our values

[sergebroom]

A few days ago, I saw a TV ad for a man who's running for the Senate. I can't remember if it was for the state's Senate, or for Congress, but it's no big surprise that I didn't bother using more of my brain cells to record that. Hell will freeze over before I vote for someone whose ad frequently emphasized that he is a Conservative, one who believes in Our Values.

What those values are, he doesn't tell us. They probably don't include the separation of Church and State, or the right to one's own religion, or one's right to no religion. They probably don't include the possibility for all of us to marry those they love.

As for what being a conservative means, I don't expect that his definition is the same as Pecunium's a couple of years ago wrote about liberalism and conservatism. Here is an excerpt:

I have both conservative traits, and liberal ones. I joined the Army, in the guise of the National Guard, because there was something I wanted to conserve. I believe in the ideas of the Declaration of Independence, and of the Constitution, enough that I was willing to risk, as the first of these said, "My life, my fortune, and my Sacred Honor," to defend them. Being in the Guard that fortune part is more true than not as well. Guys who have businesses often lose them (or see them founder for years) if they get deployed. The Active Component often pisses me off when they say, "they knew what they were signing up for," because it's not true. World War 3 is what they signed up for, in that context, and that hasn't happened, again I'm digressing.

So what do I want to conserve? A nation of laws, and a people who are equal under them. The right to be left alone (The Ninth amendment is probably the most significant one in the lot, fond as I am of the First, the Second, the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and Tenth. The Third isn't really relevant, at the moment, and the Seventh has been; for good reason, put aside; sort of).

I believe no man is above the laws. We don't have kings, or emperors, nor yet do we establish Tyrants to rule us in time of war. We elect a President, and a set of Counsels to him (in the Form of the Senate and the House) who are to advise him, and keep him to the better track. They approve his appointments, and ratify his budgets. They make the laws, which he is both limited by; and enjoined to enforce.

Comments

[miltonthales.livejournal.com]

"We elect a President, and a set of Counsels to him (in the Form of the Senate and the House) who are to advise him, and keep him to the better track. They approve his appointments, and ratify his budgets. They make the laws, which he is both limited by; and enjoined to enforce."

So how then does he explain signing statements?

I agree with his thesis, but it doesn't always apply, it seems.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

My own question to people who've been Americans for more years than I've been is how and why and when signing statements came to be. Is this something that was cooked up because of something like WW2, for reasons that may have been valid at the time? People being people, once they have been given a capability, they tend not to let go of that power even when there is no real need of it.

Another question that I have is whether or not the current Prez has been using those signing statements far more frequently than his predecessors. If Bill Clinton had done it half as often, I'd probably have heard about it, considering how the Press went after his every sin, real or imagined. Heck, I don't think that even Bush Père used the statements that often either.

[miltonthales.livejournal.com]

You want a history of signing statements? I'll give you a history (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Presidential_signing_statements) of signing statements.

Reagan bumped up their usage quite a bit, but Shrub's Dad did even more of them. Clinton slacked off (140 in 8 years), but our current criminal has issued 807 so far, and he's got what, 9 months to go?

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. Very educational. I am also... ah... amused that the ball really got rolling with a conservative, and was used the most by conservatives. So much for their reluctance to change the way things are. Of course, some scholars might well be able to point out that there's nothing in the Constitution that prevents a President from doing this.

So much for their strict interpretation of the intent of the Constitution's authors...

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

How do I explain them... they are non-binding bullshit, meant to get around the strictures of the law, warp the enforcment, illegally add to it, or engage in a covert (and illegal) veto.

They are a tool which a passive congress and senate have allowed presidents to create (basically under Reagan) and maintain; because, by and large, no one before was using them as a means of legislation by subterfuge.

Jackson should have been impeached when he said "Mr. Marshall has made his decision, let him enforce it." Not only was he in violation of his oath, it was a case where, "pour encourager les autres" actually applied.

If a president doesn't like a law, let him veto it, and lobby for one more to his taste.

That's how I explain them.

TK

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

It's amazing that Dubya felt the need to make so many of those Signing Statements in spite of his having had the Senate and the House in his pocket - or in spite of his henchfolks holding the S and the H by their metaphorical balls. This is someone who obviously doesn't care much for Madame Democracy unless she happens to wish exactly for what he wishes.

How UnAmerican.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

When I lived in Kentucky I was amused by 'conservative' candidates who announced that they stood for 'Kentucky values'. I used to wonder if that meant 'marryin' your kinfolk', 'makin' moonshine', 'shootin' revenuers' or 'feuding' (I lived in the town which had witnessed the second-biggest feud in Kentucky's history, the Rowan County War).

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Did 'Our Values' also include no miscegenation of the races thru the bonds of holy matrimony? Anyway, two evenings ago, I caught another ad by the man. He is indeed running for the Nation's Senate, as a Republican, against the state party's prime candidate, whom I shall not deign to name. All I can say about the preferred candidate is that, when she was in the House, she voted in lockstep with Dubya's wishes. That isn't preventing her current opponent from calling her a... gasp... liberal.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

What does 'liberal' mean these days?

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

It obviously means little when someone who kisses Dubya's ass can be so called. In the days of yore, her opponent would have instead called her a commie, but that word has pretty much become a joke.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Ye gods and small fishes.