What has happened to the Constitution?

the best question(s) ever asked on fluther IMO.

Seems to me chris6137 is taking fluther in a direction it is not intended. Fluther apparently is for genuine questions seeking practical information, not pages of proselytizing, paragraphs of rhetorical questions clearly intended to state a position rather than obtain information. If I wanted to argue in a political blog, I would go to one of the sites designed for that purpose. Providing useful answers to this rant would take pages, but I don't think chris6137 is genuinely seeking answers, as his mind seems to be already made up.

In case anyone wants to read the previous question, it's here: http://fluther.com/disc/2273/are-we-really-free-in-america/

Chris, I think you raise some good questions and issues. Addressing all of them might be difficult in this forum -- those kinds of long conversations are more fun to have in bars than on message boards. :)

I guess I'm wondering if you can clarify your question a bit. Do you find any of the above issues unconstitutional? I'm not saying we shouldn't change laws to address some or all of the above issues, but I don't know whether you think these are just bad things, or whether you think they violate the constitution in some way.

I am interested in watching the video of Michael Badnarik, but I am somewhat skeptical of him; according to Wikipedia, Mr. Badnarik believes, among other things, that the 16th amendment isn't part of the Constitution. To me, that argument seems frivolous. Of course, that doesn't mean that the issues you're bringing up aren't important.

no disrespect, but there is a topic of politics listed on this site. I'm 24 yo and I'm worried about my future. Sorry for asking some tough questions. I am a union electrician in nj. I have a great job with health care and a great retirement. I'm worried its not going to he there

Well I'm going to leave my personal views out of this one.

I think those questions are all great things to be asking, but it seems like you just want answers. Honestly, there aren't answers. Write a letter to your congressman with these questions. Regardless of what they actually do, congresspeople are supposed to represent your voice. Call their office, email, send letters.

Or learn to hold a protest sign. Yay free speech!

Does anyone recall the tea tax, stamp tax, and the Boston tea party.

I'm sure the people of colonial America are rolling in their graves.

I'm not really sure that some of the claims here are verifiable or worth discussing, but I'll try discussing one anyway. Your first argument, about our system of currency. The alternatives - a metallic standard - caused long periods of deflation in the 19th century, frequent financial crises, and withheld the possibility for macroeconomic management especially in the onset of the great depression.

Has anyone told you that caps locks are equivalent to shouting?

well maybe he meant to "shout" to probe a point.

And without the "metalic" based currency, all our money is worthless. It means nothing. Its more or less a mirage, an illusion that it has value.

prove*

Most economists seem satisfied that floating currency is preferable to a currency based on gold. I know close to nothing about it, but I'm confident that our money is not worthless.

Despite our taxes, Americans enjoy a very high standard of living, and a life expectancy much higher than that of colonial times. The colonists rebelled, in part, against taxation without representation -- not against taxation altogether.

I am at least partially sympathetic to the issues that Chris raises in points 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 above. Some of those issues require more government intervention, while others require less. I don't feel the same urgency or alarm that Chris seems to feel about these issues. Maybe I've lost my capacity for outrage. Some of these problems (e.g. our drug policy) stem from political bickering, cowardice, and incompetence -- not, to my mind, a plan to encroach upon our human rights and establish a communist society. The alarmism in the initial post makes me wary.

Xgunther - Clearly our money is not worthless. I buy things with it all of the time. Its value is in its scarcity, managed by our government. Now, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you were being dramatic rather than simply inaccurate by saying "our money is worthless," and instead you meant that you're uncomfortable with a system in which the government can control the amount of currency available.

That's fine, and while the potential for mismanagement may be a flaw in our fiat currency system, you need to realize that metallic systems were an historically specific institution that are not viable today. You didn't bother to discuss the fact that the limited supply of metal causes deflation since the money supply can't expand with economic growth. This is even more of an issue today than it was 100 years ago, because there are no large discoveries of gold left to be made, unlike the discoveries in California, Colorado, South Africa, and Australia that kept deflation somewhat moderate back then. You didn't bother to discuss the fact that the inability to regulate the supply of money caused seasonal credit crises as the demand for credit exceeded the supply of money every planting and harvest season. And you neglected to discuss the fact that the limited supply of money was a key factor in preventing governments from responding to bank failures and the need for credit during the great depression. Think about this - advanced countries have been off a pure gold standard since the great depression - do you think that's just a coincidence? No, we learned from that experience.