US Declaration of Dependence
The preamble to the declaration of (in)dependence, updated to present-day:
The Unanimous Declaration
of the Thirteen Fifty United States of America*
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve endear themselves to the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station collective equality to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God Federal Government entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation relinquishment of liberty for the socialist egalitarian ideal.
How Fark Ruined the Afternoon of June 11, 2005
The premise: spam an MTV voting form for TRL top 10 to get Devo’s “Whip It” on the charts. This scheme was set into motion by Something Awful, a popular satire site, and made its way to Fark.com, a site I frequent that lampoons mainstream media by collecting stories of interest and giving them funny headlines. When I read that Fark was promoting this spam, I was enthusiastic and voted, thinking in some small way that we might be able to reclaim MTV for the generation that was around when they played music.
Mitt Romney Inflicted with Socialism
Socialism: a mental disease whereby the victim believes in any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy. I digress.
Liberty. Smaller Government. Less Taxes. Humble Foreign Policy. These phrases, once describing a policy of conservatism, are now mere buzzwords - jingoism. The mainstream of the republican party no longer provides them any meaning.
Mitt Romney:
I want to talk today not just about alleviating poverty through, if you will, sending checks and providing benefits - as important as that is because of course we do have a responsibility of common care for humanity that suggests that we should help people to be able to live their lives in a normal and appropriate way.”
(Emphasis added, see video) OF COURSE!
OF COURSE government has the responsibility to take your tax dollars by force of law and give them to someone else. You are obviously too morally inept to be charitable on your own; big brother knows best.
Most Americans had a negative reaction when the Kelo decision was passed, where the Supreme Court ruled that your home could be taken by a city and given to a hotel chain if it would increase local tax revenue. The reason is that people can plainly recognize theft, even when mediated by legislative process. If property is taken from one person and given to another, it’s stealing. Why isn’t this sentiment popularly harbored against a progressive tax system that does the same?
Even though Mitt might believe in some level of socialism, that’s not nearly so bad as his Super-Mega-Ultra-Lame Campaign Ads.
John Edwards’s $400 Haircut Has Gone to His Head
The Framers of the Constitution knew this: the government cannot grant you rights you already have. The government only has the power to limit your rights because the power of the government itself stems from the people’s willingness to be governed. For example, read closely the wording of the second amendment - the amendment popularly understood to ‘give’ people the right to bear arms:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
This amendment does not ‘create’ or ‘give’ people the right to bear arms. It tells the government they can’t infringe a right you already have. This is the basic principle of this country: the power is vested with the people and the government exists only in delegation of that power. This fact was so well understood that many of the Framers could not understand why a Bill of Rights was even necessary. In Federalist Paper #84, Alexander Hamilton asked, “Why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?“
Enter John Edwards, who plays a game with the interviewer at 4:45 in this video. The game is called “right or privilege,” where he tells us whether guaranteed college education, guaranteed health care, guaranteed livable wage, owning a handgun, guaranteed citizenship of an alien who has worked here for a year, and guaranteed access to the internet are “rights” or privileges. Before you watch, answer the question for yourself by asking the question “do I have to a guaranteed personal right to a college education, etc., already?” Edwards gets only 0.5 out of 6 correct (his answer to immigrants is right at first and wrong later).
A congressional or presidential oath to uphold the constitution doesn’t protect us from people who don’t understand it. If you can interpret the Constitution willy-nilly without amending it, we have not a rule of law in this country, but a rule of man.
56% of French Believe Sun Revolves Around Earth
Evidence that the French, at a minimum, have government-run education:
The percentage is no-doubt inflated, as it includes the number of French audience members intentionally choosing “the Sun” just to see him look stupid and lose.
The French are therefore lagging the US, as only 20% of Americans believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth.