Comments Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar
Displaying 11 To 20 Of 136 Comments
WHAT ABOUT THAT MEMO SHOWING KENNEDY WORKING AGAINST AMERICAN INTERESTS?
Moltenorb,
Why are you still at this site ? I thought you hated us. Please blather at the non partisan non biased blog that truly exists in the blogosphere..And here i was, ready to take a liberal at his word that he was leaving.
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 30.08.2009 @ 20:38
He’ll get a lot of agreement this way, but wont change a single mind, which seems to me to be the point of blogging in the first place…to try and sway public opinion and make a difference..
So much for reasoned and civil conservatism..
I dont think Rick has been blogging to provide "public service" or if he has been doing it to express his thoughts on issues and allow readers to interact with him. He does have viewpoints, ideas and attitudes that are conservative. So what ? WE already knew that.
But if you say that "trying to sway public opinion" is the main idea behind blogging, I have news for you - you are a fool. If that was truly the case then sites like DailyKos, HuffPo, DemocraticUnderground would not even exist- they all preach to the choir, and every one knows it. Heck, they THEMSELVES admit that they use blogging as a tool to reach out to people WHO ALREADY AGREE WITH THEM.
Moltenorb, I sincerely hope that your idiotic blatherings go to "greener" pastures as Rick pointed out.
And i ve seen how "civil" and "reasoned" you modern day liberals are - lets not even go there. Nothing grates me more than your holier than thou attitude when you liberals are among the worst muckrakers out there on the Web and have the temerity to preach civility and reason.
Physician, heal thyself.
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 30.08.2009 @ 15:38
It has always been evident to me that you are a partisan Rick…It’s just that you call lots of other people “Partisan” like it’s a bad thing…Why is it bad for them, but not for you?..
Most everything you write is partisan in nature…Doesn’t it seem a tad hypocritical to you to be disparaging others for the same inclinations that you put forth daily??
Well,if his partisanship is soooooo evident why did he not back Bush to the hilt on the issue of interrogation of terror suspects ?
If his partisanship was so evident, why is it his obituary of Ted Kennedy was very generous and admitted the influence that he had on America ?
If he is so partisan why is it he has been bemoaning a lack of Republican proposals on the health care debate when Paul Ryan and Senator Coburn have offered one?
Have you listened in on his radio show ONCE ??
Yes, he is conservative and he does have partisan instincts.. but he does not advocate BLIND LOYALTY.
If he is soo partisan, why do you come to the site ? Why do you comment on these message boards?
Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) traveled to China, America’s biggest creditor, where he encouraged Chinese officials not to believe the U.S. government when it comes to budget issues.
Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) took a swipe at President Barack Obama’s Mideast policy in Jerusalem, telling reporters he was worried about the administration’s direction in its attempts to forge a settlement in the region.
Hmm.. The Chinese dont need Mark Kirk or anyone else to tell them that. Unlike you, the Chinese can think for themselves and SEE what the hell is going on and HAVE MORE INSIGHT into America's financial troubles than any one else.
All that being said, Kirk crossed a line.He was wrong.
I dont disagree with what what Cantor said either- but he should not say that on foreign soil.
With that being said, would you EVER MAN UP to admitting that Kennedy WAS communicating with the Soviets ? And if so, why exactly was he doing this without informing Reagan Admn officials...
Forget all the "quid pro quo" - do you want to deny the undeniable ?? Do you want to deny that Kennedy HAD HIS OWN AGENDA when it came to US-Soviet relations and WAS MORE THAN WILLING to undermine Reagan ?
Kennedy has not denied communicating secretly with the Soviets WITHOUT INFORMING Regan Admn/State Dept - how do you respond to that ??
You know what - you CANNOT. You know what Kennedy did was wrong and potentially dangerous. If you are so worried about Cantor and Kirk who are two lightwights who have no influence HOW THE HELL ARE YOU NONCHALANT ABOUT Kennedy communicating with an enemy state in an era of Mutually Assured Destruction WITHOUT informing Reagan Govt ??
If this is the post that drives all high falutin moralists of the liberal creed away from this site, it couldnt be a more fitting one.
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 30.08.2009 @ 15:27
KOPECHNE AS MARTYR TO KENNEDY'S FAILED AMBITION
As for the the “bullets” in Cheneys shotgun…they’re actually called “shot” or “pellets”, and each one is a sphere of dense metal such as lead, which is often plated with copper or nickel…
Can you supply a link that proves Cheney was using rubber shot that day?…
Cheney was using pellets - and they were not made of rubber. I flubbed on this one. It was NOT made of rubber.
But i dont know what exactly these were made of - and no, they did not prove to be fatal - remember Cheney's friend was an old guy - he could have easily been dead on the spot if the pellets had stronger lead composition.
That said…I personally DO NOT wonder why progressives get smeared as “pinko-commies” by conservatives…the answer to that one is simple...It’s because most conservatives don’t know the difference between communism, collectivism, fascism, nationalism, socialism, patriotism, nazism, capitalism, or the color pink..
Its because we cut the bullshit out and cut right to the chase... you are all a bunch of high falutin moralists who have zero respect for the individual... "collective/common/greater" good is the excuse that you give for all your social engineering schemes - the difference between all these collectivist philosophies is IN DEGREE.. not in substance.Something that you dont have the intellecutal honesty to admit to.
All these frauds involve submission of the individual's wil to the co-ercive power of the state in the name of the "greater good".
Some of these such as communism ended up killing thousands and millions of people - just as you are able to cooly rationalize the death of Mary Jo, so were many of your liberal compatriots who "understood" Uncle Joe's reasons for the gulag and said nothing about Mao's "great leap" forward.
For conservatives to obsess about a single innocent life lost to the bad judgment of one liberal politician is the ultimate in hypocrisy…Especially since the last administrations bad judgment has resulted in the elimination of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives..
all those Democrats who voted for the Iraq war... hmm, lets see all their sins are absolved. You dont have the balls to even admit that the first resolution in Congress that considered Saddam Hussein dangerous and called for a regime change came from A Democrat President, A Democrat Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle - co-sponsored by two Democrats, Dodd and Kerry = remember the Iraq regime change resolution of 1998 ??http://newwars.blogspot.com/2007/02/1998-iraq-resolution.html
Iraq was a mistake of BOTH Democrats and Republican politicans - and you want to conveniently blame the "conservatives" alone ?? You think that suddenly one fine day Bush decreed that Iraq must be invaded and NOTHING happened in terms of debates on how to proceed?
So don’t pretend to actually care about the life of Mary Jo Kopechne…she is nothing more than a political pawn used by conservatives to smear one of the most influential politians in the history of this country..
You first stop pretending that you are concerned for Dick Cheney's friend more than Dick Cheney himself - he was nothing more than a political pawn to get to bash a guy who was one of the most influential Vice Presidents in history.
And no it only requires common decency to feel bad for BOTH Mary Jo and Cheney's friend - something that you obviously lack.
The only difference is that Cheney was interested in his friend's well being and checked on his status after being admitted to the hospital... unlike the man that you so love who ran away from a drowning woman in pursuit of his own life and didnt report it in pursuit of his greed for Presidential power.
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 30.08.2009 @ 15:10
Moltenorb,
Thanks for proving Rick Moran right. It is quite stunning for a liberal dolt like you who is so pained at the thought of Cheney's friend getting shot by rubber bullets, and not having it "reported" it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to say about Kennedy running away from the scene and not saying anything about it for hours on end and leaving the woman to die !Is it any wonder that more than a few liberals have the same moral compass as that of any good old fashioned collectivist? And these people wonder why they get "smeared" as pinko-commies.
Moltenorb, No one asked you to make an assclown of yourself today, but you still insist.
Please shut up.
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 28.08.2009 @ 20:15
NO DOUBTING TED KENNEDY'S IMPACT ON HISTORY
I also believe that you can atone for past sins in your lifetime.
Funnyman, that can happen only if you take the first step - you admit that you have sinned. You dont make up jokes about Chappaquiddick on your road to contrition.
http://www.examiner.com/x-722-Conservative-Politics-Examiner~y2009m8d27-Ted-Kennedy-loved-to-hear-and-tell-Chappaquiddick-jokes
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 30.08.2009 @ 15:54
Jim Zerga,
Thanks for providing us with an angle very few people even know about.In fact the most disgusting thing about this incident is how the most fundamental facts of what happened that night have not uncovered and no one made any serious efforts to do so.
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 30.08.2009 @ 15:52
IS 'THE END OF AMERICA AS WE KNOW IT' REALLY SO BAD?
You mentioned that the Bill of Rights doesn’t include any provision for education. True. But Congress doesn’t get it’s authority from the Bill of Rights . . . they get their authority from Article I of the main body. The Bill of Rights limits the Constitutional powers of the government — it doesn’t create them. The Framers ratified the Constitution, and then after that Amended the document with the Bill of Rights to put restraints on what they had made.
Congress may not get its authority from the Bill of Rights - that was never my point. It gets it's authority from the consent of those who are governed. And if it governs by saying "WE WON, YOU SHUT UP!" just like Obama's
minions started saying after last year's elections, what is the point of being President of all people ? He is not just the President of the states he carried, right ?My point about the Dept of Education once again goes to the question of general welfare - according to you, this idea of what is general welfare is decided by a majority of Congressmen and backed by the Courts. Unfortunately, this is nothing more than majority rule and it could be used as an excuse to do pretty much anything in the name of "general welfare". And unfortunately that has precisely what has happened in this country in the last 100 years. They may all be legally justified, but are they ethically justified ?
Even worse, it puts the Government as the prime mover of "general welfare" - in a Constitutional Republic where the rights of the minority are to be protected, when ever a Government agency is created in the name of "general welfare" we have to ask ourselves, what exactly gave the Congress or the Executive the power to do anything that they like in the name of "general welfare" ? A 55% popular vote ?
What ever happened to the notion of limiting Government's power ? After all there are no limits to what a Government CAN DO if it is all done in the name of welfare.
And more importantly, who is going to pay for this "general welfare"? - the taxpayer of course. Including the taxpayer who has very serious doubts that it promotes anything OTHER THAN Government itself.
What metrics does the Government get measured by when promoting "general welfare"? Let's take the Department of Education - what exactly has it achieved in all these years of public school system ? Why do students lack basic proficiency in reading, writing and math? Money has been POURED into the public school system every year without producing any significant results.
Just yesterday, the L.A. Unified School District voted to allow charter schools to run and improve the poorest performing public schools - we are talking about California here - among the most liberal states in the country !
The notion of general welfare has exceeded all bounds and it rests upon coercion of citizens who simply dont just agree with it but point to its fallacies and obvious shortcomings.
We are now at the stage where the Government can dictate how much energy you can and cannot use if you are a business or homeowner with cap and trade laws - ALL IN THE NAME of GENERAL/GLOBAL WELFARE !
The Framers of the Constitution may not have restricted the Government from not having a Federal Dept of Energy - but they sure as hell didnt envision the day when the Government could decide how much carbon could be emitted by a business. They sure as hell didnt envision the Federal Government becoming a Levithan that controls the life of an individual to such an enormous extent.
This is where the intent of having a Constitutional Government comes into play - this is where the idea of limiting the powers of Govt comes into play. But as some one said, a team can only be as strong as its weakest link.
Ben Franklin's famous quote of what exactly the people of America had got was - A Republic, if you can keep it
seems so prescient.One thing we can agree on, busboy - the leaders of this country are elected by the people - directly in almost all cases - a country's leadership is only as good as a large majority of its people.
The citizens of this country have failed the Republic and themselves by voting for larger and more expansive Government on the backs of a majority of those who truly detest it and yet have to pay for its monstrosities.
Hayek's Road to Serfdom should be recommended reading for any one who loves liberty and calls him/herself a classical liberal.
It takes on the notion of general welfare and how it is a fatal conceit for a top down central burueaucracy to try and impose its vision of what is good on the world.
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 27.08.2009 @ 20:02
@busboy33,
Your point about the Flag Burning amendment is well taken - no one who calls himself conservative should be supporting that - free speech/expression protection often involves protecting ugliness -not because we approve it etc but because we dont want to go down the slippery slope of censorship and thought police. And of course no one has the right to "not be offended"Btw, when the Danish cartoons of Prophet Muhammad was a raging controversy, NOT A SINGLE LIBERAL newspaper published the entire set of cartoons - remember, the so called Fourth Estate is supposed to be for free speech et al?
Only the Weekly Standard came close
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/697dhzzd.aspThere is hypocrisy on both sides and i readily admit to that.
Btw, your "general welfare" argument is pretty elastic and can be used to justify not publishing the cartoons - the NY Times can point to the number of people who were killed in protests etc and say that it is worried that a similar reaction could happen if it published the cartoons again.
The Weekly Standard called that "it could lead to violence" bluff, but "general welfare" could be expanded to mean pretty much any thing by any one.
Your use of this term to justify agencies like the Department of Education points to the wide gulf that exists between conservatives and liberals on the most fundamental issues of the day.
Conservatives such as myself believe that education is an important thing - but not for the Federal Government to control - no it is not a "national" issue - its a local issue - its a family issue - by getting myself educated, I am doing first and foremost myslef a favor -and my immediate family - not my "nation" - that is only a side effect of me getting educated.
You dont get a job to drive down the national unemployment rate - you dont do it to increase the nation's GDP. You do it first and foremost to feed yourself and your family and to live an independent and self reliant life - the one that your Founding Fathers cherished and fought so hard to win. What ever happens because of that is an effect of your personal situation.
This does not mean that we have no concerns for people who are less than able to fend for themselves - we just dont think it necessarily means that the Government should intervene in such a forceful way in the affairs of each state. We are also not naive enough to believe that all the Govt wants to do is to "educate" - Government officials have their own agenda on what it means to be educated - and sorry, they are not exactly paragons of virtue and neutrality.
If the Founding Fathers thought that education was a right, and that having three square meals a day was a right or living healthy was a right, they would not have hesitated to put it in the Bill Of Rights. They would not have hesitated to have the Dept of Education.
But their intent was not that. They wanted Government to GET OUT OF THE WAY - and do only what was minimally necessary for a state to function - they thought it was a necessary evil - NOT a force for good.
The Bill of Rights reads like the Ten Commandments - THOU SHALL NOT DO THIS/THAT etc - why is it a charter of negative liberties ?
Because the Founding Fathers DEEPLY Distrusted Man and hence Government.
I dont want to bore you any more, but i hope you understand where conservative's clamour of limited Govt comes from. Yes, conservative politicians may be hypocritical ( No Child Left Behind !!!) - no, that does not mean we have principles of convenience.
Sincerely,
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 26.08.2009 @ 21:01
Naga
@busboy,
What do the words contained in the body of laws actually mean? The judiciary dictates that. They can’t change the words of the law, but they do dictate what those words mean.Wow, you did use the word "dictate" :-) And here i thought that the Courts were supposed to be following laws as they were written - if there is no such thing as real meaning/intent/purpose for these laws and judges can view/interpret them as they see it fit, what kind of a system are we looking at ?
I do understand that the law does not cover for everything and every scenario - BUT, its origins and intentions need to be understood and agreed upon - that would be the very basis of changing them i.e. they no longer apply as they were originally written or envisioned.
Your question about having a standing US Army would fit this case - there was a reason that the Founding Fathers did not want to maintain/support an Army for more than a few years. They made sure that the Second Amendment would allow for people to arm themselves so that they could protect themselves - without the Government taking this right away from them. Their foremost fears was of a tyrannical Government FROM WITHIN - not an external one.
IF there was a foreign invasion, these same armed individuals could come together and join the Army, militias etc in helping to defend the homeland. BUT, they were left to defend themselves first and foremost - they could also rebel against a powerful and tyrannical central Government - similar to the one that America freed itself from.
We can debate all day long as to what these words mean - but the most important words IMHO, would be "shall not be infringed".
Why is this important ? The Second Amendment is revolutionary in the sense that it says that it is there to protect and guarantee the right to defend oneself through bearing arms. It does not establish this right - it merely seeks to protect it from Government's long nose. It indirectly acknowledges that this right already exists
So what is the source of the right to protect oneself ? Natural law. Self preservation.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-ethics/
If the US has a standing Army now, it is contradiction to the spirit in which the original laws were made. BUT, we dont live in 1789 any more. The US has been intervening in world affairs since the conquest of California. And it is most definitely not the country the Founding FAther's envisioned.
Btw, the Founding FAthers didnt grant the right to bear arms so that criminals could use it - they would all be for sane regulation - so your paranoia about the 2nd Amendment is not exactly warranted here. And even if these criminals got arms through loopholes, they would nt be able to attack innocent people with no impunity - they should know that the law allows them to protect themselves - a law that is enshrined in the Bill of Rights.
You still havent answered the question on whether liberals would allow for an individual right if they were to form a new Consitution - you only debated the meaning of the already existing one.
I will answer your questions on the First Amendment etc in another post
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 26.08.2009 @ 20:35
