Duper wrote:Isaac wrote:Sorry, I didn't know you wanted your state to leave the Union. It makes sense now.
You hate Jefferson, we get that.
Cuda's quotes as well as Kilarin's were valid.
There's a dirty little secret that you and everyone else should know about the Founding Fathers and Framers:
they weren't omniscient. They created an absolutely incredible system of government for their time, a system whose core has held up remarkably well over the more than two centuries since its inception, but they had no way of foreseeing exactly how the United States would evolve as a nation over that period of time. To use the example of Jefferson, he foresaw the US as remaining predominantly a nation of agrarian farmers, and his views on the role and limitation of government were formed accordingly. Today, a substantial majority of Americans live in areas defined as "urban," and the rural population will continue to shrink as time passes. We're several times larger by physical size, and many times larger by population, than at the time the Constitution was ratified, and we occupy a completely-different position on the world scale. The advancement of technology alone has necessitated that the government take on a far different role than it had to in a day where it took a week to travel a hundred miles. If Jefferson were alive today, I can guarantee that he would look at the complexities of modern life and (perhaps begrudgingly) admit that his concept of government's role simply wouldn't allow the nation to function properly.
(Also note that, despite Jefferson's views on the limits of executive power, he essentially cast said views aside when he signed the Louisiana Purchase. That bit of pragmatism is something I've always admired about him.)
Look, I'm as big of a fan as the Constitution as it was written as anyone, and I don't in any way support running roughshod over the responsibilities and limitations that it establishes. But at the same time, without the ability to interpret the document and apply it to the circumstances of an ever-changing world, the United States would not have survived as a country through to the present day.
And for those who would continue to espouse a Chicken-Little view of the evil overgrown government trying to control our lives, there's a fantastic post I've run across in the past week that undermines that argument quite nicely:
This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy.
I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility.
After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.
At the appropriate time as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.
Then, after spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, I drive back to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and the fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.
I then log onto the Internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on freerepublic and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.
That "control" you're so scared of? It happened
decades ago. And last time I checked, we're still here.
