, in any way or form. I do seem to remember that this was the last great revelation just prior to the fall of Rome, however. Just behind the 'bread' (read: entitlements) and 'circuses' (read: WH parties, vacations, and fundraisers).
I am not swayed against passing more power back to the States (read: citizens).
This particular "right" was awarded by an unelected group of 9 individuals that some could argue were a revisionist court waiting to happen. The "right" to murder a helpless human fetus is hardly an inalienable one...regardless of where that being is currently residing.
~~
It's more about the right of a women to control what happens to her own body. That's an individual freedom, and to take it away violates the rights of the individual.
http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/4d...
http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issu...
"If you listen to just one of Reagan's religionists, you can forget the word philosophy. A man who claims to defend rights, and objects to the right to have an abortion, who wants to dictate to a woman in the most intimate, cruicial and tragic issue of that kind, and he wants to forbid it? That's no defender of rights, and no defender of capitalism."
~ Ayn Rand -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4196WvmEc...
The responsibility that goes along with a woman's right to control what happens to her body doesn't get put on hold prior to, and up to, the willful act that produces another human being. There are consequences to all that we do, and there are responsibilities for those consequences. To put all the consequences on the most innocent in the name of 'whatever you call it' defies my definition of humanity.
To kill the innocent in order to exercise your perceived right to control your body ignores any, and all, responsibility that all rights must bear.
I will not be budged on this...fair warning.
http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issu...
;)
I am willing to take this out of the Federal level debate, and let the 50 states address it. After all, we can always pull a Reardon and change states! And, of course, each state can change their mind after the fact. So far the majority of states are not going for this aberration. Try to do this on a Federal level!
There are bigger fish to fry, and we have to take the matches away from the pyromaniacs that rule the Washington barbecue pit.
Also, this ridiculous claim that there is some sort of legal distinction between rights and privileges is utter nonsense. As far as the law is concerned, there is no distinction. There are only actions you are legally allowed to take, and actions you are not legally allowed to take, and those actions cannot be different for any group. If an action is legal for one group, it must be legal for all groups. To try and categorize certain actions as being privileges rather than rights, and then to say that the government can grant special privileges to certain groups is nothing but pure, unadulterated bigotry, and it undermines the Constitution which says that all men (and women) are created equal, and deserve equal protection under the law. This sickening attempt to classify certain actions as privileges, and say that it's okay for the government (either Ferderal or state) to create laws that distribute privileges unequally is unamerican, unconstitutional, and morally repugnant.
Those who say that Civil Rights are an attempt to gain "special privileges" are only demonstrating their own ignorance and bigotry.
You are making the liberal mistake of substituting 'freedom FROM religion' for the original thought...to make sure that there was never a government imposed State religion. It was never intended to ban any religious thought from our secular, or institutional, lives. Read the Founding Fathers tracts, and the declarations that they painstakingly composed...God is never far from sight.
~~
Freedom from religion is part of freedom of religion. You cannot grant freedom of religion without also granting freedom from it. The very core of religious freedom is the right of the individual to believe or disbelieve whatever they want. That means more than just not establishing a state religion. It also means not creating laws that favor any one religion over another, or that favor religion over non-religion. Therefore, religion cannot be a part of any state funded institution or organization, as that would constitute imposing religion on the public by force.
"[...] If you know something about me, you know that I'm an advocate of reason, that I am not a supporter of religion, and I despise anyone who tries to impose his religious ideas by force on other people. That is what the Moral Majority is trying."
~ Ayn Rand -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4196WvmEc...
"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "Make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and state."
~ Thomas Jefferson: Letter to the Danbury Baptists
But: there is no government efforts that I am aware of trying to make you believe, or disbelieve, in anyone's religion (I have to be careful here, since there just may be a concerted effort to have us accept Islam).
Your protestations that you are being feed religious dogma are unfounded...no one is dragging you to your local Presbyterian church at the point of a bayonet.
A good example of the absurdity of your whining is the current efforts to remove The Ten Commandments from our judicial sites...guidelines that fit anyone's sane observation of civilized behavior, and the foundation of our Judeo-Christian laws.
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
~ Treaty of Tripoli, signed by John Adams, 1797
"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "Make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and state."
~ Thomas Jefferson: Letter to the Danbury Baptists
Your snafu of quoting Jefferson was a welcome gift: There are NO laws respecting an establishment of (any) religion, as far as I can research. But you do champion laws to prohibit the free exercise thereof.
Pay attention to what you preach (pun intended)...it may come back to haunt you.
And I am not saying we should prohibit free exercise of religion. I am simply pointing out that combining religion with the government -- in any way, shape, or form -- is respecting religion, which is unconstitutional. Religion should be neither respected nor prohibited in law. We do a pretty good job of not prohibiting it, but a terrible job of not respecting it.
As for an example of laws that respect religion, one major example of that is laws against same-sex marriage.
The Republic has a clearly defined border, and the Federal government is mandated to protect that border. No wiggle room here, unless you are of the One World Government ilk. But that puts you in opposition with almost all of America, and certainly in opposition with the rest of the world. Not much company there...and rightly so.
~~
I suggest you listen to Milton Friedman's comments on immigration. Free and open immigration is the way to go. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C52TlPCVD......