$825 billion of money you don't have is being spent on What?

[jmervyn]

It is a living document.

... and that's my point.

Therefore wrong, ipso facto. The Continentals used rifles, Commissar Ill - but then, I know history is another of your many weak suits. Stick with your rocks.

By the by, the only weapon of the previous 3 that I'm not sure could be owned would be the nuclear warhead.

Back on page one, someone asked if it wasn't a better use of money than on pyrotechnics in Iraq. Obviously not, for a variety of reasons - not the least of which is that the "Children's Future Indebtedness Bill" is greater in adjusted dollars than many of our past conflicts combined.

This bill has become nothing more than a massive spending bill expected to cost taxpayers more than $1.2 TRILLION according to the latest estimate by the Congressional Budget Office. $1.2 Trillion dwarfs any government program in history after adjusting for inflation. It is bigger than the New Deal and the Iraq War combined. The interest alone will be costlier than the Louisiana Purchase or the amount the Unites States spent to land on the moon.

Oh, and since it's apropos...
"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle." - Sir Winston Churchill

[krischan]

But in the financial universe can pour water out of an empty bucket. It's called debts. Respectively, you can pour out the water before filling it in and if you notice at a later time that you cannot afford to pour in the water when it's time, you simply throw away the bucket. That's called currency refom .

BTW, reducing taxes leads to more debts as well, as less taxes won't decrease the bills which the government has to pay. You can do about it what you want, somebody has certain debts and somebody has to pay them, no matter if it happens through taxes, higher prices or whatever, else the creditors cannot pay their own debts and it will be them instead who have that debt problem then. So the question is who is going to pay the debts. Less taxes -> more state debts -> our children or grandchildren will somehow pay it. More taxes, subventions etc. -> you pay it. Of course, nobody wants to pay, so those will have to do it who don't have a say on it right now: our children and grandchildren. No matter what the explanations might be, they will always smell a bit of that.

You need soil to fill up the holes and digging new holes elsewhere to get the soil won't reduce the number of holes. What you need is producing new soil out of nothing or getting back the soil which was originally in the holes. Not shifting artificial numbers back and forth, but producing additional value.

[Amra]

Or if we just can't fix things, let's just declare war on China. It worked in WW2.

Indeed it did.

[Dondrei]

Manoeuvre? You slay me.

Yes, that's how you spell it, you illiterate colonial.

If the founding fathers crafted the second amendment to make sure the citizens of the US had the capability to fight off a foreign (or government-led) invasion, then "arms" means one thing. If they meant it instead as securing a person's right to home defense, the it means another. But in neither case does it mean "only those technologies which exists today". At least, to me it doesn't, because that would make no sense.

I don't know about that. The nature of weaponry has changed so much since their day that you can argue that they couldn't possibly have been referring to certain kinds of arms available now.

Radical rabble baiting aside, let's have a hypo. Suppose you were in charge -- what would you do? How would you fix the economic issues long term and short term? You have between $0-825b to borrow, and can change any economic system within the bounds of realism.

Most of us are going to say the same things -- reduce taxes (especially on the poor), invest in infrastructure (particularly in sustainable energy, education, and industry), minimize national debt/inflation, provide more transparency/accountability in the market while relying on free enterprise to generate wealth, and prevent widespread depression panic by shooting everyone in the media who is paid to scream fire in a crowded room. Aspirational pet projects like universal health care, increasing home ownership, and the like will just have to wait.

The simple truth is the world isn't coming to an end. The economy is fundamentally sound, although an unappealing political target was plastered for saying so. The market will correct itself regardless of what Obama or Rush promise, and then the largest and most diverse economy in the history of the world will roll on.

Or if we just can't fix things, let's just declare war on China. It worked in WW2.

I pretty much agree with all this.

The most powerful weapon available at the time of the founding was a warship such as a frigate. Private individuals owned and used these warships without restriction. The founders didn't seem to think the right to bear arms had any qualifications, as best as I can tell.

Source?

[stillman]

You guys are still obsessing over what "arms" are?

The document is some yellow cruddy thing from long ago. They should auction it off on ebay and type up a new one now that we have cell phones and word processors. They should store it on a CD, and rewrite it once again when everything goes digital.

[jmervyn]

Yes, that's how you spell it, you illiterate colonial.

You're in no position to lecture anyone about spelling.

Source?

Oh, I dunno...

Men trained in arms from their infancy, and animated by the love of liberty, will afford neither a cheap or easy conquest. - From the Declaration of the Continental Congress, July 1775.

Militias, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves and include all men capable of bearing arms. [...] To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them. - Senator Richard Henry Lee, 1788, on "militia" in the 2nd Amendment

No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. - "Political Disquisitions", a British republican tract of 1774-1775

Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defence? Where is the difference between having our arms in our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defence be the *real* object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands? - Patrick Henry, speech of June 9 1788

"To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual way to enslave them." - George Mason, speech of June 14, 1788

"The great object is, that every man be armed. [...] Every one who is able may have a gun." - Patrick Henry, speech of June 14 1788

Such are a well regulated militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen and husbandman, who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen. - "M.T. Cicero", in a newspaper letter of 1788 touching the "militia" referred to in the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United states who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms... - Samuel Adams, in "Phila. Independent Gazetteer", August 20, 1789

The danger (where there is any) from armed citizens, is only to the *government*, not to *society*; and as long as they have nothing to revenge in the government (which they cannot have while it is in their own hands) there are many advantages in their being accustomed to the use of arms, and no possible disadvantage. - Joel Barlow, "Advice to the Privileged Orders", 1792-93

[The disarming of citizens] has a double effect, it palsies the hand and brutalizes the mind: a habitual disuse of physical forces totally destroys the moral [force]; and men lose at once the power of protecting themselves, and of discerning the cause of their oppression. - Joel Barlow, "Advice to the Privileged Orders", 1792-93

There's more if you need it. See, the reason people like Ill (and probably yourself) are full of phail is that they not only deliberately misunderstand history - they deliberately misunderstand military history. The Minutemen and to an extent the Continental Army not only possessed massive superiority in weapon technology, but also employed tactics which were considered ignoble. You're not supposed to be "fair" to your enemy, as the Progressive-Liberals demand Israel be to Hamas; you're supposed to rip off his head and poop down his neck.

[Garbad_the_Weak]

Source?

Its just common knowledge. Do any research on the time, and you can see for yourself. While its true no US citizen owned a 74 or larger Ship of the Line, neither did the US government at that time (for tactical reasons). But the biggest class of warship owned by the gov't (frigate) was also owned by many, many private citizens. And in Europe, private individuals did own ships of the line, although it was rare (generally not feasible for one person to have so much money or have a reason to). It was common for warships to be bought and sold back and forth into service, and I know at one point more than half of the frigate in the US Navy were privately owned warships that had been loaned/given to the navy for the war.

But the point is there were the equivalent of a modern day nuclear submarine, and there was no restriction on them at all.

[krischan]

Back in those days you needed permissions for just everything, like owning land, building a house, living in a city and whatever else, perhaps to a lesser extent in America (no noble rulers, respectively established rulers). Warships were in private property, but it needed the favor of the rulers to be allowed to buy one. Of course, if you were rich, you could surely bribe them, err I mean pay the fees for the paperwork and for additional efforts to get through the process quickly.

[jmervyn]

Back in those days you needed permissions for just everything, like owning land, building a house, living in a city and whatever else, perhaps to a lesser extent in America (no noble rulers, respectively established rulers). Warships were in private property, but it needed the favor of the rulers to be allowed to buy one. Of course, if you were rich, you could surely bribe them, err I mean pay the fees for the paperwork and for additional efforts to get through the process quickly.

Just wondering... what did you think America's Revolutionary War and Westward expansion were about? What you consider the norm was what my ancestors were fleeing, after all. I know you Europeans have a hard time grasping just how contrary Yanks are, but there's a pretty long tradition of us not liking any government telling us how to suck eggs, to say nothing of seizing our money, property, and whatnot.

Garbad and I are quite correct about the anarchistic nature of early America, though I believe you regarding the shackles of European society (though even with European armed merchantmen, ownership was often private and did <not> require permission). You are most likely confusing American history with that of the East India company. I recall reading about John Paul Jones & others lack of "letters of marque" as being the logic used by the British for their impress of American navy and merchant ships.

[AeroJonesy]

Source?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privateer