Remember too, the next president could appoint two justices to the Supreme Court.  What country are we going to?

I’d like it if everyone lived under the government they voted for - so if you vote for an oppressive, fanatical party then you live under it’s rules, and that no party can affect those who didn’t vote for them

That way people’d make their mistakes and learn first hand

Huckabee appears to be proposing four amendments:
1. the Fair Tax requires a constitutional amendment to eliminate the Sixteenth Amendment;
2. a Human Life amendment;
3. an amendment to define marriage;
and now,
4. an amendment to end birthright citizenship.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=N2MyYmQ1YTRhODVlMzU1Y2ZhYTYxYjE0MGI2NmFkM2Y=

I’ve no idea what 1&2;are and I’m guessing 3 is gay marriage ban. 4 is to prevent children of “illegals” born in the USA from getting citizenship automatically.

I’m terrified of my government. Is that how I’m supposed to feel? :(

An amendment to end birthright citizenship I could support, but everything else about him? Fuck no!

I’m with you Les. If that ass gets elected, I’m out of here.

16th Amendment

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Reading the background on wiki appears that before the 16th the amount of federal tax collected had to be in the ratio of the populations. So a state of 2m people had a tax burden of twice that of 1m.

If that is the case then I can see the point of the amendment.  If the smaller state had an average income per head of say $20k, and the larger $10k, the relative burden would be greater on the larger, yet poorer state- ie if the tax burden was $1bn per 1m people then each state stumps up $1000 pp- 10% of income in the large poor state, but only 5% of the income of the small rich state.- Arkansas would have to find over twice the money of Rhode Island.

The 16th allows tax on basis of income by removing this block.  In such cases- a so called ‘flat tax’ the rich always profit, as while they pay more money, and the same proportion, as the poor, the difference in disposable income favours the rich- a much smaller proportion of the Rich income goes on essentials, especially on fixed price goods- you can buy Premium bread, rather than own brand, but the price of fuel, newspapers etc are fixed.

Is Huckerbee freindly to the rich by any chance? Just a wild guess

The Human Life one is obviously anti abortion.

To clarify- abolishment of the 16th would almost force a flat tax for federal taxes.

I’d like it if taxes were based on something like an exponential curve, rather than being flat rate, or at best stepped - because tax bands, although a little fairer, are still like lots of flat levels with differences in fairness at the 2 extreemes of a band. We could just have one mathematical curve for a certain tax and it’d be so much simpler, and everyone would be under the same rules

Yup, and what scares me more is that Evangelicals actually think Huckabee is a moderate. 

Is it wrong anytime I hear someone talk about rewriting the constitution that I just shut down and quit taking them seriously.  Especially when they want to use their religion as a wedge to split open the constitution and add their own slant to it. 

Trying to back door religious ideals into this nations constitution sounds god damned terrifying.

If ignorance is bliss and patience is a virtue you’ll probably be one happy little fundie.

True Republicans Barry Goldwater and Teddy Roosevelt warned us about injecting religion into American politics. After the decimation of our party by W and Lott and Delay and the rest of the Southern Republicans, if Huckabee is the nominee I fear they’ll be no more GOP north of the Mason-Dixon. The last Republican in NY, please shut out the lights.

Lostalaska: Is it wrong anytime I hear someone talk about rewriting the constitution that I just shut down and quit taking them seriously

I think the trend is strong enough that it’s almost a warning sign that when someone says they want to change the constitution that they’re going to suggest something crackpot, but in seriousness there may be sensible modifications to make the thing fairer and up to date, that would otherwise be dismissed.

Sticking with what it is prevents good and bad changes even if majority public opinion is against the pre-existing good out of silliness. It just depends how vulnerable you think the constitution is to bad change if you did open it up to change. Can’t hurt to hear people out, so long as you’re sensible yourself, but the problem is that everyone will claim to be the best judge with the most sensible idea, so you cannot necessarily trust who gets appointed to the panel that decides.

regarding moving to another country - there are really two options worth some deep thought.

Move to another country as the policy takes a turn for the worse: possibly better for your personal welfare, and offers a new dynamic into the political system - lose lots of citizens when you screw up bad.

On the other hand, moving kills any other power you might have in government, and, if the crap that is passing through the USA is as infectious as Dawkins thinks it is, leaving the country to utter religious abandon - which might cause a lot more harm than good.

Principally speaking, I like to think we should fight the good fight. However, leaving seems like a much simpler way to do it. Canada could sure use the population growth right now (we’re still caught in the post-baby-boom vaccuum, though we’re managing okay for now).

Today was a scary day for many reasons.  I think the moving crack was is in regards to “loosing the good fight” and where to go afterwards.  Canada is looking more and more appealing every day.

Nehemiah Scudder wasn’t due to be elected until 2012.  They’re ahead of schedule.

Kamina asks…

I’m terrified of my government. Is that how I’m supposed to feel?

There’s more than a few people in the government that I’m sure where hoping that’s how you’d feel.

Bahamat: It just depends how vulnerable you think the constitution is to bad change if you did open it up to change.

The problem as I see it is that more often than not the people that want to make changes to the constitution are the same ones that seem more focused on pushing their “followers” morals on society and less interested in societies opinion as a whole.  Of course the issue is once something does go into the constitution it’s even more difficult to remove.  The saving grace is that it is also nearly impossible to change the constitution, thank god (irony, no?)

I’m also just an untrusting bastard.  There are certain overly used phrases that politicians dip into anytime they want the voters to do as they’re told and not look at the finer points of something.  We’ve all heard the phrases; To protect our nations children (i.e. censorship in place of good parenting), allowing the terrorists to win (i.e. we’re gonna need to take away a few of your precious freedoms), or the good ‘ole fashoned “Anyone that considers themselves an American should… (insert crazy talk here).

We would need to make sure that the people who ultimately decide whether and what it changes, that their perception isn’t warped and their decision is logical and fair. But the public would not approve a neutral, fair, person to judge that

Certain tactics do put me off polititions too, particularly negative campaigning

Yup, and what scares me more is that Evangelicals actually think Huckabee is a moderate.

Well, yeah. He hasn’t put his support behind the following has he?

1) The “Stone everyone who doesn’t agree with us” amendment would probably have some trouble getting ratified by the proper number of states, though leading Evangelicals believe it would pass Congress easily enough.

2) The “Put a hole in the earlobe of your manservant and make him serve you for life” amendment. Some believe it’s because the War of Northern Aggression is still too fresh in the peoples’ minds, but the truth is, it would support those damn piercing fetishists and send the wrong message to kids.

3) Rapture tax - 10% tax on anyone who decides to not accept Jesus Christ, thus not going to church on Sunday and tithing 10% of their income.  Revenues from the Rapture Tax would be put into Faith Based Initiatives.  However, leaders in the Evangelical community believe it is more Huckabee doesn’t believe he could get the Rapture Tax through Congress, so they might have to start a “phone-your-congressman” campaign to get it started.

4) Fixing those pesky biology, chemistry, geology, history, mathematics, physics, astronomy, philosophy, government and economics courses in high schools. Due to damn Dover PA ruling about Creati...er Intelligent Design, this will probably take a Supreme Court ruling to over-ride the federal court ruling. Huckabee would probably support it, but until he can get some fresh believers on the bench, this should probably take a back seat for now, and he’s agreed to not speak about it.

I’m sure there’s a bunch more, but those seem to be the biggest gripes they have with ol’ Huck.

While the optimist in me wants very much to believe that Huckabee stands no chance of taking the swing states (we all know he’ll be the South’s choice, should he make it that far in the election), I can’t quiet my nagging fear that this country is truly stupid enough to elect a man like Huckabee to the executive branch. Should that come to pass, the EU will acquire at least one additional citizen for a few years.

It’s not so easy to pass an amendment to the Constitution.  First, it has to be passed by 2/3 of both the House and the Senate.  THEN it has to be passed by 3/4 of the states.

I remember when the Equal Rights Amendment was under review.  It couldn’t get passed by the states, largely because of conservative opposition.  And that was a more egalitarian amendment than the ones proposed by the Huckster.

SG

And the way Congress is pandering to the current president you still aren’t scared by this? Has Bush had trouble getting a single issue passed? I’m having trouble thinking of anything he hasn’t been able to push through.

True enough, but the STATES still have to pass it.

SG

Actually all that’s needed is for president Huckabee to appoint enough judges to make it say whatever he wants.  The actual words aren’t that much of a barrier.

We’re already quite some ways down that road.

It might sound odd, but perhaps this is in some ways what we need, that the public makes the mistake of allowing and supporting people like Huckabee so that they experience first hand what it’d be like to live under oppressive/unfair conditions, so that they will rebel against it.

Innocents will suffer from the mistake too, and it will take longer for the culprits to feel it themselves, but maybe a little suffering is the only way to break willful ignorance, ultimately to force people to look for another way