It would have taken me a really long time to find that, thanks.

Read your own links next time, douche bag.

As for the rest - Since to the best of my knowledge every attempt to claim the Soviets were vastly outspending us militarily is either made up out of nwhole cloth or tracks back to Team B, yeah, the fact that Team B was wrong on almost everything strikes ve a vaguely relevant to the conversation.

Frankly, given your penchant for asseting stuff without any references, there's no way to really tell if your making it up or it's another one of those vague "I heard this and it's been debunked for twenty years but I'm standing by it anyway!" assertions you tend to make, but the fact is that the Soviets didn't start ramping up their military production until after they thought they had a nutcase running things over here, and even THEN they weren't able to keep it up. - it crippled their economy.

And as for my retarded analogy - listen, did Reagan blame the deficit on the Democrats, Yes or No?

Do those CBO figures conclusively prove that in fact the increases in spending were in the Military Spending Reagan insisted on, while the spending cuts were actually done on the Domestic side, where Reagan was blaming the Democrats, Yes or No.

The historically verifiable answer to both of those is yes. Black and White - your opinion of whether it was wise, better policy, whatever is irrelevant. In that speech, Ronald Reagan lied to you, he knew he was lying to you, and it's really really easy to prove he lied to you.

The answer to these little problems is simple - don't listen to speeches just cause the guy seems like a nice old man - actually check.

Jonnan

I do. You're screaming and throwing fits in no way changes the fact that under English-derived common law the courts are the last word on how that constitution is interpreted - as indicated by both the common law, and the constitution itself.

The argument *you* are quoting out of context is actually raised in direct opposition to your belief that the court has no right to decide what the Consitution says if you happen to disagree with it - the constitution is the supreme law, but the courts are the supreme interpreters of that law. They have to support their arguments for that interpretation, but the constitution *is* fundamentally different from legislated laws inasmuch as the legislature is speaking towards a specific end and interpretation of those laws should be done narrowly with that end in mind, whereas the Constitution is a blueprint for a form of government, not to be narrowly defined.

Accordingly, while the founders put limitations in place they also put in specific things to make sure you were aware that it was subject to change (an amendment process) and to be interpreted in view of events (the Federalist papers and the ninth amendment).

I would highly recommend "America's Constitution: A Biography" and "A History of the Supreme Court" they're both very well written books that go into the constitution and the role of courts in interpreting it.

Jonnan

http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Constitution-Akhil-Reed-Amar/dp/0812972724

http://www.amazon.com/History-Supreme-Court-Bernard-Schwartz/dp/0195093879

You really don't grasp it do you?

There is a difference between the Constitution, and federal, state and local statutes.

You claim the Constitution a living document subject to the will of the Supreme Court by referencing a case where the Supreme Court rules that the Constitution is itself supreme, and as the statute conflicted with it, was null.  Marshall didn't even refer to the Constitution as law in his opinion.  He kept them seperate while mentioning his duty to rule on the law.  Marbury v Madison is ironclad proof that you're wrong.

Perhaps one of these days, you'll get a clue.  Maybe you'll even figure out that the lack of balls to cut military spending in return for their domestic hikes is their own fault.  Along with intelligence, they lacked the honesty to admit they knew it was a good idea after all the fuckups that had happened over the previous decade.

The problem of course is that the constitution (http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html) does *not* say flat out what the federal government is allowed to do - nor did the framers have any intent of doing so.

In the words of Edmund Randoph -

---

The founders did not give a flat statement of what the federal government was not allowed to do, as even a cursory reading of Article I Section 8 establishes: It gives general grants of jurisdiction for three branches of government, specific restrictions to say that certain items are well beyond those jurisdictions, an amendment saying that anything not delegated to the government or restricted from the states is given to the states and the people . . . and a vast amount of gray area in which courts, as part of their authority under the constitution and the common law have to decide when a given attempt to exercise authority by the congress, the legislature, or a state is stepping outside those jurisdictions.

Get over yourself - A court that happens to decide that a given exercise of authority is constitutional is no more in violation of its oath because you happen to find it 'socialist' than because I find it an example of laisez faire capitalism. If it's within a reasonable distance of a law that may be 'necessary and proper' to exercise congressional authority, then it's within the judicial authority to try and make a decision regarding whether a narrow or a broad argument of the definition of 'necessary and proper' is germane to the subject at hand.

So, if you have a specific complaint about some 'unforgivable' mis-interpretation, by all means make it, but complaining that the Constitution doesn't allow for 'socialist programs' and any judge that decides otherwise has betrayed his oath is simply throwing a fit.

Get over yourself.

Wow, that's really interesting because, y'know, according to the CBO historical files (http://cbo.gov/budget/data/historical.xls) - THERE WERE NO DOMESTIC HIKES. The Domestic Budget was CUT! The Foreign Aid Budget was CUT! The ONLY hikes were those requested by Reagan for the Military!

I understand that logic isn't your speciality Psychoak - I'm okay with that. But surely you can handle the simple process of looking at an excel spreadsheet and noticing that the budget for foreign aid and domestic programs was *higher* the year before, but Military spending was *lower* the year before, thus impying that the increase in the deficit might be the responsibility of the person that increased military spending.

Can you handle that? Did you ever do the little tricks in school where ||||| sticks plus ||| sticks equals |||||||| sticks, or is that starting too high on this?

Jonnan

It's ok, one of these days you'll figure out how to comprehend what you read.  For those of us that can, it's self evident.  General welfare is specific to the nation, not individuals.  The sentence lacks the semicolon present in the second amendment, one of the other ones a bunch of dumb fuckers can't seem to read.  It says, flat out, that Congress has the power to raise funds in explicitly listed methods no less, for the common defense and general welfare of the nation.  It does not specifically lay out the details, no more than telling you to go to the store and pick up something tells you whether to use cash, credit or debit to pay for it, what size bills to use, how to get there, which route to take.

For someone so well read, you have the understanding of a gnat.

Out of curiosity, do you blindly post the dribblings of Randolph or do you actually know his history beyond the writings you treasure as proof of your idiotic views?  He refused to sign the final draft of the Constitution because it lacked the very things you claim it gives.

You are right about this being the case in a monopoly, but it's possible, in a competetive market, for an increase in taxes to result in higher prices.

Consider to companies, A and B selling the same type of product.  Let's say they are both selling at the optimal price point that brings in the most revenue.  Now, company B decides to reduce its prices a bit in order to get people to buy products from them instead of A.  Company A sees this and then lowers its prices to the same level while still attaining a profit.  In this case, both prices are below the optimal price point.  Now, both A and B could decide that they won't lower the price below the optimal point, but then you have something like a cartel.

Now let's say that there is an increase in taxes, to a point where both A and B aren't making a profit anymore.  They are forced now to raise their prices closer to the optimal price point and hence prices can go up at this point.

The modern concept of welfare did not even exist in the 18th century. It is disingenuous at best to use the general welfare phrase as evidence that out current welfare system falls within the bounds of the intents of the founders.

WOW! There is out there someone who actually thinks MSNBC is not biased? I nearly busted my gut when I read that! Hey fella, I got a nice bridge for sale in NY, I will even let you have it cheap!

A landslide election? OH wow. I guess if you say something often enough you will believe it.

Pentagon wasteful spending? WOW on that too. Too bad you don't think there is any wasteful spending on Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security  and every other God forsaken thing the government spends money on.

Imperial military bases? Hmmmm hey dude, we don't have a monarchy or do you wish to rejoin the United Kingdom?

I have wanted to say something for some time to liberals about the military and so I will let you in on a secret that the liberals who are educated don't want the ignorant liberals to know.

1. Civil War started by the dems so they can keep slavery. How many americans died in that war that the liberals started?

2. World war I gosh a liberal Democrat was in power W. Wilson. How many americans died in that war?

3. World war II gosh would you believe another liberal Democrat was in power for that war too! How many americans died in that war?

4. Korean War. OMG! Not another war started with a liberal Democrat  Truman in power! Those G.D. Liberals! How many Americans died in that war?

5. Cuban Missle Crissis. HOLY CRUD BATMAN! A liberal Democrat Kennedy nearly gets the entire country vaporized in one fell swoop.

6. Vietnam. GEEEEEZZZ NOT ANOTHER WAR Started by those WAR MONGER liberal Democrats thanks to LBJ. Many american deaths there too!

Lets see for the Republicans we have... what.... Iraq war I and Iraq war II.  

Now what lesson  can we learn from that? If you make the military smaller and weak like the liberal Dems always like to do you wind up with how many Americans dead in war?

Now if we make the military stronger like the Republicans like to do we have how many American dead in war?

You do the math I think with our new President Obama we can see what 500,000 to 600,000 americans getting killed in war that starts in his term. Anyone else want to venture a guess?

oothal, do you truly believe the U.S. could have indefinitely stayed out of either WWI or WWII?  There's a reason they were called world wars.  It wouldn't have mattered much who was in office, or what party they represented.

I'm not here to argue, but you're making yourself look like an idiot.  It's possible you've actually used examples in your post that support your argument, but the first half of it certainly doesn't look like it, and really, your post is too tl;dr.

For what it's worth, you are correct on the "landslide term".  It was an electoral landslide only, which really doesn't mean much.

You forgot Andrew Jackson and the Mexican-American war....and Madison and the War of 1812. So, wait! Let me do the math....

That's, what, D= 7 and R= 2 wars... Oh, there's the Tripoli thing too..... Jefferson didn't want a (good) navy...

Let's see: I'm guessing that's like 1000000 (1 million) American lives vs., I dunno, 10000 (ten thousand) at most.

Yes...Republicans are so evil.......

Then what are you quoting me for?  I'm shooting down all his justifications for it.  Context is wonderful, use it.

Sole Soul, WW1 was a joke.  The Europeans had already ground themselves into hamburger, we had no business getting involved.  They'd all but stalemated and would have eventually gotten around to quitting if Germany didn't surrender.  All we did was make it end faster and more decisively.  It was one hell of a bloody war, but there was no threat to us, and it was not an actual world war.  Our involvement directly contributed to WW2 by giving France the power to bury them with revenge for a war they themselves were more at fault for causing.

WW2 we did need to get involved in I think, it was probably the only thing the scumbag did right.  FDR truly was the right man for the job, rotten to the core, lied, cheated and stole without remorse, and a fucking communist to top it all off.  No one else would have given two shits about Russia, or supplied allied forces with arms and pilots when it was both illegal and unpopular.

I say think because the Soviet influence far surpassed Hitler in the mass murder areas.  Aside from the whole Japanese are people and everyone else are dogs issue, we might shoulda helped them out against Russia instead.  Getting involved with other people's shit is never a simple issue, and it was other people's shit.  You take it too lightly to assume that just because, it was inevitable regardless.  If, God forbid, Ron Paul light had been president, we wouldn't even have a standing military today.  We'd either be a peace crazed isolationist hippy society, or a subject of whoever came out on top and decided we were next.

See: Weimar Germany

also, i'd recommend the book Liberal Fascism for those interested in the start of "welfare states" and the "world wars"; quite informative.

@psychoak

I didn't ask you what you thought was right, I asked oothal what he thought was possible.  You are by no means prohibited from answering the same question, but do try to stay ontopic.

I'm glad you think WWI was a joke-I'm sure the few surviving veterans of it will be happy to hear that-and would actually agree with most though not all of your characterization of it-but I do not believe that any of the things you mentioned would have made it any less inevitable on our part to actually do something.

Too bad we don't have a time machine, huh?

I'm actually somewhat disappointed in you, psychoak-I merely pointed out a severe occurrence of idiocy in the thread, and rather than agree, you almost defended him.

EviliroN, I can't tell if you're arguing against me, against Jonnan, against oothal, or against God (though the last one is admittedly less likely since he has yet to make a stand in this thread).

The entire point I was attempting to make is that oothal's theory that Democrats are responsible for more casualties is flawed if he's using the Civil War and the two World Wars to support it.

It kind of makes you wonder, though...if the Democrats are always the ones to start the wars, why are they the first ones to want to cut military spending?

Note the large disparity between the political parties of now and 50 yrs ago, and of 100 yrs ago, and 150 yrs ago.

Modern American Liberal/Progressive/Socialist ideas got their shot in the arm from Wilson, then re-doubled by FDR.

It is true though, that statistically Democrats have started more wars, but that just argues the point of disparity between the incarnations of both parties, past and present. I would argue that America's involvement in WWI was just a matter of course and America as a country might not have been as heavily affected by the outcome, regardless. Wilson needed a war to push agenda. FDR needed his war to pull a country out of depression and fight the Nazis. WWI not needed, imo, WWII needed. But if you actually look at the policies of Germany, Italy, Russia, England, and America during the years leading up to and including; minus GLARING examples, they all had similarities. They were all just called different things by different people: National Socialism, Fascism (in Italy), Communism, Fabyan Socialism (in England), American Pragmatism/Progressivism (aka American Liberalism), etc... Hitler borrowed a great deal of social and political policies from Weimar Germany and from Wilson.

Why would modern Democrats want to now cut spending in spite of their history of war starting? I would argue the late 60's & 70's, and LBJ's politics as the catalyst. It should be noted that Democrats tripped over themselves to sign on to the Patriot Act and war funding, to bring us up to date.

@Sole Soul, I'm not really trying to argue with anyone here. We just need a little clarity and a little less swearing, I'm trying to help.

(I know that I did not aid my cause to adding to the confusion about the language topic earlier and I wish I would have clarified what I meant...)

Edit: also, compared to past wars our %GDP for this war is much lower.

• The liberation of Kuwait in 1991 cost the equivalent of 1% of the GDP of the time, or about $80 billion in today’s dollars.


• The Vietnam war cost between 1.5% and 2% of GDP each year during the eight years of major American commitment, or about $600 billion. At its peak we had more than 500,000 soldiers and other military in Vietnam.


• Iraq war costs of between 0.5% and 0.7% of GDP.