I think the U.S. should update it's Constitution
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and follow suit with Iceland. Not everything needs to be changed but it does need an enema.
----------------------------- Just along for the ride. -----------------------------
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and follow suit with Iceland. Not everything needs to be changed but it does need an enema.
----------------------------- Just along for the ride. -----------------------------
The last time a bunch of radicals (the Republicans) decided the Constitution needed a thorough overhaul, gaining the power to do so required a war between the States that killed off an entire generation of young men, and delayed the industrial revolution in this country by 20 years. Since any peaceful changes to the Constitution via a constitutional convention requires the approval of 3/4ths of the states (not people, but with each state having 1 vote), it is entirely possible that no substantive change could find approval, but if any did, they would tend to be anti-federalist measures, limiting the powers of D.C.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
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The last time a bunch of radicals (the Republicans) decided the Constitution needed a thorough overhaul, gaining the power to do so required a war between the States that killed off an entire generation of young men, and delayed the industrial revolution in this country by 20 years. Since any peaceful changes to the Constitution via a constitutional convention requires the approval of 3/4ths of the states (not people, but with each state having 1 vote), it is entirely possible that no substantive change could find approval, but if any did, they would tend to be anti-federalist measures, limiting the powers of D.C.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
Oakman wrote:
required a war between the States that killed off an entire generation of young men
I think the times have changed as well as the thinking of many Americans. I don't think we will have another slaughter fest like the one we did in the past. This is not to say that the bigot militias in this country won't get upset and act like five year old girls either.
Oakman wrote:
limiting the powers of D.C.
Exactly. Limiting the powers in some areas and hopefully putting more power in others and introducing some new, fresh, and very much needed additions. I am neither Republican or Democrat, so my way of thinking is not motivated through these channels. I think that we are on our way to hell in a hand basket and our country needs some colon cleansing. It is wise to always study history and the past but if we continue to live in the past then we will become the past and our "empire" will crumble like all other great empires in history and that will be it...game over. The military might of America is not written in stone, neither is our economic prowess (which is getting smaller every day). --Some of my thoughts.
----------------------------- Just along for the ride. -----------------------------
modified on Tuesday, June 21, 2011 3:27 PM
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and follow suit with Iceland. Not everything needs to be changed but it does need an enema.
----------------------------- Just along for the ride. -----------------------------
I'm against this idea. The individuals and organization that will benefit from and exploit any rewrite will be the ones we all hate. I don't like when the team in the lead gets to make up the rules, too.
"I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. " — Hunter S. Thompson
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I'm against this idea. The individuals and organization that will benefit from and exploit any rewrite will be the ones we all hate. I don't like when the team in the lead gets to make up the rules, too.
"I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. " — Hunter S. Thompson
wizardzz wrote:
The individuals and organization that will benefit from and exploit any rewrite will be the ones we all hate.
Not necessarily. For example, the President and the White House administration wouldn't be the one's doing the rewriting. If you actually look at what Iceland is doing, I believe they are having most of the citizens do the writing up of ideas, deletions, and additions.
----------------------------- Just along for the ride. -----------------------------
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wizardzz wrote:
The individuals and organization that will benefit from and exploit any rewrite will be the ones we all hate.
Not necessarily. For example, the President and the White House administration wouldn't be the one's doing the rewriting. If you actually look at what Iceland is doing, I believe they are having most of the citizens do the writing up of ideas, deletions, and additions.
----------------------------- Just along for the ride. -----------------------------
Slacker007 wrote:
If you actually look at what Iceland is doing, I believe they are having most of the citizens do the writing up of ideas, deletions, and additions.
:doh: If we did that, $0.69 burger Wednesday would be a constitutional guarantee.
"I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. " — Hunter S. Thompson
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Slacker007 wrote:
If you actually look at what Iceland is doing, I believe they are having most of the citizens do the writing up of ideas, deletions, and additions.
:doh: If we did that, $0.69 burger Wednesday would be a constitutional guarantee.
"I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. " — Hunter S. Thompson
wizardzz wrote:
$0.69 burger Wednesday would be a constitutional guarantee.
Is that really a bad thing? :-D
----------------------------- Just along for the ride. -----------------------------
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wizardzz wrote:
$0.69 burger Wednesday would be a constitutional guarantee.
Is that really a bad thing? :-D
----------------------------- Just along for the ride. -----------------------------
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Slacker007 wrote:
If you actually look at what Iceland is doing, I believe they are having most of the citizens do the writing up of ideas, deletions, and additions.
:doh: If we did that, $0.69 burger Wednesday would be a constitutional guarantee.
"I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. " — Hunter S. Thompson
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wizardzz wrote:
The individuals and organization that will benefit from and exploit any rewrite will be the ones we all hate.
Not necessarily. For example, the President and the White House administration wouldn't be the one's doing the rewriting. If you actually look at what Iceland is doing, I believe they are having most of the citizens do the writing up of ideas, deletions, and additions.
----------------------------- Just along for the ride. -----------------------------
Iceland has a population equal to that of St Louis and, like St Louis, it has no, repeat, no armed forces. It has already reneged on its foreign debt and its attempt at rewriting its Constitution may have as much to do with its attempts to convince the European Court of Justice that the "new" government does not have any responsibility for the debts of the "old" one as it does anything else. But be that as it may be, what makes you think that a Twitter/Facebook sourced process that may work for them (we have not yet seen that it does) would scale up to work for a country of 310 billion with armed force depended on by most western military alliances and with a financial system that, for better or worse, is still the backbone of the global economy and still seems as one of the safest investments that can be made (Note the run to T-bills as the Greek financial crisis grows worse)???
Slacker007 wrote:
I believe they are having most of the citizens do the writing up of ideas, deletions, and additions.
No. they have a central committee called the Constitutional Council which is picking and choosing among the suggestion it gets from its Facebook and Twitter pages. They are the real power and, when all is said and done, they will deliver a constitution to be accepted in a take-it-or-leave it referendum, much as Napoleon did when he rewrote the French constitution and made himself "First Consul for Life"
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
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Iceland has a population equal to that of St Louis and, like St Louis, it has no, repeat, no armed forces. It has already reneged on its foreign debt and its attempt at rewriting its Constitution may have as much to do with its attempts to convince the European Court of Justice that the "new" government does not have any responsibility for the debts of the "old" one as it does anything else. But be that as it may be, what makes you think that a Twitter/Facebook sourced process that may work for them (we have not yet seen that it does) would scale up to work for a country of 310 billion with armed force depended on by most western military alliances and with a financial system that, for better or worse, is still the backbone of the global economy and still seems as one of the safest investments that can be made (Note the run to T-bills as the Greek financial crisis grows worse)???
Slacker007 wrote:
I believe they are having most of the citizens do the writing up of ideas, deletions, and additions.
No. they have a central committee called the Constitutional Council which is picking and choosing among the suggestion it gets from its Facebook and Twitter pages. They are the real power and, when all is said and done, they will deliver a constitution to be accepted in a take-it-or-leave it referendum, much as Napoleon did when he rewrote the French constitution and made himself "First Consul for Life"
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
I am not intimately involved with Iceland's constitution but rather I was inspired by their desire to change their constitution (for whatever reason). I think you are mistaken if you really think that we are an economic super-power. China is expected to surpass us by 2016. If China were to invade the United States, they would win and you would be eating beef with broccoli for dinner. My point is that we have pissed off every nation under God and have ruined our relationships with almost all countries on earth. If we don't get our heads out of our fourth point of contact, then we are sure to die as a country. One way of cleaning house is to change our Constitution in ways that would help our country in these days, not 200+ years ago.
----------------------------- Just along for the ride. -----------------------------
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I am not intimately involved with Iceland's constitution but rather I was inspired by their desire to change their constitution (for whatever reason). I think you are mistaken if you really think that we are an economic super-power. China is expected to surpass us by 2016. If China were to invade the United States, they would win and you would be eating beef with broccoli for dinner. My point is that we have pissed off every nation under God and have ruined our relationships with almost all countries on earth. If we don't get our heads out of our fourth point of contact, then we are sure to die as a country. One way of cleaning house is to change our Constitution in ways that would help our country in these days, not 200+ years ago.
----------------------------- Just along for the ride. -----------------------------
Slacker007 wrote:
I was inspired by their desire to change their constitution (for whatever reason).
Because St Louis changes its city charter, I see no reason to amend or replace the Constitution. Iceland is
Slacker007 wrote:
I think you are mistaken if you really think that we are an economic super-power.
I have no idea what you mean by economic super-power. I do know that by any accepted definition of the phrase, the U.S. is an economic superpower and will continue to be so. The EU, in spite of its myriad economic woes is also a superpower, as is Brazil, Japan, Russia. Indeed, a number of European nations are economic super powers in their own right. The fact that China has become another one does not mean that the rest of the world has suddenly disappeared; Japan did not become a nonentity when China displaced it in the number 2 spot. I'm guessing that you are awed by China's GDP growth rate and have heard that its GDP will surpass that of the U.S. in the next year or two. GDP measures the market price of all goods and services produced by a country within a year. Simply put, GDP is a metric of the economic impact of a county on the rest of the world. It stands to reason that all other things being equal a country with a large population will out-produce a country with a small population. China, by undertaking the task of being an industrial nation (i.e. making more things equal) has increased its production immensely. An equally important measurement, especially when comparing the productivity of two countries, is the per capita GDP. Hong Kong for instance has a small GDP (equivalent to that of the Czech Republic), but its per capita GDP is the same as the United States, i.e. its people on the average, produce as much wealth (goods and services) each as do the people of the U.S. The U.S. is outranked on this metric by Quatar, Luxemborg, Singapore, Norway, Brunei and the United Arab Emirates. And, by this measurement, China is outranked by 93 other countries, including Taiwan. China's per capita GDP is definitely rising. But it will need to increase its GDP to four times that of the U.S. before it is ranked in the top ten. So, no. I am not mistaken.
Slacker007 wrote:
My point is that we have pissed off every nation under God and have ruined our relationships with almost all countries on earth
This has
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Slacker007 wrote:
I was inspired by their desire to change their constitution (for whatever reason).
Because St Louis changes its city charter, I see no reason to amend or replace the Constitution. Iceland is
Slacker007 wrote:
I think you are mistaken if you really think that we are an economic super-power.
I have no idea what you mean by economic super-power. I do know that by any accepted definition of the phrase, the U.S. is an economic superpower and will continue to be so. The EU, in spite of its myriad economic woes is also a superpower, as is Brazil, Japan, Russia. Indeed, a number of European nations are economic super powers in their own right. The fact that China has become another one does not mean that the rest of the world has suddenly disappeared; Japan did not become a nonentity when China displaced it in the number 2 spot. I'm guessing that you are awed by China's GDP growth rate and have heard that its GDP will surpass that of the U.S. in the next year or two. GDP measures the market price of all goods and services produced by a country within a year. Simply put, GDP is a metric of the economic impact of a county on the rest of the world. It stands to reason that all other things being equal a country with a large population will out-produce a country with a small population. China, by undertaking the task of being an industrial nation (i.e. making more things equal) has increased its production immensely. An equally important measurement, especially when comparing the productivity of two countries, is the per capita GDP. Hong Kong for instance has a small GDP (equivalent to that of the Czech Republic), but its per capita GDP is the same as the United States, i.e. its people on the average, produce as much wealth (goods and services) each as do the people of the U.S. The U.S. is outranked on this metric by Quatar, Luxemborg, Singapore, Norway, Brunei and the United Arab Emirates. And, by this measurement, China is outranked by 93 other countries, including Taiwan. China's per capita GDP is definitely rising. But it will need to increase its GDP to four times that of the U.S. before it is ranked in the top ten. So, no. I am not mistaken.
Slacker007 wrote:
My point is that we have pissed off every nation under God and have ruined our relationships with almost all countries on earth
This has
It's hard to debate with you sometimes because you have an answer for everything and you feel that your answer is the correct answer. I fear that any further discussion might turn into an argument and less of a debate. I don't agree with you on many of your viewpoints contained in this ongoing discussion but respect them none the less. Cheers.
----------------------------- Just along for the ride. -----------------------------
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Iceland has a population equal to that of St Louis and, like St Louis, it has no, repeat, no armed forces. It has already reneged on its foreign debt and its attempt at rewriting its Constitution may have as much to do with its attempts to convince the European Court of Justice that the "new" government does not have any responsibility for the debts of the "old" one as it does anything else. But be that as it may be, what makes you think that a Twitter/Facebook sourced process that may work for them (we have not yet seen that it does) would scale up to work for a country of 310 billion with armed force depended on by most western military alliances and with a financial system that, for better or worse, is still the backbone of the global economy and still seems as one of the safest investments that can be made (Note the run to T-bills as the Greek financial crisis grows worse)???
Slacker007 wrote:
I believe they are having most of the citizens do the writing up of ideas, deletions, and additions.
No. they have a central committee called the Constitutional Council which is picking and choosing among the suggestion it gets from its Facebook and Twitter pages. They are the real power and, when all is said and done, they will deliver a constitution to be accepted in a take-it-or-leave it referendum, much as Napoleon did when he rewrote the French constitution and made himself "First Consul for Life"
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
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Slacker007 wrote:
I was inspired by their desire to change their constitution (for whatever reason).
Because St Louis changes its city charter, I see no reason to amend or replace the Constitution. Iceland is
Slacker007 wrote:
I think you are mistaken if you really think that we are an economic super-power.
I have no idea what you mean by economic super-power. I do know that by any accepted definition of the phrase, the U.S. is an economic superpower and will continue to be so. The EU, in spite of its myriad economic woes is also a superpower, as is Brazil, Japan, Russia. Indeed, a number of European nations are economic super powers in their own right. The fact that China has become another one does not mean that the rest of the world has suddenly disappeared; Japan did not become a nonentity when China displaced it in the number 2 spot. I'm guessing that you are awed by China's GDP growth rate and have heard that its GDP will surpass that of the U.S. in the next year or two. GDP measures the market price of all goods and services produced by a country within a year. Simply put, GDP is a metric of the economic impact of a county on the rest of the world. It stands to reason that all other things being equal a country with a large population will out-produce a country with a small population. China, by undertaking the task of being an industrial nation (i.e. making more things equal) has increased its production immensely. An equally important measurement, especially when comparing the productivity of two countries, is the per capita GDP. Hong Kong for instance has a small GDP (equivalent to that of the Czech Republic), but its per capita GDP is the same as the United States, i.e. its people on the average, produce as much wealth (goods and services) each as do the people of the U.S. The U.S. is outranked on this metric by Quatar, Luxemborg, Singapore, Norway, Brunei and the United Arab Emirates. And, by this measurement, China is outranked by 93 other countries, including Taiwan. China's per capita GDP is definitely rising. But it will need to increase its GDP to four times that of the U.S. before it is ranked in the top ten. So, no. I am not mistaken.
Slacker007 wrote:
My point is that we have pissed off every nation under God and have ruined our relationships with almost all countries on earth
This has
Hmm, you also forgot to mention that the U.S. and Chinese economies are another form of mutually assured destruction. If we go down economically, believe me, they go down. Their socialism is supported by our consumer driven capitalism.
"I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. " — Hunter S. Thompson
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Hmm, you also forgot to mention that the U.S. and Chinese economies are another form of mutually assured destruction. If we go down economically, believe me, they go down. Their socialism is supported by our consumer driven capitalism.
"I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. " — Hunter S. Thompson
wizardzz wrote:
Hmm, you also forgot to mention that the U.S. and Chinese economies are another form of mutually assured destruction. If we go down economically, believe me, they go down. Their socialism is supported by our consumer driven capitalism.
I'm not sure that I would call China socialist or the U.S. capitalist. However, your point is absolutely spot on.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
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wizardzz wrote:
Hmm, you also forgot to mention that the U.S. and Chinese economies are another form of mutually assured destruction. If we go down economically, believe me, they go down. Their socialism is supported by our consumer driven capitalism.
I'm not sure that I would call China socialist or the U.S. capitalist. However, your point is absolutely spot on.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
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It's hard to debate with you sometimes because you have an answer for everything and you feel that your answer is the correct answer. I fear that any further discussion might turn into an argument and less of a debate. I don't agree with you on many of your viewpoints contained in this ongoing discussion but respect them none the less. Cheers.
----------------------------- Just along for the ride. -----------------------------
It's pretty hard not to come across as knowing something about a subject when you know something about a subject. In spite of pursuing an interest in economics for some time, I am an absolute tyro compared to some folks (John Carson, Zeb69 - both professional economists) who used to frequent the original soapbox and I learned a great deal by debating with them, even though they often cited facts I wasn't aware of, or offered opinions that were wildly at variance from mine. Indeed, I find that kinds of a discussion the most enjoyable because I end up being wiser than when I started.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.