TakeYouToTasker

I'm not sure where that wire got crossed. I've never argued that anywhere. Couldn't pay it's bills to him. Or, put more accurately, wouldn't pay what he said were it's bills to him, which the individual states said they were not obligated to, and were not under the Articles. Again, read An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, by Charles Beard.

Great, now you've gone and derailed this into a Lebron vs Michael thread.

Central to my larger point here, George Washington was the wealthiest land owner in all of the colonies, and held a massive share of the war debt in bonds which he personally owned. Washington wasn't altruistic in his desires to have a stronger central government than the Articles provided. He supported a stronger central government because it was the only way he could collect on his bonds.

I'm about to argue that you either aren't following my argument, or don't know the timeline of our nation's founding. The Articles of Confederation were ratified in 1781, and the Federalist Papers weren't penned until October of 1787 through August of 1788; and made the case for a stronger central government than was chartered by the Articles.

"Big government" speaks to the legitimate scope of the Federal government. It's opposite would be a classical liberal's view of a "limited government" chartered to perform a narrowly defined list of functions, all of which are held in shared utility by the population. That list of functions absolutely includes military supremacy, as a necessary part of protecting borders, culture, state sovereignty, and the immutable rights of it's citizens.

The Federalist Papers don't contradict that at all. Beard's work speaks to the Federalist Papers, and is the seminal work in the field of study. I suggest you read it before making further commentary.

@Deranged Rhino Greg, am I misremembering something, or wasn't a major traditionally Democratic supporting rag raided, and it's servers seized, maybe a month or two after President Trump's election?

This is incorrect, as you've chosen to view this as one sided, and are projecting your own sentiments across the national dialogue. The reality is that this is a social justice issue that has polarized the country. One side feels that black Americans are oppressed by a country which values white people differently, and systematically works to marginalize minorities; essentially naming anyone who disagrees with them as racist. The movement as a whole has deep Marxist undertones to it's proposed "solutions". The other side looks at their own economic situation, and comes to the conclusion that the divisions are manufactured, that black Americans aren't treated any differently, and are tired of being called racist in lieu of actual political disagreement. There is no reconciling these two positions, and the second group is much larger that the former. It's a winning political issue for the President, and there is no good reason for him to drop it in the run up to an election.

It absolutely is, though it's a difficult argument to make when they economy is thriving.

I think it really depends on where the economy is in the run up to the election. In conditions like we have now, a true fiscal conservatives issues would fall on deaf ears because of how strong the economy is; and how strong the appeal of nationalism is in the heartland.

He's far from holding to conservative principles. In fact, the only group framed as being "on the right" who is less conservative than Kasich and his ilk are the alt-right. Kasich is a big activist government centrist who leans left almost as frequently as he leans right. His current policy positions are core Democratic circa 1990.

The reason the Articles failed was solely because it left the Founders, and the landed gentry who supported them, personally on the hook for the debt the Revolution incurred when the states refused to pay for it (the war served to further enrich them personally, as they had funded the war through the purchase of bonds which could only be guaranteed if the states agreed to pay them). It had nothing to do with a "need" for a strong federal government in order to protect the interests of the People. It was that, in the wake of the Articles, they recognized that a strong federal government was the only way to protect the personal economic interests of the societal elite at the expense of the People. I highly recommend reading An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States by Charles Beard.

Why would he give up a winning political issue as the mid terms approach?

Nothing about the establishment Republican Party is conservative. He's a strong believer in big government.

It happens all the time, but I don't think I've ever seen someone come out and say "elect me, and I'll use the justice department as political weapon".

He's campaigning on a platform of weaponizing the justice system against political opponents?

It's absolutely adorable that you think that's the timeline for how turning over evidence in a plea deal works.

That's hilarious.

This isn't unique to Kavanaugh. This is the product of the last 70 years of Executive expansion, left largely unchallenged, which has created established government precedent of practice; and the body of Constitutional law and stare decisis which has supported it. This is organic, is a product of generation on top of generation of Leviathan, and isn't limited by political party. The only way to avoid it, in fact, would be to only appoint strict constructionists to the bench.

Conservatives and libertarians aren't interested solely "in reducing the costs in government services", which essentially means "libertarian reforms of socialist ideals". We have very divergent ideas from you about the proper role of government, and seek to diminish it in both size and scope. To wit: I, and many others here, do not believe that the Department of Education should even exist, and the fact that it does exist is a gross overreach of the proper and just role of government. Incorrect. It is not a conflict of interest any more than appointing a lifetime school administrator seeking to grow the influence of the role would be in the other direction. It's simply a difference in governing philosophy, and attempting to paint it as anything else is a demand that the entire discussion begin with the acceptance that a Department of Education is a proper part of the federal bureaucracy. A premise I outright reject. Scott Pruitt's ethical violations have nothing to do with EPA policy. The charter of the EPA is clean air, and clean water. Full stop. What you don't like is the notion that there is a set of political beliefs which are directly opposed to leftist cottage industries like global warming, and who don't believe credentialed environmental lobbyists should be empowered to run the EPA in pursuit of it's leftist agenda. Again, this is a trend: Your real issue, as I prior stated, is that you honestly believe that the government, and all of it's agencies, should be tools of the political left in enforcing it's agenda. You're wrong, and your ass is showing.

And this is why you fail, and likely aren't as competent as you could be in your field. Doctors frequently make incorrect diagnosis, and patients who don't advocate for themselves fall away, as medical professionals like yourself don't even know how badly they have failed them. Patients wishing to receive the best care need to advocate for themselves, and need to become their own experts. This is laughable. Not only have you outsourced your thinking to "experts" (an appeal to authority fallacy), you've done so to a single, small carve-out of the legal profession. The role of a prosecutor is to gain convictions, not to find the truth; though I suspect you aren't valuing the input of individuals like Trey Gowdy or Rudi Giuliani throughout this process (former prosecutors, both). So the list grows even narrower: You only appeal to the authority of a narrow group of a certain type of professional, whose role in the system doesn't even comport with your stated goal of finding an objective truth, and even then only when they appeal to your pre-conceived biases. To undo your argument further: prisoners serving lengthy sentences often become more versed in the law surrounding their own cases than the lawyers who represent them. They have never passed the bar, but become their own experts because that's how individuals best advocate for themselves. Your argument is an argument in favor of ignorance. Mine is in favor of self empowerment. I like my argument better; and if you had the best interests of your patients in mind, you'd like my argument better too.

It's not that it fools them, per se, it's largely that they are immoral would be despots, who, quite honestly, aren't interested in democratic forms of government unless it gives them what they want. As soon as it doesn't grant what they want, they seek to overturn the entire concept of free and fair elections, and any pretense of self determination; and seek to run the political opposition's successful candidate, now the duly elected sitting President, out of office. To those ends they insist on a never ending stream of narrative changes which remain fluid, so they don't have to stop and account for their veracity. Special Counsel was appointed not to find, or debunk, the case of Russian collusion; but rather to dig and dig and dig until he could damage the President in some way, any way, in order to undo the democratic will of people they disagree with. They don't believe anyone other than those whom agree with their ideology should be permitted to rule. WhiteWalker had a very telling thing to say earlier in the day: "BUT SHE IS MORE CORRUPT, I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU THINK THE PERSON WHO HAS VISIBILY PROMOTED CRONIES WHO VISIBLY PROFIT FROM DISMANTLING THE SERVICES THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT IS LESS CORRUPT THAN HILLARY." Let that sink in. "Services they are supposed to protect" The purpose of government, in their minds, is to prop up liberal sacred cows; and failure to do so is evidence of corruption. Conservatism, and the shrinking and dismantling of entrenched liberal interests is malfeasance in their eyes, and justifies running them out of office. Democracy is only tolerated while it wins them elections. When it ceases to do so, coups and banana republics are the preferred order of the day. As a result, we'll see a civil war in our lifetimes.

Actually, you raise a point that should stop and make you think if you have even a drop of competence in your field. Your patients see you because they have expertise in themselves. They know when something doesn't feel right. They feel the pain, or discomfort. They come to you because they want to know the root cause. But, quite often, you fail them and get the root cause wrong. They go on, dealing with the issue, trying new treatments, looking for second opinions, because you were wrong. The fact that you are a medical expert does not confer on you the ability to correctly diagnose without the patient being a subject matter expert in what they are feeling.

It's not even a criminal offense, but rather a civil offense. And that's if Trump is even guilty, because his campaign was almost entirely self-funded.

How is President Trump acting like a dictator in any way? He's actively gone about the business of restoring checks and balances by insisting the law be enforced exactly as written, trying to force Congress to actually legislate; and has drastically reduced the scope of executive powers by undoing a large deal of the bureaucratic, unaccountable regulatory state. He's the first President I can remember who has actually taken real steps away from dictatorial powers.