Sorry Phil, this time we lost

Government the right to take my property, and give it to someone else?

"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." ~ B. Goldwater

www.TheRedWing.com

A) there is a singular "intent" to the constitution

I believe there is one, but that it may not be readily apparent.

B) that that intent is traditional (to link back to where this started)

I think it is, but it's mostly opinion.

The intent of the constitution is *whatever* we mutually agree it to be.

In practice, but not in theory. If we all generally agree that the Constitution allows for wealth redistribution then it does for all intents and purposes. The final arbiters are the 9 justices who sit on the Supreme Court. In effect, the Constitution says what the SCOTUS says it says.

The idea that Social Security is unconstitutional completely misses the point. There is no use of the idea that the Constitution "really says" X but the "activist judges" interpret it to say Y. You cannot do anything with that information. The country will behave as if the document says Y so the document, in effect, does say Y. One could say "Wickard v. Filburn " is wrongly decided, but one cannot say laws relying on that precedent are unconstitutional as the latter statement is demonstrably false.

Nobody else matters. Certainly not a bunch of guys who died a couple centuries ago.

I will agree that a lot of their ideas are outdated or don't scale too well with modern technology. For instance, most if not all founders thought that the idea of a standing army was anathema. You'd not find too many people who still believe standing armies are a threat to liberty. They also didn't understand that government could be used as a force for good. Government in their time didn't do much good, but simply got in the way.

I never broke the law; I am the law! -- George W. Bush Judge Dredd
I'm listening to...

...your posts, and thank you for the kind reasoned post above.

I however differ from your view of who and what is happening in the socialist front in America.

As scary as it is to concede, there is a fervent liberal/socialist movement afoot. It is a coming of age of the 60's revolutionary thinking that has come to dominate our academia in our colleges and universities, and subsequently eased its way into mainstream acceptance among the young and liberal minded.

Case in point, the foremost socialist organization in America, of which many of the democrat political personalities are members of, is the DSA "Democratic Socialists of America". Please go take some time and read through their platform, there goals and aspirations for America, and please keep in mind as you are picking your jaw up off the floor, that this is a organization of which many prominent liberals in the US Congress belong.

So here we are in 2008;

"The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the United States, and the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International. DSA's members are building progressive movements for social change while establishing an openly socialist presence in American communities and politics.

Socialists have historically supported public ownership and control of the major economic institutions of society -- the large corporations -- in order to eliminate the injustice and inequality of a class-based society, and have depended on the the organization of a working class party to gain state power to achieve such ends. In the United States, socialists joined with others on the Left to build a broad-based, anti-corporate coalition, with the unions at the center, to address the needs of the majority by opposing the excesses of private enterprise. Many socialists have seen the Democratic Party, since at least the New Deal, as the key political arena in which to consolidate this coalition, because the Democratic Party held the allegiance of our natural allies. Through control of the government by the Democratic Party coalition, led by anti-corporate forces, a progressive program regulating the corporations, redistributing income, fostering economic growth and expanding social programs could be realized.

Social Redistribution. Social redistribution--the shift of wealth and resources from the rich to the rest of society--will require:

1. massive redistribution of income from corporations and the wealthy to wage earners and the poor and the public sector, in order to provide the main source of new funds for social programs,income maintenance and infrastructure rehabilitation, and
2. a massive shift of public resources from the military (the main user of existing discretionary funds) to civilian uses.

DSA has a youth section, Young Democratic Socialists (YDS). Made up of students from colleges and high schools and young people in the work force, the Youth Section works on economic justice and democracy and prison justice projects. It is a member of the Interantional Union of Socialist Youth, an affiliate of the Socialist International."

These are concerns, and one's that blur's that distinction's you draw between a "radical" like Angela Davis and a "progressive" like Nancy Pelosi.

It is amazing to me Stinerman, as I was trying to discuss with another member of this site recently, how a candidate running for POTUS in this day and age can be taken at all seriously with endorsements from the likes of Castro, Kadafhi, Chavez, the leadership of Hamas, a domestic terrorist like William Ayers, etc.

Anyway...?

So, in essence, it may not be Das Kapitol, yet, but it is nonetheless, the open espousal of unequivocally un-American principles, and they are being put to work in the political left of America today.

"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." ~ B. Goldwater

www.TheRedWing.com