|
|
|
|
Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
 Posted - 07/26/2003 : 18:32:32
|
Here is a little note I sent to Orrin Hatch. Hopefully it is self explanatory. If anyone would also care to drop him a line you can do so at:
http://www.senate.gov/~hatch/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Offices.Contact
According to his site, he will respond personally to Utah residents. So if anyone here is one of those, please write to him. Copy my letter if that helps. I would love to hear his reply...
7/26/03
Dear Senator Hatch:
With regard to your signature on a letter that decries a bill the house passed yesterday that would let U.S. consumers buy lower cost prescription drugs from other countries because it would remove what the letter calls "vital" safeguards, I really need to ask you something. Your name is on the Food Supplement Act. You sighted, as one reason for the act, the need for a less expensive alternative to regular medicines. Since these meds are almost unregulated (because of you) and dangers do exist, I'm wondering how that squares with your promise to vote against cheaper prescription drugs that are far more regulated than the alternative meds? Are you really worried that Canada might be producing poor quality medicine?
Saint Johns Wart reacts badly with AIDs Medications. But there is nothing on the label that says it does that. That was your doing. There are many demonstrable examples of dangers caused by the bill you authored and yet, when you have the chance to lower the cost of prescription drugs, you are worried about safety?
Do you really believe that Americans should be the ones to pay for all prescription drug testing and research so drugs will be safe, while at the same time making Americans guinea pigs for the alternative drug industry?
Just how many pockets are your hands in? God, you must be easy. "Lets take Orrin out to dinner, and were sure to get his vote...." "Send Orrin a contribution, and he's a sure thing..."
Sleep well while even more people die, because you are a man of some kind of integrity.
Your hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Sincerely,
David Glück
Skeptic Friends Network
www.skepticfriends.org
|
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
|
|
Computer Org
Skeptic Friend
392 Posts |
Posted - 11/13/2003 : 09:21:02 [Permalink]
|
This may sound very strange but I have it on "good authority" (which I can't name) that Senator Hatch has someone in his office who reads every thing posted in the SkepticFriends site. He has no bad intentions, I'm told; it's just that his "politician's ear" wants to know what is being said here. (So I reckon you wasted your stamp.  ) |
Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life. --Falstaff |
 |
|
|
furshur
SFN Regular
USA
1536 Posts |
Posted - 11/13/2003 : 12:29:52 [Permalink]
|
quote:
This may sound very strange but I have it on "good authority" (which I can't name) that Senator Hatch has someone in his office who reads every thing posted in the SkepticFriends site.
Your source is his 'pet rock', right?
Actually, Senator Hatch is my father-in-law and I know that he is not even aware of this site.
I love how you can say anything on the web and there is no way to verify it. |
If I knew then what I know now then I would know more now than I know. |
|
|
|
Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 11/13/2003 : 13:23:20 [Permalink]
|
| Senator Hatch is my mother on my brother's side. That makes us twins!! |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
|
|
|
|
Computer Org
Skeptic Friend
392 Posts |
Posted - 11/15/2003 : 09:11:43 [Permalink]
|
I was serious.
But . . . Whatever.  |
Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life. --Falstaff |
|
|
|
Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 11/15/2003 : 09:18:24 [Permalink]
|
We knew that.
quote:
Originally posted by Computer Org
I was serious.
But . . . Whatever.
|
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
|
|
|
|
Computer Org
Skeptic Friend
392 Posts |
Posted - 11/15/2003 : 11:51:08 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by Gorgo
We knew that.
quote:
Originally posted by Computer Org
I was serious.
But . . . Whatever.
Oh.
They're scared up there. You knew that, didn't you? It used to be that the House and the Senate would 'blackmail' each other over the contents of a particular bill. Now neither can do anything without groveling their way over to the Presidential Palace and doing whatever bidding the Glorious President demands. (Not that I don't that He's scared too. I just don't know where the President gets his "marching orders" from. You, in another thread, said that you think that it is Big Money. Surely Big Money has a lot of input but I don't think that they are the ULTIMATE source of the subversion of the Constitution.)
Anyway, people in the U.S. House and Senate who are truly interested in the U.S. operating under the Constitution in a way that will leave us all alive and happy 20 years from now, are busy getting useful thoughts anywhere they can find them --- provided they don't have to "sell their (political) soul to the (political) devil. |
Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life. --Falstaff |
|
|
|
Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 11/15/2003 : 13:30:58 [Permalink]
|
I don't think much has changed since James Madison made sure that the "minority of the opulent" were protected from the majority by creating such things as the Senate.
There are other subversions of democracy than money, one of them is racism. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
|
|
|
|
Computer Org
Skeptic Friend
392 Posts |
Posted - 11/15/2003 : 14:00:33 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by Gorgo
I don't think much has changed since James Madison made sure that the "minority of the opulent" were protected from the majority by creating such things as the Senate.
It's been a while since I've read (much less studied) any history but I thought the Senate was created to- protect the less-populous states from the more-populous and, even more importantly, to
- deliberately give agricultural states a disproportionate slice of Power; or, to quote Checkers' ads:
Ya gotta EAT! 
I suppose you could call that the "minority of the opulent" but I, for one, wholeheartedly support BOTH reasons.
quote:
There are other subversions of democracy than money, one of them is racism.
More, please. Moore detail. Racism?? How? Don't understand.  |
Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life. --Falstaff |
|
|
|
Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 11/15/2003 : 15:46:51 [Permalink]
|
This from Noam Chomsky:
Here's a paragraph from an article of mine in the Cleveland State Law Review (1996), which gives a few cites in the major scholarly
sources. There's a good deal more discussed there.
Noam Chomsky
In Madison's "determination to protect minorities against majority infringements of their rights," Lance Banning observes, "it is absolutely clear that he was most especially concerned for propertied minorities among the people." For that reason, Madison held that "the senate ought to come from and represent the wealth
of the nation," the "more capable sett of men," and that other constraints on democratic rule should be instituted. In the Madisonian Virginia Plan, the upper house was to "assure continuing protection for the rights of the minority and other public goods," Banning comments.NOTE{Lance Banning, _The Sacred Fire of Liberty_ (1995), 181, 114; Richard Matthews, _If Men were Angels_, 193.} But in practice, it is the rights of a specific minority that are to be protected, even to be considered a "public good": the propertied minority of the opulent.
Again Chomsky:
On Madison, I'm quoting directly from the standard source I cited: Yates's minutes of the debates. The context is the one I gave: Madison's discussion of how to "secure the permanent interests of the country" -- the rights of property owners -- "against innovation" by vote of the majority. He pointed out that in England -- the model, of course -- "if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place," distributing property to the general population. The system he was framing had to prevent such injustice, and must be "so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority." It's in this context that he concludes that "The Senate, therefore, ought to be this body" that will protect the minority of the opulent. It will be the effective law-making body, and will be composed of "the wealth of the nation," people who "sympathize" with property owners and their rights (in the misleading terminology used, with "property and its rights," though of course property has no rights). That's exactly how I described it, pointing out the crucial role of the Senate in the Madisonian system and the other devices he advocated, and that were instituted, to assure that the "minority of the opulent" would be protected "against the majority." So you are right about the Senate, but you may be missing the essential Madisonian point, which is
what I reviewed.
If you are looking for a source, the most detailed one is an article of mine in the Cleveland State Law Review. Can send you the exact source, if you like. As you can determine, the meaning of the statement I quoted is just as I described it.
As I've written elsewhere, Aristotle raised the same problem in his
_Politics_, the first great work of political analysis. He observed, as Madison did, that if the population could participate in a meaningful way in democratic decisions in an unequal society, then the majority would infringe on the property rights of the minority of the opulent. Exactly Madison's concern. Aristotle's proposal was to reduce inequality; Madison's, to prevent democracy -- and he recognized that over time there was going to be a serious problem, because of the increase he anticipated in "the proportion of those who will labor under all the hardships of life, and secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its benefits."
In Madison's defense, however, one should add (as I also pointed out in discussing this) that Madison was pre-capitalist in mentality, and believed that the "wealth of the nation" who would control policy-making in the Senate would be "enlightened Statesmen" and "benevolent philosophers," like the mythical Romans who were often cited by the Founding Fathers. He was quite outraged when he came to discover, shortly after, that they behaved exactly as Adam Smith had observed a few years earlier, following the "vile maxim" of "the masters of mankind": "All for ourselves, and nothing for
other people." Much of the subsequent history of the country, right to the present, has to do with the struggles over these doctrines.
Noam Chomsky
Again Chomsky:
Cite is:
"Consent without Consent: Reflections on the Theory and Practice of
Democracy," _Cleveland-Marshall Law Review_ 44:415, 1996.
|
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
|
| Edited by - Gorgo on 11/15/2003 15:51:36 |
|
|
|
Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 11/15/2003 : 15:52:28 [Permalink]
|
| As far as racism, what is it that you don't understand? Do you think it doesn't exist? |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
|
|
|
|
Computer Org
Skeptic Friend
392 Posts |
Posted - 11/17/2003 : 09:11:39 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by Gorgo
As far as racism, what is it that you don't understand? Do you think it doesn't exist?
I think that the Constitution is designed to keep "racism" from having any real effect --- beyond transient outlawry. The Constitution was originally set up, for example, to effect the reduction of slavery (--a plain instance of racism, IMO--) followed by the slow but steady elimination of slavery through naturally occurring economic processes. (Alas: It didn't work; the Constitution was too subverted -- perpaps by the infusion of 'too much' Democracy.  )
What I don't understand is how "racism" can undermine/subvert the Constitution itself. (On the other hand, I believe that it is purely AngloSaxon "racism" against everyone not AngloSaxon which has been the ultimate cause of virtually all the subversions executed against the Constitution. It is evidence of the strength of the Constitution that the People won't let the power-mongers and money-grubbers change the Constitution.)
Equal distribution of land and wealth? They tried it in Russia/Soviet Union. ("Soviet" is a New Hampshire-style town meeting, IIRC.) It didn't work. I'll never forget listening to Gorby sadly describing seeing kids playing 'football' in the street using a loaf of bread.
Not that we are any better: "FOOD FIGHT!" is glorified by TV and movies. In my opinion, anybody caught engaging in a food-fight in the school cafeteria should be given 3 days "detention" ("study hall"), not allowed to leave the school grounds (--"Sleep on a mat on the Gym floor!"--), and given only bread and water to eat for the entire 3 days. THAT should put a swift end to the wasting of food that is so rampant nowadays. (Bread&Water? I may have been a little too much influenced by U.S.Navy procedures during my month aboard a Naval ship. )
As to your first post (Chomsky): Ach! I confess that I pretty much agree with Madison -- which is quite a confession since I am a near-rabid anti-Federalist.
I will admit that the Virginians, under the slave-holding Jefferson, ushered in the beginnings of "Democracy" and that none other than the brilliant, handsome, debenoir Andrew Jackson -- whome I greatly admire -- brought us a populist form of "Democracy". Beyond this, however, I admit nothing. |
Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life. --Falstaff |
|
|
|
Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 11/17/2003 : 10:13:22 [Permalink]
|
| Well, subversion of the Constitution is what you said, but I wasn't really talking about subversion of the Constitution, I was just meaning that racism, particularly institutional racism, is a major problem. I don't particularly care that much about what someone wrote 200 + years ago unless it helps us today. Whether racism is a subversion of the Constitution or not, I'll leave that to you to figure out. Those that made it weren't anti-racists and not particularly pro-democratic, so I don't know why it would be an anti-racist pro-democratic document. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
|
|
|
|
Computer Org
Skeptic Friend
392 Posts |
Posted - 11/17/2003 : 13:41:38 [Permalink]
|
Sure enough! How embarassing. quote:
Originally posted by Gorgo:There are other subversions of democracy than money, one of them is racism.
It probably hapened because I don't care much about "democracy"; in fact, as I wrote, I think that "democracy" is an exceptionally dangerous form of government -- MOST PARTICULARLY in the earliest part of the 21st Century (--global warming; GM [read: potentially poisonous] foods; genetic tinkering with potentially lethal microbes; clones of foodstuffs; catastrophic ecological destruction; vastly excessive over-population; vastly excessive over-industrialization; continued depleation of the upper atmosphere Ozone layer; hugely excessive Ozone polution of breathing-air; massive depleation of potable water supplies; and many, many others).
(Anybody want me to put the above in "list" format to make it easier to read? Will do so happily.)
And while I don't care about the subversion of "democracy" by whatever means available, I DO care about the inner details of the Declaration of Independence, the honest implementation of the Constitution and an effective, comprehensive Bill of Rights to protect any minority (--even a mere "army of One"--) from the tyranical opression of a determined, self-serving Democratic Majority.  |
Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life. --Falstaff |
|
|
|
Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 11/17/2003 : 14:18:22 [Permalink]
|
Democracy probably wouldn't be a bad idea if that also included economic and informational democracy.
Again, if democracy means what the "founders" intended, I'd just as soon do without that as well. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Topic Locked
