Yes Bobber. This is why I am very alarmed at the prospect of the US constitution becoming a "living document." This is just another way of saying that whoever is looking to win the next "popularity contest" can and should change the constitution to mean whatever the prevailing sentiment is. Horrible idea.

A strict interpretation of the constitution, as written, should forever be honored. Otherwise, popularly elected individuals can abuse us all.

If times change, great. Change the constitution -- otherwise sit down.

For practical purposes, what does this mean?

- The federal governemnt can levy taxes for national defense, promoting interstate commerce (i.e.: setting standards for the highway system), the postal service, and, well, that's pretty much about it.

- All else should be left to the states. States are poweless now because the feds tax too much. If the feds stuck to national defense, the states could experiement with socialized health care or anything else they want without imposing oppression on us all.

God help us if we continue down the path of senators being able to apportion monies for bridges to nowhere, promoting public art projects, and a litany of thousands of other expenditures that have no other purpose than payola for special interests.

Arrrrrggghhh

You really need to read the book, or at least read the reference at the URL I gave. He is essentially saying Al-Qaeda is a way of thinking, a philosophy, not a specific group of people. And the more they see their ideas and ideals challenged the more they feel they have to defend themselves. The key thing is that the number of people who think this way is growing all the time, and all that Bush/Blair have been doing encourages and accelerates this process. But please read the book - it's extremely well written and authoritative and contains vastly more than I've said here.

I should have thought the threat facing the world was fairly obvious - religious extremists wreaking havoc everywhere, people afraid to travel, this thread basically.

I am still wondering how one would change the philosophy. Is fighting them encouraging them? Would capitulating gain us anything? Is this about the Israel/Palestine issue? What is the dynamic here? My opinion is that it is a political issue, and the only way they could gain any traction is by wrapping it in religious outrage.

Wow. I'm enjoying the banter, and I am learning a lot from all of you.
I'm not very political, have my own beliefs, don't vote party, but vote issues. I will take what I'm learning here to the next election, and use it hopefully to make a wise choice.
I still don't object to big brother wanting a little info from me, so perhaps I'll just back out of this conversation now, and see how it goes.
Thank you all for your superior knowledge of this issue, and for educating me. I am so proud of all of you, even if I don't totally agree with you.
Peace!!!

Hold on s&s, you ain't gettin' outta here that easy. :-)

Completely agree, O. The Constitution as a living document only opens the door to further "writing" of the law by judges instead of what they are supposed to be doing, interpreting the law. Hopefully, with the present SC, strict interpretation will be back in play.
p2, you're URL doesn't tell me who the author thinks the threat is,at least I wouldn't think him so naive as to believe it is Al Qaeda. Better look to those states(and we all know which)sponsering the terrorism eg.Iran/Hezzbolah et al. Al-Qaeda is a pimple on an elephants a** without a state sponser...money!

I'm not sure what the quote at the URL says, as it goes on several pages and I haven't looked at them all. But the point is that there is no "them" as such. Al Qaeda is not a body of men, or a nation state, or any collection of these. There is no organisation called "Al-Qaeda", despite what Bush/Blair and other shallow politicians say. It is an idea, an ideal, rather like a religion, and as such it's very hard to counter. Rather like Christianity, where they say you must have "faith" without seeking any intellectual support for that faith - the more it's attacked, the stronger the motivation for the "faith". The author does suggest hatred of the west may be borne from envy, but in itself that's also way too simplistic.

You really do need to read the book, as the subject is very complex. To encourage you, look at the Amazon.com website for the book and read some of the comments about it. It isn't "just another book" written by someone who thinks he understands what's going on, but an erudite and very well researched and cross referenced study by someone who has been closely involved in the area for many years. Please don't ask me to give a slick answer to what an expert struggles to cover in a lengthy book - I can't do it and I won't try.

Extremism - whether conservative, liberal, religous or otherwise is dangerous IMHO. What has happened to reality, realism and practicality? Seems these are criteria left off the table and too much is decided on emotion and from the hip decision making.
Guess everyone's practicality depends on each one's situation maybe? These issues have been around since the dawn of man and will be until........
Just my 2 cents. Appreciate the forum

if officials are truely to be elected by popular vote, gore should have been elected president, and the very real issue of global warming would be being addressed. (had to squeeze that in).

remember i told you brazil has stopped importing foreign oil by producing their own alternative fuel. if we had doone that, we would not be concerned about protecting a family's personal business interests with our troops, and maybe the polar bears would not now be on the endangered species list because their food supply's timing has been altered by early ice break-up.

Bit of a divergence from the original thread, but do you think anything we might have done differently would have made any difference to the polar bears?

I wish we were more self sufficient, and didn't depend on the other countries for our oil/fuel. I also wish we paid more attention to the environment when we could have made a huge difference in what's going on today. I wish the big businesses didn't have so much influence on how we manage our forests and oceans, world wide. I wish we didn't have to consider the possibility of evil taking over the good when we board airplanes or enter big buildings. But, hindsight is 20/20, and if we are smart (mighty big IF) we'll learn from the past mistakes, and do what ever we can to either correct the past errors, or vow not to make the same mistakes again. If it was just this easy. I don't know what the answer will be. I pray we find it before it's too late.