Either Mushrooms or Pawns?

8 Responses to Either Mushrooms or Pawns?

1. Libby says:

   Wednesday, October 14, 2015 at 4:15 pm

   And where, exactly, on the “respect for all opinions” scale would you place: “Bullshit”?

   If you’re going to let Pie hang around here unmolested, only your sturdier souls will brave the site.

   Reply
   • Chris says:

     Wednesday, October 14, 2015 at 6:31 pm

     Libby: “And where, exactly, on the “respect for all opinions” scale would you place: “Bullshit”?”

     That’s actually civil for Pie. On that scale its way above “Blow me, water boy,” “Negro burner,” and my personal favorite, the time he said I wanted little boys to get molested since I favored the Boy Scouts lifting their ban on gay scout leaders. He’s also bashed conservatives like Steve for daring to disagree with him. “Respect for all opinions” may be preached here, but it sure isn’t practiced.

     Reply
     • Pie Guevara says:

       Sunday, October 18, 2015 at 8:51 pm

       Evidently both Chris and Libby do not care much for me. Since when has Post Scripts ever silenced them? Well, maybe once when Post Scripts tired of Chris’ horrid foul and constant badgering. But he still has a voice, at the pleasure of Jack and Tina.

       I bashed the anonymous “Steve” for good reason. He thinks the 1st Amendement in the Bill Of Rights is overused. Some conservative.

       Evidently Chris agrees. Try this on for size — drop dead you lunatics.

       Reply
2. J. Soden says:

   Wednesday, October 14, 2015 at 5:02 pm

   Having Free Speech never guarantees that there’s intelligence behind it.
   Beaucoup Thanks to Jack and Tina for putting up with the copius amounts of drivel that sometimes are posted here. You guys ROCK!

   Reply
   • Tina says:

     Friday, October 16, 2015 at 9:58 pm

     We think you do too, J.Soden!

     Reply
     • Pie Guevara says:

       Sunday, October 18, 2015 at 8:55 pm

       J. Soden is one of the most intelligent persons who comment here. Bless him.

       Reply
3. dewey says:

   Thursday, October 15, 2015 at 6:25 pm

   Start With Paper Ballots, Lets also get to 1 Vote = 1 Person stop the gerrymandering which eventually turns over each census year.

   How about Get The Billion dollar business called elections back from the highest donor pool gets to write the laws?

   If we do not overturn Citizens United We loose all.

   Reply
4. Tina says:

   Friday, October 16, 2015 at 9:57 pm

   Post Scripts’ dedication to free speech assumes personal responsibility; we are adults here. Respect for the opinions of our contributors includes disrespectful rants and insults. We don’t have to like or agree with them. And while we consider censorship, let us not pretend that some of us are angels and others devils.

   One vote, one person is a quick path to elitist rule, which is why our founders rejected that model:

   Benjamin Franklin defined democracy as two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

   So why did they reject Democracy? Because it is inherently flawed with the share the wealth philosophy, which only works as long as there is someone else’s money to share. Those receiving are quite pleased with getting something for nothing. But those forced to give are denied the right to spend the benefits of their own labor in their own self-interest, which creates jobs no matter how the money is spent. They also lose a portion of their incentive to produce.

   Fraser Tyler, author of The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic authored more than 200 years ago said it best. A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.

   Progressives live in a fantasy that if only it was tried by them this fools game would work. it doesn’t.

   One man/one vote would mean that the large population centers would control all legislation and the presidency. People living in LA, New York, Chicago, Houston, Philadelpia, San Jose…see list here…would decide all policy for the whole country. The system of checks and balances and the idea of equal representation would be crippled.

   Heritage:

   The authors of the Constitution had studied the history of many failed democratic systems, and they strove to create a different form of government. Indeed, James Madison, delegate from Virginia, argued that unfettered majorities such as those found in pure democracies tend toward tyranny.Madison stated it this way:

   [In a pure democracy], [a] common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert results from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.28

   Alexander Hamilton agreed that “[t]he ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure, deformity.”29 Other early Americans concurred. John Adams, who signed the Declaration of Independence and later became President, declared, “[D]emocracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”30 Another signatory to the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush, stated, “A simple democracy . . . is one of the greatest of evils.”31

   Despite these strong statements against democracy, the Founders were also strong advocates for self-government, and they often spoke of the need to allow the will of the people to operate in the new government that they were crafting. “Notwithstanding the oppressions & injustice experienced among us from democracy,” Virginia delegate George Mason declared, “the genius of the people must be consulted.”32 James Madison agreed, speaking of the “honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government.”33

   The delegates, then, faced a dilemma. Their fierce opposition to simple democracy ran headlong into their determination to allow the people to govern themselves — and they knew that voters in small states would need to be free to govern themselves, just as would citizens in large states. The Founders reconciled these seemingly conflicting needs by creating a republican government, organized on federalist principles, in which minorities would be given many opportunities to make themselves heard.

   The Electoral College was considered to fit perfectly within this republican, federalist government that had been created. The system would allow majorities to rule, but only while they were reasonable, broad-based, and not tyrannical. The election process was seen as a clever solution to the seemingly unsolvable problem facing the Convention — finding a fair method of selecting the Executive for a nation composed of both large and small states that have ceded some, but not all, of their sovereignty to a central government. “

   Reagan was accurate when he said, It isn’t so much that liberals are ignorant. It’s just that they know so many things that aren’t so.”

   Also large contributions by special interests people, companies, or groups don’t determine the outcome of an election.

   Many a wealthy person has donated to his favorite candidate only to see him LOSE. Hillary’s wealthy supporters lost along with her to Obama in the primaries of 08. McCain and his wealthy donors lost to Obama in the general election. Romney and his wealthy supporters lost to Obama in the next election. Obama and his wealthy supporters won.

   So much for the importance of wealth.

   Obama’s big contributors in 2008 included Goldman Sachs and Microsoft in the top four. In 2012 top contributors included Microsoft and Google in the top four. Educational institutions were the other top four contributors.

   It’s time to stop all of the deception. It only muddies the water.

   Reply