Now for some more logic defying stunts. Our current performer in the center ring, Nancy Pelosi. In a recent interview she suggested the use of the 14th Amendment to bypass congress if it should refuse to increase the debt ceiling.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/07/pelosi-urges-obama-to-sidestep-congress-use-14th-amendment-to-raise-debt-ceiling/
Her logic insults the American mind, but what can we say if most American voters buy it?
She claims raising the debt ceiling is about the government paying its bills, not about it spending too much. So thus she is saying the government can only pay its bills if it borrows more money. Now doesn't that sound like a spending problem? Who depends on borrowing to pay their bills? Businesses with long range prospects of future profits capable of covering short term costs are one such group of people. What about people with only modest potential future growths in revenue like most people and, yes, governments? When such people find themselves needing to borrow in order to pay their bills it makes perfect sense to associate such increased debt with spending cuts. Doesn't it?
Pelosi wants to reason it out differently. She wants to claim that the debt ceiling increase is inseparably tied to the government's abilities to pay its bills, but doesn't want the reasonable implications of that. Either we don't need to borrow more to pay our bills, which would make her argument fall apart on its face, or if we do, demanding spending cuts is extremely relevant and appropriate.
Her interpretation of the 14th amendment is also highly questionable.
“[t]he validity of the public debt … shall not be questioned.”
It simply means the United States government must not default on its debts. Its debts only include its debts and nothing else. It means if the government ever should be unable to come up with all the funds needed to do all that it normally does, creditors will have first dibs on those limited funds. Obligations like Social Security checks and retired military benefits would probably have next dibs, and all other programs and operations would have last dibs and some of them would have to do without if they could, otherwise they would just have to cease. Judges could get involved in determining what is and isn't an absolutely necessary obligation to meet, but creditors are the only group with clear priority according to the 14th Amendment, not everything the government spends money on.
Pelosi apparently thinks every person promised to by and/or served by the government is the same as a creditor. As nice as it would be to think such a thing, being nice, warm, and fuzzy doesn't make something true. Our debt is huge, getting bigger, soon the interest on that debt will exceed any plausible future revenue, and nothing as of yet has been done to reduce this debt. We are past the time to save the warm and fuzzy things just because they're warm and fuzzy. If the president should choose to follow her advice he would be guilty of gross incompetence to say it kindly.
The article I linked to also speaks of scholars who support Pelosi's interpretation. Whoever these unnamed academics are, they're only support for their interpretation is some sort of alchemy by which groups of scholars co-enable each others disregard for reality (thus "alchemy" where things are done like turning lead into gold). There is no way either through literal interpretation or through context at the time it was written that they can translate "public debt" as including all planned government spending. Congress and the president can go without pay, non-essential employees can get laid off, property can be sold, and if worse comes to worse even employees deemed essential can go without pay. None of the financial actions or omissions listed above constitute a public debt, and I would challenge any scholar to find a significant case where the normal expenditures of any government in the United States was ruled to be equivalent to an owed debt.
One of the few great benefits of this last election is that we are now free to identify nonsense where it is. We no longer need to guard our words so as not to offend potential swing voters. Stupidity won this last election and is now in charge. Such a circumstance means that now is the time to point it out and not mince words while doing it. The left can have their victory and the power that goes with it, but they are not entitled to defy reason without consequence. They will drive this nation further and further towards ruin and they should have their stupidity pointed out as we go along. To do anything less would make us even more stupid than they are. I for one will use the intellect God gave me.
In conclusion, Nancy Pelosi is suggesting idiocy, but as much as I'd like to respect her reasoning capabilities more, I have to say this doesn't surprise me. It's not that she's an idiot, since that would be someone who can't even be counted on to breath on their own. Rather I suspect she has been poorly served by her education. That is probably behind all of the people who's political, legal, and rational opinions defy reality. Getting them to come out of their mass delusion is likely going to be a long hard task, but at least we'll be able to have some fun laughing at them. And no, not that we'll be laughing at them as we point out their idiocy. That would be unnecessarily cruel. We will get our laughs when they just keep coming back with the same nonsense and try to impress us with things like modern academia's answer to alchemy, which happens to be much of the Ivy League, Oxford and Cambridge. We will just counter their attempts at academic snobbery with reality and listen for the gates of pseudo-academia to start crumbling.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/07/pelosi-urges-obama-to-sidestep-congress-use-14th-amendment-to-raise-debt-ceiling/
Her logic insults the American mind, but what can we say if most American voters buy it?
She claims raising the debt ceiling is about the government paying its bills, not about it spending too much. So thus she is saying the government can only pay its bills if it borrows more money. Now doesn't that sound like a spending problem? Who depends on borrowing to pay their bills? Businesses with long range prospects of future profits capable of covering short term costs are one such group of people. What about people with only modest potential future growths in revenue like most people and, yes, governments? When such people find themselves needing to borrow in order to pay their bills it makes perfect sense to associate such increased debt with spending cuts. Doesn't it?
Pelosi wants to reason it out differently. She wants to claim that the debt ceiling increase is inseparably tied to the government's abilities to pay its bills, but doesn't want the reasonable implications of that. Either we don't need to borrow more to pay our bills, which would make her argument fall apart on its face, or if we do, demanding spending cuts is extremely relevant and appropriate.
Her interpretation of the 14th amendment is also highly questionable.
“[t]he validity of the public debt … shall not be questioned.”
It simply means the United States government must not default on its debts. Its debts only include its debts and nothing else. It means if the government ever should be unable to come up with all the funds needed to do all that it normally does, creditors will have first dibs on those limited funds. Obligations like Social Security checks and retired military benefits would probably have next dibs, and all other programs and operations would have last dibs and some of them would have to do without if they could, otherwise they would just have to cease. Judges could get involved in determining what is and isn't an absolutely necessary obligation to meet, but creditors are the only group with clear priority according to the 14th Amendment, not everything the government spends money on.
Pelosi apparently thinks every person promised to by and/or served by the government is the same as a creditor. As nice as it would be to think such a thing, being nice, warm, and fuzzy doesn't make something true. Our debt is huge, getting bigger, soon the interest on that debt will exceed any plausible future revenue, and nothing as of yet has been done to reduce this debt. We are past the time to save the warm and fuzzy things just because they're warm and fuzzy. If the president should choose to follow her advice he would be guilty of gross incompetence to say it kindly.
The article I linked to also speaks of scholars who support Pelosi's interpretation. Whoever these unnamed academics are, they're only support for their interpretation is some sort of alchemy by which groups of scholars co-enable each others disregard for reality (thus "alchemy" where things are done like turning lead into gold). There is no way either through literal interpretation or through context at the time it was written that they can translate "public debt" as including all planned government spending. Congress and the president can go without pay, non-essential employees can get laid off, property can be sold, and if worse comes to worse even employees deemed essential can go without pay. None of the financial actions or omissions listed above constitute a public debt, and I would challenge any scholar to find a significant case where the normal expenditures of any government in the United States was ruled to be equivalent to an owed debt.
One of the few great benefits of this last election is that we are now free to identify nonsense where it is. We no longer need to guard our words so as not to offend potential swing voters. Stupidity won this last election and is now in charge. Such a circumstance means that now is the time to point it out and not mince words while doing it. The left can have their victory and the power that goes with it, but they are not entitled to defy reason without consequence. They will drive this nation further and further towards ruin and they should have their stupidity pointed out as we go along. To do anything less would make us even more stupid than they are. I for one will use the intellect God gave me.
In conclusion, Nancy Pelosi is suggesting idiocy, but as much as I'd like to respect her reasoning capabilities more, I have to say this doesn't surprise me. It's not that she's an idiot, since that would be someone who can't even be counted on to breath on their own. Rather I suspect she has been poorly served by her education. That is probably behind all of the people who's political, legal, and rational opinions defy reality. Getting them to come out of their mass delusion is likely going to be a long hard task, but at least we'll be able to have some fun laughing at them. And no, not that we'll be laughing at them as we point out their idiocy. That would be unnecessarily cruel. We will get our laughs when they just keep coming back with the same nonsense and try to impress us with things like modern academia's answer to alchemy, which happens to be much of the Ivy League, Oxford and Cambridge. We will just counter their attempts at academic snobbery with reality and listen for the gates of pseudo-academia to start crumbling.
No comments:
Post a Comment