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In another thread jackson33 raised the topic of whether National Healthcare is Constitutional. I'll go ahead an bump it up a notch and ask whether Universal Healthcare is Constitutional. I see something like Universal Healthcare as an embodiment of the idea that the government should "promote the general Welfare" as spelled out in the Constitution. I assume this is the same part of the preamble that "Welfare" itself derives its Constitutionality from. "http://usconstitution.net" (don't know anything about them, but...) describes the "promote the general Welfare" part of the Preamble in this way: http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_pre.html promote the general Welfare This, and the next part of the Preamble, are the culmination of everything that came before it — the whole point of having tranquility, justice, and defense was to promote the general welfare — to allow every state and every citizen of those states to benefit from what the government could provide. The framers looked forward to the expansion of land holdings, industry, and investment, and they knew that a strong national government would be the beginning of that. Is there same way I am missing in which providing healthcare to every citizen of every state would not count as promoting the general Welfare?

Pangloss, sorry for not including the direct quote from Limbaugh in the OP. However, the one you pasted is wrong. Here it is: (audio clip is available in the article linked from the OP)

For what it's worth, I'm part of a group which is working to unseat our incumbent representative Jared Polis. He's a Democrat who represents one of the most liberal districts in the country, but so far his voting record is that of a Blue Dog. Given how angry the people around here are about Jared Polis, it's quite possible he won't get nominated in the 2010 primary. I even know people who are his personal friends who have mailed him asking about what he's doing and what's going on in his head. While it's true this doesn't happen very often, in cases where the incumbent has demonstrated him/herself to be unrepresentative of their electorate, the electorate can respond and throw them out.

It appears my original conclusion was correct.

Whatever happened to talking about impeachment before jumping straight to a military coup? I guess to talk about impeachment, Obama would have to have, you know, done something first.

Oookay, well unlike the previous administration they haven't done anything patently unconstitutional, other than continuing a policy which I believe is unconstitutional (warrantless spying) but which now at least has Congressional approval, which it received under Bush. Compare to the Bush administration, who created the program in direct violation of not only the Constitution but FISA. The only way that program stayed running was through repeated executive orders. Other than that, honestly, what has the Obama administration done which is unconstitutional? Why is this a military matter? If it were a military matter, wouldn't it mean we're at war? Doesn't the very definition of terrorism make it inherently a civilian affair? If not, what is the distinction between terrorism and an act of war? You just called out Obama for disregarding the Constitution, even though he hasn't done anything blatantly unconstitutional yet, and yet you're willing to sweep the previous administration under the rug, even though they committed acts which were blatantly unconstitutional. Zuh? I'm not sure I can carry out rational discourse with you, jackson33.

I'm all for free speech, but wow... http://www.examiner.com/x-4383-Portland-Progressive-Examiner~y2009m11d26-Politics-or-sedition-Rush-Limbaugh-calls-for-military-coup I mean, yeah, Obama is a liberal, at least in the eyes of Rush Limbaugh. But what exactly has he done that calls for a military coup? I'm sure more moderate conservatives will write off Rush as being a crazy blowhard, but this is the latest in a never ending volley of crazy coming out of the Republican right. (Please note: I do not support those who call for any action against Rush Limbaugh on the grounds of "sedition". He should be free to say whatever he wants, even if he's advocating a military coup against the President. Now if he were to say "I AM GOING TO PERSONALLY KILL PRESIDENT OBAMA WITH MY OWN BARE HANDS" that might be a different story, but I consider what he did protected free speech)

The fact the previous administration carried out a number of unconstitutional acts will be unchanged by whether we try these individuals in civil or military court. Is your argument that trying them in military court provides a more convenient way to sweep these unconstitutional acts under the rug?

Anyone who self-identifies as a "global warming skeptic" now raises huge red flags in my mind. I worked for a true, bona fide skeptic of the sort all these climate science deniers wish they could be. He did not self-identify as a skeptic, but rather noted that others had often labeled him as a skeptic (a label he did not even like).

Yes It is a bad set of choices, but such is America. The alternatives are to support a third party with no real power, or move to a different country.

I think Kenneth Parcel from 30 Rock summed up the climate science deniers position pretty well: "Why should we listen to what a bunch of scientists have to say?"

For what it's worth, he used to be a Democrat. There was also Colorado's own Ben Nighthorse Campbell, who went from Democrat to Republican.

I ended up voting for the "her brain is PIE" option on the poll.

Perhaps she meant we didn't have a terrorist attack on this country during Bush's second term and forgot to say second.

Wow... http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/11/25/807908/-Perino:-We-did-NOT-have-a-terrorist-attack-on-our-country-during-President-Bushs-term A former White House press secretary makes the claim: "But, you know, we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term." I don't know what to say

This was an interesting read: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/11/24/taking_liberties/entry5761180.shtml As someone who maintained something similar, I can certainly attest that the code quality of a lot of these data analysis models and programs is... not stellar. I maintained a hacked together mess of Perl and C programs which did automated analysis of a network of weather stations. I also worked on a model written in Fortran.

Yes, I have read about some pretty bad cases of this in climate science. To a degree I can understand the technical difficulty of making this data available, as it used to be my job. I used to work for a climate center and was the support monkey who had to wander into a cramped, dust filled room and dig through tapes and tapes (or in some cases WORM discs) of archived data in order to locate the requested set. After I found the tape/disc with the requested data, I also had to find a tape drive capable of reading it, along with all the necessary adapters to hook it up to a modern SCSI card. And even after doing all that, in some cases the tapes were unreadable. There are, in certain cases, legitimate technical reasons for which data cannot be made available upon request. There are also cases where data is maliciously withheld. But hey, never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

New York is not afraid. Whether or not he should be tried by a civilian court or a military tribunal was not the subject of this thread. Instead it was about the doomsaying about how holding the trial in New York will cause all sorts of calamities. It will invite another terrorist attack! He'll get off on a technicality and be released onto the streets of New York! etc I do support the administration's decision to try them in civilian court for one very important reason: the still nebulous definition of terrorism involves actions by civilians, not foreign militaries. The actions are not sanctioned by a foreign government. That's what makes them terrorism, not war.

This has gotten far too ridiculous. I certainly enjoy Republicans in Texas telling New Yorkers what they think should be done about trials for those who committed terrorists acts in New York City. Honestly, aren't these people supposed to have balls? Aren't they alwyas making fun of liberals as being "limp-wristed"? They're all afraid... afraid of the American justice system, afraid of shackled terrorists... afraid of what's happening in a state that ACTUALLY knows what it's like to be a victim of a terrorist attack. Republicans: afraid of the government... unless someone like Dubya is in charge. That makes everything better.

They all suck! Sure! But do they all suck equally, or do some suck slightly less than others?

I've begun reading (for the second time, because I didn't finish it the first time) The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. This book is one of the progenators of the whole idea of "steampunk", and posits an alternate past in which Charles Babbage managed to bring on the computer revolution in the 19th century through the use of "engines", mechanical computers.

I finished this book yesterday. So my take: the central preoccupation of the book is some sort of epistemological monistic archetype from which all knowledge may be derived. "Phaedrus" called it Quality. The Taoists call it Tao. Zen Buddhists call it Zen. I personally do not buy the idea of "quality" (I'll keep my lower case to distinguish from Phaedrus's Quality) as this central monistic idea. Indeed Phaedrus himself described a universe absent of quality. Rather than this universe being nonexistent, it is simply boring and purposeless. But it's still a universe! I understand where Phaedrus was going with Quality though. If I had to pick something to liken it to in my own mind, it wouldn't be anything from eastern philosophy. I would pick the "classical"/modernistic and very much western idea of Extropy. Even if it's in our one little nook of the universe, we are complexifying reality in ways we have never encountered elsewhere in the universe. We create complex relationships which have no intrinsic value in terms of physics but are meaningful to intelligent systems. Humanity as a whole continues to get better at doing this. To me, Quality is increasing. Robert Pirsig would likely not see this as an improvement in Quality. But I do!

True enough, but few and far between there are some true liberals/progressives in the Democrats... like Kucinich or Franken. It's almost unheard of but occasionally it happens.

A more realistic surprise is that it hasn't suffered a major malfunction yet