Speak Out: How to spot the FBI Agent Provocateur in your Militia, Tea Party, Property Rights group Coffee Klatche

Replies (3)

• As long as we're eliminating socialist programs, let's get the government out of the highway business and get back to toll roads. Public schools are also worthless, the well-connected can go to private schools and the rest can fend for themselves. We sure don't need any government bureaucrats making sure that our cars stop properly and that our food and medicine are safe. Down with big government!

  -- Posted by chiang01 on Tue, Apr 6, 2010, at 11:45 AM

• ElmerV: I have a great idea for you. Next Valentine's Day when Schnucks has their party for people being married 50 years or more, have your idol Dana Loesch come to the event and give a speech to those people. I'm sure she would be welcome with open arms...NOT.

  -- Posted by howdydoody on Tue, Apr 6, 2010, at 3:14 PM

• chiang01 wrote:

  "As long as we're eliminating socialist programs, let's get the government out of the highway business and get back to toll roads. Public schools are also worthless, the well-connected can go to private schools and the rest can fend for themselves. We sure don't need any government bureaucrats making sure that our cars stop properly and that our food and medicine are safe."

  Roads are a constitutional duty of the government, defined as 'postal routes'. Because they have the authority over the roadways, they have the right to set the standards for vehicles which use those roads. Most conservatives have no concern with such things, since they fall under the concept of 'general welfare' and well within the scope of governmental duties.

  Schools do not fall under the Constitutional duties of the federal government, but are a constitutional obligation of most State governments. To be sure, the quality of our educational system seems to have fallen as the federal involvment has increased. Methinks it is time to get the federal government out of the schools and let the States do their duty in that regard.

  Regulation and inspection of food and medicine fall within the perview of the federal government, both as an obligaton to 'general welfare' and as a true regulation of interstate commerce. Once again, conservatives do not generally have concerns with these aspects of governmental oversight, although we sometimes concern ourselves with individual approaches to those duties.

  I realize you were being sarcastic. However, this type of mischaracterization of conservative viewpoints is typical of the flawed logic of the left. "You oppose the government doing "X", then you must oppose government doing anything." I've heard it all too often, and it is a flawed premise, designed to deflect attention from the real problem, and from the real point of the argument.

  It is possible to support the general welfare without supporting entitlements. In fact, it is imperative to do so if you are truly concerned about the financial security of our nation. Entitlements are bankrupting this nation, not the building of roads or the fighting of wars. even with the cost of two wars, National defense consumes less than a quarter of our national budget, whereas entitlements consume over 50%. The fighting of wars, meanwhile, is specifically authorized by the Constitution, while the granting of entitlements is not.

  -- Posted by Shapley Hunter on Tue, Apr 6, 2010, at 4:40 PM