What is a Republic?

[WHEELER]

Because even back then, Lord Baden-Powell was under heavy criticism of his program. The military style of the Boy Scouts and their all male program at the time, evoked strong criticism in that country. Socialism has been brewing a long time their also.

 

Now that is all fact above. This is my opinion. I believe that Lord Baden-Powell wilted under the heat of criticism and in order to allay his critics and present the program in a better light for it to be received, he compromised his principles.

 

This was not his original intention I believe.

 

Now. With modern scientific studies, and my own personal experiences and observations of others has coincided with those studies, it is dangerous to mix boys and women. Boys live on ideology. The ideal of manhood has got to be presented to them for them to know their destination as men. Without this they are rootless.

 

Furthermore, studies in the classics have pointed in the same direction and so has Edith Hamilton.

 

Lord Baden-Powell gave under pressure. I have before due to weakness of character and I wish I hadn't. Peer pressure is terrible either way.

[WHEELER]

(This message has been edited by WHEELER)

[NJCubScouter]

For anyone interested in Wheeler's assertion that Social Security is unauthorized by the U.S. Constitution, I can tell you that this argument was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court more than 60 years ago. For a full discussion see

 

http://www.ssa.gov/history/aja964.html

 

For a really short discussion: Article I, Section 8, paragraph 1 of the Constitution states:

 

"The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States..."

 

After the ... are some words that limit the taxing authority of the federal government, but they were basically "edited out" of the Constitution by the passage of the 16th Amendment, which authorizes the income tax.

 

The courts have interpreted this section to basically give the people of the United States, through their representatives in Congress, the power to tax themselves and use the funds for the "general welfare," which includes Social Security, federal education programs, purchase of land for national parks and about a million other things that I am sure Wheeler thinks are unconstitutional too.

[Fat Old Guy]

"The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States..."

 

Interesting but the last time that I checked, the Congress didn't collect any taxes, the Executive Branch does that. So the collection of the Income Tax is unconstitutional. Now before you go and say, "Well, they tell the IRS to collect taxes" consider that each branch of the governement has their own police force. Why? The Chief of the Supreme Court Police once told me that you couldn't have police controlled by the Executive Branch protecting the other branches. With that reasoning, the Congress cannot direct the Executive branch to collect taxes.

 

Hooray! I don't have to pay my taxes! We are free!

 

 

[NJCubScouter]

Hooray! I don't have to pay my taxes! We are free!

 

Good luck, FOG. I suggest you try it. Maybe you will get the cell next to Wheeler's, or if he's in a different kind of place, maybe the institutions will have joint softball game or something sometime.

 

You know, those wacky Founding Fathers, sometimes they didn't write as clearly as they should have...

[WHEELER]

"To provide for the general welfare" does not mean social security. The Founding Fathers would be horrified how "general welfare" has now been expanded. This is not the original meaning.

 

Franklin Roosevelt got his ideas from the fascists and socialists in Europe, especially Mussolini.

 

FDR is also the one that threatened the US Supreme Court to disband it if it didn't find his programs constitutional. Was FDR a law-abiding citizen? What example did he set? The US Supreme Court ruled against his policies, and he threatens them. This is a good sign on the legitimacy of Social Security???????

 

The income tax was struck down eight times by the US Supreme Court as unconstitutional. It is the third plank in the communist manifesto. These people talk about equality but the graduated income tax is about treating people unfairly. See, Karl Marx got his idea for an income tax from the Bible. God required a tithe from all. Rich or poor every body gave 10%. God treated everybody the same. Karl Marx took that and graduated it. Now we treat the rich different from the poor. This is not righteousness but unrighteousness. The graduated income tax is pure evil.

[Twocubdad]

FDR threatened to disband the Supreme Court? That's news. I studied the "Switch in Time that Save Nine" and know that FDR threatened to add justices of his liking in order to pack the court and get his New Deal programs through. Which, oh by the way, would have been consititutional since the Constitution gives the president that power, but sets no limit on the number of Justices (Art. II.2.2). When subsequent rulings went FDR's way, he dropped the idea.

 

But then I went to a socialist-dominated state university. I'm sure it was all lies.

 

 

[NJCubScouter]

Wheeler, I am not going to debate the doctrine of "original intent" with you because I don't think it is relevant. Under current views of Constitutional interpretation, courts generally look at the words of the Constitution and what they mean to us today. They do not usually look at a law passed by Congress and agonize over whether James Madison would have thought that it was within the proper role of the federal government. The interpretation of the "spending clause" has indeed changed over time, as the nation has changed. Whole books have been written about this, and I don't have time to write one right now.

 

FDR never threatened to "disband" the Supreme Court. TwoCubDad has explained what actually happened and I can add a couple of details. Yes, FDR was upset that he was trying to get the country out of a Depression and relieve some of the suffering it had caused, and his programs were being declared unconstitutional a Supreme Court majority relying on disputed interpretations (mostly of the same "spending clause", I believe.) So he proposed a bill to Congress to add several new justices to the Supreme Court, which as TwoCubDad says is perfectly fine from a Constitutional point of view, because the size of the Supreme Court is set by statute. This was, quite reasonably, seen as an attempt to "pack the Court" because FDR would have appointed all the new justices who presumably would have been friendlier to "general welfare" and "public works" legislation. Congress resisted this because it was a bit too blatant, and over time the Supreme Court came around. (I believe the decision in which it did so is quoted in that Social Security article I linked to yesterday.)

 

As for the income tax, it was not constitutional under the original constitution. The Sixteenth Amendment was adopted to allow for an income tax. So it's constitutional now.

[WHEELER]

The Athenian Oath as is printed in the l948 Boy Scout Handbook pg 119:

 

"We will never bring disgrace on this, our city, by an act of dishonesty or cowardice.

 

"We will fight for the ideals and Sacred Things of the city both alone and with many.

 

"We will revere and obey the City's laws, and will do our best to incite a like reverence and respect in those about us who are prone to annul them or set them at naught. We will strive increasingly to quicken the public's sense of civic duty.

 

"Thus in all these ways we will transmit this city, not only not less, but greater, better and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.

 

What "like revernce and respect" did FDR have for the Constitution? It looks like NJ Scouter and Two cub dad miss the whole point. FDR wanted to shove something thru that would have been unconstitutional but the hell with the law, FDR's opinion was "I don't care about the rule of law, I am going to do what I want." You don't find it scandalous that a president who swore to uphold the constitution, years later wants to undermine it and go around it by "packing" the supreme court with his cronies. FDR's programs were socialistic. Does this sound like the rule of law or anarchy?

 

There is a law in the Pentatuch, (The first five books of the Old testament) that states that Hebrews were not to carry anything on the Sabbath. That is work. They can not even carry a book. They can carry things within a house. They can rearrange the furniture but they cannot, outside the house, carry anything.

 

In Orthodox Jewish communities in Israel, they tie a ball of yarn from one side of the house and use to encompass the whole neighborhood. The ball of yarn is a "wall". So then, they set about to carry things from one house to another on the Sabbath.

 

The moral of the story: Any law can be turned. When men are too weak to obey, they turn the law. They find an excuse or loophole. They find a way around it. This mentality is very dangerous. A hard man obeys, the effeminate man seeks escape.

 

FDR practically annuled the constitution and the rule of law. There is no respect for the rule of law in this country.