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Anti Federalist
02-09-2013, 08:12 PM
Tom Allen: GOP Speaks A Different Language

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/09/tom-allen_n_2652591.html?ref=topbar

Twelve years in Congress. Daily conversations with Republican members of Congress. Bipartisan trips abroad with time to talk at length. Work on legislation of mutual interest with members across the aisle that I respected and admired. But those dozen years left me alarmed and frustrated by the inability of Republicans and Democrats to comprehend each other well enough to work together on our country’s major challenges. We share the same titles and vote on the same legislation, but we see the world through dramatically different lenses.

Read the whole story at Salon

Anti Federalist
02-09-2013, 08:17 PM
A sample of comments:


HUFFPOST SUPER USER
haval2

they speak the language of hate and hypocrisy...domestic terrorists who should be treated as such.



JEV23

After many years of watching Republicans (a painful and dangerous endeavor) I have become convinced that the reason Republicans don't believe in evolution is because they themselves are devolving. Either that or they are completely nuts. In any event, they are definitely a danger to the Union and a good reason for considering term limits. Now that I think about it, I wonder if the fact that the US is called a 'Union' is the reason why they seem to oppose so many ideas that are truly American?



Danny Dan

THE GOP only like government to fill their own pocket books.
Not the programs designed for helping the poor and old,women and children.
Old white men for ya.....

Anti Federalist
02-09-2013, 08:27 PM
From Salon:

http://www.salon.com/2013/02/09/former_congressman_tom_allen_gop_speaks_a_differen t_language/


Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, used a simple principle to define the appropriate scope of government, which reflected his understanding of the common good. He wrote in 1854, “The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities.”

That is incompatible with this:


We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness

So, yes, Tom, we are "speaking a different language".

So, why not just let us go?

Why would you want racist old dying white men hanging around and mucking things up.

Let's leave, divorce, irreconcilable differences and go our seperate ways.

You know such a backwards society would never survive anyways, so you could have it all back in 40 years or so.

Right?

Occam's Banana
02-09-2013, 09:57 PM
A sample of comments:

JEV23

After many years of watching Republicans (a painful and dangerous endeavor) I have become convinced that the reason Republicans don't believe in evolution is because they themselves are devolving. Either that or they are completely nuts. In any event, they are definitely a danger to the Union and a good reason for considering term limits. Now that I think about it, I wonder if the fact that the US is called a 'Union' is the reason why they seem to oppose so many ideas that are truly American?

I accept the theory of evolution, and I have no particular problem with it.

That is why I cringe with disgust whenever one of these "evolutionist" jackanapes trot it out for purposes of making mock of other people.

All they end up doing is making themselves look like smug pricks (except to their buddies in the "amen choir" - and I use that term with full ironic intent).


From Salon:

Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, used a simple principle to define the appropriate scope of government, which reflected his understanding of the common good. He wrote in 1854, “The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities.”
That is incompatible with this:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness


Well, yeah, 'coz, like, you know, the "appropriate scope of government" is supposed to be determined by one, single person's "understanding of the common good". That's what Presidents are for, after all! All that old-fashioned stuff in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution is just a lotta static. Maybe that crap was useful as public relations fluff for a bunch of rabble-rousers and malcontents back in the day - but we're ever so much more sophisticated now (since Father Abraham has enlightened us as to the proper role of the State).