Have you read "Capitalism the unknown ideal?" She was talking very much about capitalism and communism and the differences between them in both this book and Atlas. She was using many of the principles of objectivity to address the differences but the story is very much the differences between collectivism (in all its forms one being communism) and capitalism through the eyes of objectivism.

What exactly have you read by Rand?

We have through a process of eliminating "Non-Democracy" elements from the constitution. The 17th amendment (eliminating the appointment of senators by state legislator) is a good example of this. Thus removing much of the states representation in the federal government and making the federal government the state.

In its original intent the federal government was a republic, with most government officials appointed directly or indirectly by state governments with the one exception being the house of representative.

Even in the case of the house it was not a popular vote (IE representative Democracy), it was a share holders vote, with share defined by property ownership.

These controls and balancing measured would have (if left in place) prevented much of the government grab for power as well as most of the programs that the federal government has usurped from the states or the people.

It is in fact or move toward democracy and from a republic that has led to our fall from freedom to a socialist state, to a welfare state, to a totalitarian state and now towards fascism.

I don't self identify as ignorant or as part of a circle jerk so I don't take his comments as referring to me.

Explain to me specifically what protect means in that context WITHOUT bringing in philosophy from outside the document.

Notice it says "Protect" and not "give out welfare freely at the expense of people who actually WORK and not loaf around looking for a handout"?

.....you're not insulted by "circle jerk"?

however, we can probably agree that the framers would be appalled at how "protecting the general welfare" had different definitional perimeters then.

It has nothing to do with Libertarians or Christians (myself) supposed intolerance: it's about facts. Do your homework, Sen. McCarthy was right. Why do you think he was attacked so viciously? We can debate that later on a different post. Here's a spoiler: many of McCarthy's claims were later validated when our own Gov't declassified intercepted communications that happened back then along with the Soviets own "glasnost" and opened their archives in the early '90's on the crap-communist spies that were working on Crapitol Hill. The Communist spies who gave the SU our nuclear secrets, The Rosenbergs, denied they were communist spies. Guess what? They lied. Even Khrushchev acknowledged them in his memoir. It's not a conspiracy, it's the truth.

1. your argument that knowledge from the 80s was not valid due to when it originated, I disagree with.
2.looking at a period of history and making an analysis is logical and valid. You may disagree with my analysis, it is logical and beneficial to refer to and interpret historical changes

Did you really just ask what secondhanded means in a place called The Gulch?

In the first paragraph alone it says the government's job is to protect the general welfare.

McCarthy being right doesn't mean communism succeeded.

Ayn Rand was not writing about communism. She was writing about Objectivism.

Your two possible conclusions are a false dichotomy based on oversimplification of philosophy and psychology.

There is one problem with your points. If marriage must be open to all, then marriage cannot by law be restricted within any organization. What about the rights of religious societies to only marry those that follow the rules of their faith?

For what you suggest to be true and right you must first separate marriage (defined as the religious portion of the marriage covenant/agreement) from the civil union (defined as the civil contract between two or more people with the civil benefits of marriage)

If those are separated out, then I agree. Civil unions should be available to all. It is, at that point, a legally binding contract without the religious subtext.

Marriage is for many a deeply religious act. For those the right to refuse marriage to those who do not meet whatever the religions qualifications for marriage are must be preserved, just as gays and lesbians must have the civil union aspects of what is now marriage in order to have equality before the law.

The government has to be involved in the civil union part of it. There are aspects to that (power of attorney when one becomes ill, the ability to visit your kid in the hospital or at school....) which must be governed by law. The law needs to provide the civil contracts and the courts to enforce/revoke those contracts. There is no way to rationally think that can be separated from the government. Just who or what can enter into those civil contracts is not the preview of the government.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you'll stop by and share your thoughts on other topics.

opine away. back with facts, give evidence. the thread changed from the post's intent. that happens here. "struggle for gay rights" is nonsensical. no one in here cares about one's sexuality preferences. what they care about, is manipulation of laws to favor one group. there is not one gay person who is maligned by the Constitution. I have many gay friends, they are all well off economically and their property rights are protected the same as anyone's. Most in here have been clear that marriage should not be legislated, protected by the govt any more than any other contracted agreement. how is that you missed all of that in this discussion?

The purpose of that statement was to eliminate slavery by having slave states receive less representation than free states, The idea was that as populations grew the free states would have greater and greater representation in the house and eventually be able to remove slavery by a majority vote. It was not to demean a slave as less of a person.

When you consider the intent it is not only not wrong, but very right that it is in the constitution.

Yes, and that was fixed by the 13th-15th Amendments that were passed via Republicans. How did the Democrats react? They (with Confederate veterans) created the KKK. I know this doesn't have anything to do with the gay issue, but I digress...

Sorry that I am not willing to blame all of our country's failures on an international Communist conspiracy. Sorry that I disagree with the statement "McCarthy was right!". Sorry that I don't think the struggle for gay rights is merely a tool for destabilizing the government. Sorry that the crap people were spouting on this thread bothered me enough to make an account so that I could comment on it.

I did not know Libertarians were so intolerant of differences of opinion.

give examples, please, on the Constitution itself.
We have also subverted knowledge and eschewed freedoms since our founding. just because time passes doesn't mean evil has loses footing at any given time. people in here are acutely aware of losing freedoms in their lifetime. perhaps you have not experienced a loss of freedom. or maybe you have. watching SCOTUS blatantly ignore the document our country was founded on, that helped create a roaring economy and the most powerful nation in the world in under 130 years, unprecedented in human history, is sobering and for many, a call to arms. (big jim you can come in and fix my punctuation :)) Watching the nation's erosion because courts, scholars, legislators and presidents ignore the Constitution is almost impossible