Power unexcercised is power wasted...

Larry Gude

Strung Out
...is long the battle cry of the left and a core tenet of centralized control and authority. Politicians, these days, are pretty much all about DOING something, ie, the government exerting more power and more control as opposed to being about getting government back into it's resrtaints. The current administration is very big on this and came to power on that argument, more is more but, it's not a new concept. They just take it a little more seriously than, perhaps, others and the best example of this is the ACA where they muscled it through with no help from the other party and took some unusual legislative steps in addition to some key bribes to get it done but, get it done they did.

The counter to this sort of mindset, the only good government is more government, is the Constitutional restraints on government; can we, constitutionally, do this and, if so, should we? I suppose, to be generous, the left starts with 'should we do this?' first but, from there, they don't ask 'if we should, can we?'. They say 'we should do this and, because we should, the constitution should not bar it.' That is a recipe, NOTHING being restricted, for every bit as much chaos as NO government at all. Sadly, the right now operates the same way.

Current conversation about the ACA is of the 'make the best of it' mindset and, I suppose that is practical. However, if you take the position that the ACA should never have been done in the first place AND that the constitution forbids it anyway, that should be all that you do, period, until you've repealed it. The Roberts court refused to bail the GOP out and do their job for them. Think what you will of that but, Roberts was also VERY clear; "As argued, this is Constitutional. You don't like it, you fix it." If the ACA becomes permanent, consider what would then also be allowable. If you, we can be compelled to buy this product and that service, there is no end. "Can we do it?" has been settled for ANYTHING so that everyone who comes along later has the blue print and the precedent that the only question is 'should we?'.

That leaves some pretty terrifying possibilities for exercising power rather than letting it go to waste.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
But We the People *want* them to "do something". We demand it. Whenever there's a school shooting or natural disaster or some such, we scream long and loud that our government isn't protecting us the way we feel it should. Most of us are so dependent on government that we couldn't exist without it. That cartoon thingy that the Obama Admin put out a year or so ago, about the life of whoever and how big a role government plays in her day to day life - that control and coddling was considered a good thing by a large number of Americans.

Anyone who has liberals on their FB knows that there are a great number of people out there who not only applaud all this government nannying and regulating, they actually think government isn't doing enough. I think you're expecting our representatives to have more integrity and foresight than is reasonable. They absolutely do what we want; if they didn't, they'd be out on their ass.
 

Larry Gude

Strung Out
But We the People *want* them to "do something". We demand it. Whenever there's a school shooting or natural disaster or some such, we scream long and loud that our government isn't protecting us the way we feel it should. Most of us are so dependent on government that we couldn't exist without it. That cartoon thingy that the Obama Admin put out a year or so ago, about the life of whoever and how big a role government plays in her day to day life - that control and coddling was considered a good thing by a large number of Americans.

Anyone who has liberals on their FB knows that there are a great number of people out there who not only applaud all this government nannying and regulating, they actually think government isn't doing enough. I think you're expecting our representatives to have more integrity and foresight than is reasonable. They absolutely do what we want; if they didn't, they'd be out on their ass.

Right but, in my Quixotic quest for us to cut it out and use our gummint properly, that's why I bring it up. It IS we, the people, that are the problem and winning elections is meaningless given our desire to say we want one thing and then making excuses for whatever once we've won.

It is we, on the right, who at least claim to want limited, constitutional government so, it is we who have the heavy lifting to do. You watch Bush v. Gore debates, any of them; THAT is the guy we elected. THAT guy would get elected again in a heartbeat but HE betrayed us and we made excuses. Same with Boehner; he explicitly came to power to slay the ACA, not mend it because of the very radical nature of it; compulsion to buy a product or service. Yet, here we go again with the excuses, better to get a little here and there and practicality trumps principle yet again.

Well, that's go WAY too far. We can NOT afford practicality anymore BECAUSE it has, or is, killing principles which makes the whole exercise academic. If we're gonna accept national suicide light, let us at least go down fighting and enough with being 'practical' and 'stylish'. Boehner HAS to go. Dubbya HAS to be denounced. We HAVE to cling to principle it is all meaningless anyway and we can quit with the faux outrage when the left does it and the excuse making when the right does it.

Damn it.



:lmao:
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
Larry, I agree with what you're saying but what I will suggest is that most "conservatives" are all talk. As my proof, I point out that said conservatives bloviate about freedom and limited government, yet are all for the government banning gay marriage and abortion. Limit government, except when it comes to marriage and birth.

Okay.

It's not Boehner or Bush's fault we're stupid. We were stupid before they ever came on the scene.
 

Larry Gude

Strung Out
Larry, I agree with what you're saying but what I will suggest is that most "conservatives" are all talk. As my proof, I point out that said conservatives bloviate about freedom and limited government, yet are all for the government banning gay marriage and abortion. Limit government, except when it comes to marriage and birth.

Okay.

It's not Boehner or Bush's fault we're stupid. We were stupid before they ever came on the scene.

Yeah! We dumb!


Now what?????????????????????????????????????????? Isn't there some one eyed person to be king of the blind? Or a mildly functional retard to lead us out of our woods????
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
Now what?????????????????????????????????????????? Isn't there some one eyed person to be king of the blind? Or a mildly functional retard to lead us out of our woods????

Well, yeah...his name is Barack Obama. His name is John Boehner. His name is Harry Reid.

You say, now what? I say, now nothing. We wanted to be an evolved and civilized society, we wanted freedom. So now not only do we have freedom, but we have the freedom to be ignorant and lazy. It's the way all Republics go, eventually, because it's human nature to take the path of least resistance, and for those enterprising souls who see a power opening to take it.

You said it right in the thread title: power unexercised is power wasted. Most people who are handed absolute rule are not going to go, "No thanks, I think you all are doing fine and don't need me to tell you what's what."
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
And I'll tell you something else, you're not going to get people to follow you by appealing to their logic, reason, and intellectual side; most people don't have any of that. You get them to follow you by dropping Reese's Pieces, making a trail that ends in a large pit. "Ooh! Candy! Nom....nom...nom nom... AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
And I'll tell you something else, you're not going to get people to follow you by appealing to their logic, reason, and intellectual side; most people don't have any of that.

I started watching "TURN" on AMC, about America's first spy ring. It's implied that early on, we depended on scouts and had no place for spies, but found we needed to have them, because the Brits had a LOT of them - or
at least, a lot of willing informants.

But what else is apparent is the treatment of the colonists by the British. They didn't even afford them the same decency they'd give their own countryman back home.
You can see how it came about that colonists resented being compelled to quarter troops or to be afraid to EVER say a word against the crown or his military or the government.
They were occupied, and no one liked them; they either cooperated grudgingly or schemed against them privately.

This country will get a grip once it is bad enough that people feel they must fight back. They don't feel that; as long as they are well-fed and their sense of what they ought to have isn't constrained too much,
they will happily just go along. One thing I noticed in China was that most people at least in the cities FEEL they are free and have self-determination. There are limits, but they don't notice them. As long as you go along,
you can feel that you are free as a bird to travel, live, conduct business, and so on.
 

Larry Gude

Strung Out
This country will get a grip once it is bad enough that people feel they must fight back. They don't feel that; as long as they are well-fed and their sense of what they ought to have isn't constrained too much, they will happily just go along. .

BY then, it will be too late. It's too late now. Technology has taken power and access and feedback such heights where it is virtually impossible. Think 1984. Winston goes on but, his self is dead.

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/cliffsno...-the-end-of-the-book-or-is-he-in-a-dreamstate


Of course, no one at the Ministry of Love murdered Winston, even though O'Brien threatened (or promised?) that Winston would eventually be shot. But O'Brien and the Ministry of Love did murder Winston's self. At the end of the novel, Winston no longer exists as a thinking individual. He exists only as a puppet of the Party, forever selfless, forever loving Big Brother.

Winston's self is the part that makes him human and unique — it essentially is Winston. And now that it is dead, he waits only for his soulless shell of a body to die as well.

ANYONE who dares fight big brother is vilified. Snowden should be a folk hero, rejoiced by any freedom loving American as an enemy of Big Brother but, we all have our loyalties. To our careers. To our portfolios. To our departments. Secrecy is such in this nation that Winston's only move is to go along and, in so doing, his 'self' is murdered.

Good lord. I'm a broken record but, we, the party of limited government, did TSA, DHS, Patriot Act, started the drone wars, did TARP, bailed out political opponents, the UAW. And we still excuse it all the way back to the barn while vilifying the other side for what amounts to childs play comparatively. More gummint in health care? Shocker!

War is peace.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
we, the party of limited government,

That was always a myth and never demonstrably true. It was a Reese's Piece, and Republicans followed the trail, nom nom nom.

If we want to discuss the Republican party of the Civil War era, we can mention that it was that party that wouldn't allow state's rights or succession. That rolled through the southern states and decimated them, then quartered soldiers in their cities to enforce the new laws with an iron fist.

The Republican party has never been the party of limited government.
 

Larry Gude

Strung Out
That was always a myth and never demonstrably true. It was a Reese's Piece, and Republicans followed the trail, nom nom nom.

If we want to discuss the Republican party of the Civil War era, we can mention that it was that party that wouldn't allow state's rights or succession. That rolled through the southern states and decimated them, then quartered soldiers in their cities to enforce the new laws with an iron fist.

The Republican party has never been the party of limited government.

I feel manipulated...
 
ANYONE who dares fight big brother is vilified. Snowden should be a folk hero, rejoiced by any freedom loving American as an enemy of Big Brother but, we all have our loyalties. To our careers. To our portfolios. To our departments. Secrecy is such in this nation that Winston's only move is to go along and, in so doing, his 'self' is murdered.

Good lord. I'm a broken record but, we, the party of limited government, did TSA, DHS, Patriot Act, started the drone wars, did TARP, bailed out political opponents, the UAW. And we still excuse it all the way back to the barn while vilifying the other side for what amounts to childs play comparatively. More gummint in health care? Shocker!

War is peace.[/QUOTE]

OK, so, it's not my fault!? Being manipulated, like being run over by a truck? Or, allowing myself to be manipulated, like standing out in traffic??? :jameo:

I like many of the comments on this thread. Many Americans never come to the realization that both major parties (and the minor ones as well) know it's all a game to manipulate minds to get votes. If successful, and while they have the power, they will try like hell to push thru the agenda they think will end up 'manipulating' future voters. This is a highly cynical way to look at it, but unfortunately is true for the most part.

The GOP do not follow through on limited government. The DEMS do not follow through on their agenda either.

The ACA is bad bureaucracy. But it happened because we the people sat idly by for decades while people with no healthcare insurance took chances, some going bankrupt, others and their children having their lives greatly impacted and some dying from conditions easily treatable. Quite an embarrassment to have 'Doctors without Borders' realize they needed to start focusing their mercy missions right here in the US treating, performing operations, extending the lives of on men, women, and children in impoverished areas in the US.

US healthcare consumes 16% of GDP, roughly 2X that of the industrialized countries of the world, the vast majority of which have universal care, i.e., socialized medicine. Not advocating for that but realize the system had long been broken before ACA.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
I would rather think that that is called restraint. Wielding power because it is there can also be called tyranny.

That saying isn't so much about wielding power because it's there as it is about utilizing the power you've been given. When Barack Obama said, "I won," that was exercising his power instead of wasting it, as he was voted into office by a majority (twice). Donald Trump exercising his power in overturning all those Obama EOs - same thing. The media exercises their power constantly by influencing the voting public who give them that power.
 

LightRoasted

If I may ...
If I may ...

That saying isn't so much about wielding power because it's there as it is about utilizing the power you've been given. When Barack Obama said, "I won," that was exercising his power instead of wasting it, as he was voted into office by a majority (twice). Donald Trump exercising his power in overturning all those Obama EOs - same thing. The media exercises their power constantly by influencing the voting public who give them that power.

I reckon it all comes down to application.
 

PsyOps

Pixelated
If I may ...



I would rather think that that is called restraint. Wielding power because it is there can also be called tyranny.

And in light of the recent revelations of the FBI, I'd say this holds true. Of course they weren't just wielding power because it's there; they had a purpose to subvert our elections, and they potentially had the power to do it.
 
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