Kristatos wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 4:00 pm
it's fairly obvious that "a document of negative liberties" is not the same thing as "the Constitution sucks". He actually explains what it means in the following sentence. His problem is that he was speaking in legalese, not anticipating that 15, 20 years later.
Dude, it's not fairly obvious. You just said it yourself that he's doing legalese babble. And he's not going to come right out and say the Constitution sucks. So he wrapped it around the legalese, and his explanation is twisted. The whole idea of the Constitution is to limit the powers of government and to tilt the powers over to the individual. But this guy sees that as a bad thing. That's what he's implying there but he can't come right out and say it because he obviously has to cover his ass and not look like a radical.
Kristatos wrote:
Did he actually redistribute any wealth in that time, except to his corporate donors?
Um...yes. He did it through tax hikes. You need to familiarize yourself with the tax hikes in the Obama budget. For starters, he did all sorts of itemized deduction caps, including limiting the maximum value of itemized deductions, like those for charitable donations and mortgage interest. This is an income tax increase. No matter what tax bracket you are in, under this Obama provision you couldn't benefit any more than if you were in the 28 percent bracket. I basically summarized Grover Norquist's
analysis. But he explains it all, going into detail that “There are three tax brackets higher than this: 33 percent, 35 percent, and 39.6 percent. These families will not be able to fully deduct things like mortgage interest, charitable deductions, and state taxes paid. Note that this is on top of the phaseout of itemized deductions ("Pease") that President Obama forced on taxpayers in the fiscal cliff. Tax increase: $529 billion.” I could go on but I just don't have the time. But here are other things off the top of my head: IRA and 401(k) plan restrictions, capital gains tax hike, energy tax hikes, financial system tax increases that targeted taxes on banks, brokerage firms, life insurance companies (in other words, stuff that affects the way that the middle class saves and invests). Then of course, there's Obamacare, and I don't have the time to get into that mess.
Kristatos, dude, in these last few days, I've had a dosage of your comments. Honestly, it seems you have a one-hitter sitting on your desk. This is not an accusation. Just pure speculation because I'm trying to grasp your unstable thoughts. You can't be that unreasonable and irrational in your "regular" state. Look, I get it. In my youth, it was a must-have, and I liked its slender quality for easy concealment. Thing is, it's getting impossible to engage in political discussions when the other person just finished inhaling slowly and is rattling off incoherent ideas while zoned out, ready to fly off into a blue dream.