[ReelinRod]

Originally Posted by spence

This statement is quite contradictory. The notion that a belief is "deeply held" implies it's part of a foundation.

Superficially supported beliefs can be deeply held, have you ever dealt with a woman with PMS?

Originally Posted by spence

This makes no sense, unless your assertion is that a liberal/progressive agenda is formed via a random process.

What you are doing is declaring words or ideas to be invalid based on your personal judgment. It's called hubris.

The two terms, "values" and "principles" identify beliefs of very different origin. Principles are foundational and unalterable and generally last a lifetime; values are fluid and undergo constant examination and tweaking to conform to one's feelings at that moment.

Originally Posted by spence

This is a circular argument based on talk radio stereotypes. Perhaps you're just picking debates with lightweights who have never thought about what they believe?

No, those sentiments come from nearly 20 years of experience debating liberals about gun control on the internet. First was talk.politics.guns on USENET, way before any forums had a presence on the WWW, then once that technology took off, on many news and politics forums on the web. Gun control is one topic where all those peccadilloes of liberals are really exposed and liberal's true beliefs about individual liberty shine through.

But to the topic at hand; usually the most ardent "strict gun control" supporters are the ones most ignorant of firearms and their most simple functions as mechanical objects, let alone technical aspects like ballistics . . . Those people "just know" that guns are "bad" and no amount of logic or facts will dissuade their illogical and emotional based position.

In fact, their profound ignorance is worn as a badge of honor because they don't want to share anything, even knowledge, with Neanderthal gun-nuts. They are incapable of logical thought and utterly immune to logical debate because, as I said, their entire position is based in emotion and "feelings" so opposition in debate is viewed as an attack on them personally. I always knew when I won when liberal's replies contained nothing but personal insults and then accusations of Nazi sympathies. (Of course whenever the liberals invoked the Nazi's I automatically won because of Godwin's Law)

Originally Posted by spence

The fundamental American concepts of liberty and equality were radically progressive ideas at the time.

Yes they were and the progressive political philosophers who wrote the treatises that influenced the progressive founders wrote them as denunciations of the authoritarian King ruling over his subjects any way he saw fit. Funny how things have a way of coming around. Today's progressives are tearing apart everything our progressive founder's built.

Originally Posted by spence

Had the founding fathers felt the Constitution was perfect they wouldn't have allowed for it to be amended

I agree, but . . . The fundamental principles upon which the Constitution rests are unalterable and all law and even amendments must be in agreement with those principles. See Marbury v Madison:

"That the people have an original right to establish, for their future government, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness, is the basis on which the whole American fabric has been erected. The exercise of this original right is a very great exertion; nor can it nor ought it to be frequently repeated. The principles, therefore, so established are deemed fundamental. And as the authority, from which they proceed, is supreme, and can seldom act, they are designed to be permanent."

MARBURY v. MADISON, 5 U.S. 137 (1803)

Since the Constitution is supreme and the governmental powers granted through it are strictly defined and thus limited, government "can seldom act," thus no LEGITIMATE power to change those principles exists. There is no way to empower the government to retroactively change them, even by an amendment demanded by the people. The legitimate path is to erect a new Constitution based on new principles to establish a new government to better serve the wishes of the people.

Originally Posted by spence

Wasn't this proposed by FDR? He was a commie???

I specifically avoided using the "communist" label . . . One can promote and endorse "communitarian" ideals and not be a communist. Do you have an alternate history to offer for the genesis of social, cultural and economic "rights" and their emergence in western culture, post Depression, other than the Soviet Revolution and communitarian thought being embraced by the powers that be? Is there any evidence of such thought from the founding period? Where exactly do you think the general philosophy came from?

Originally Posted by spence

I think Obama was getting at the notion that change via the courts alone isn't always practical. This is a pretty common remark by civil rights advocates and in that context does have some merit.

Speaking as he was . . .



. . . as an Illinois state senator, his comments are perfectly understandable. The comments and the sentiments behind them must now be re-filtered through the Presidency and the opportunity Obama has to shape the federal judiciary with ideologues who agree with him that the "fundamental flaw in the Constitution and its interpretation" must be corrected.

Back then, he was speaking as a law professor and state senator with those position's limited impact and "legislative" bias on display (he admits this in the recording). The realization has occurred that what he once thought only possible via the legislature, is not viable politically; . . . and what he once thought impossible though the courts, is possible with the new duty to nominate federal judges and Justices in his hands.

He is Plato's Philosopher King but without wisdom, just power.

Originally Posted by spence

Again you speak as if there's no principals behind the proposed actions. One doesn't have to subscribe to Leninism to believe that we are sometimes better served when we act as a team.

I can not compose a reasoned reply for this, when read in the context of my statement you quote . . .