Common Ground Common Sense > WHO WERE THE FOUNDING FATHERS, ANYWAY?

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Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 07:37 AM

QUOTE(Arneoker @ Feb 20 2009, 12:01 PM)

I think that we might consider the question as to whether Founding Fathers intended to criminalize politics, at least most of it.

And if they didn't, should we?

Now those who commit crimes should go pay the consequences.

Including politicians.

This is why you have a U.S. Attorney investigating the former governor of Illinois.

A professional prosecutor investigating a suspect, in anticipation of a trial by jury, presided over by a judge, with opposing attorneys making arguments.

That is how the process goes.

Or at least it should, and does at its best.

But outside of such cases, what about political questions in general?

As is often the case in here during the course of our on-going discussions on this, that, or some other thing, a separate issue arises that deserves its own thread, and so it was yesterday, when our beloved and esteemed and highly-valued and highly-regarded moderator Arneoker raised these points above in another thread on Obama-nomics in America today and tomarrow ....

As someone who is older than Arneoker, I can say that I am actually AMAZED that Arneoker would be raising these points in here at this stage of his life, since where I am, this was stuff we talked about on the first day of kindergarten, which is a long way back for me, anyway ....

I think that if I talk to ten other Americans, I will get maybe thirty or forty different versions of American history ...

Talk to 100 Americans, and it increases exponentially up to maybe ten or twenty thousand different versions ....

And there is the root of a lot of our problems here in America today, according to an old Japanese gentleman I met back in the 1980's while participating as an engineer in a technology transfer with the Japanese firm that this older gentleman was associated with in Japan ....

Whether or not you like Japanese history, at least they only have one version of it .....

And as Arneoker's post at least intimates, we don't even have that ....

We seem to have right now, and a huge fog bank at our backs that makes it impossible for people to even see five minutes ago, let alone yesterday, or the day before ....

So we wallow in the swells like a ship without a rudder or propulsion ....

If you are clueless as to where you were a minute ago, how on earth can you have any idea at all as to where you are right now?

And if you don't know where you are right now, how can you hope to move "forwards"?

Which, of course, is merely my own value judgment here, as an older American ....

But that is a digression ....

The topic of this thread is as Arneoker stated it, then:

I think that we might consider the question as to whether Founding Fathers intended to criminalize politics, at least most of it.

And if they didn't, should we?

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 07:48 AM

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 08:37 AM)

I think that we might consider the question as to whether Founding Fathers intended to criminalize politics, at least most of it.

And if they didn't, should we?

And as a start in here, in immediate answer to Arneoker's second question, and this is something that Arneoker himself should know cold as a federal gummint employee, we, the people, through the U.S. Congress have moved to at least remove the influence of, if not actually "criminalize" politics in America, at the federal and local levels with the HATCH ACT, to wit:

Hatch Act for State and Local Employees

The Hatch Act applies to executive branch state and local employees who are principally employed in connection with programs financed in whole or in part by loans or grants made by the United States or a federal agency.

Employees who work for educational or research institutions which are supported in whole or in part by a State or political subdivision of the State are not covered by the provisions of the Hatch Act.

Employees of private nonprofit organizations are covered by the Hatch Act only if the statute through which the organization receives its federal funds contains language which states that the organization shall be considered to be a state or local agency for purposes of the Hatch Act, e.g., Headstart and Community Service Block Grant statutes.

An employee’s conduct is also subject to the laws of the state and the regulations of the employing agency.

Additionally, employees should be aware that the prohibitions of the Hatch Act are not affected by state or local laws.

Prohibited Activities

Covered state and local employees may not-

* be candidates for public office in a partisan election;

* use official authority or influence to interfere with or affect the results of an election or nomination;

* directly or indirectly coerce contributions from subordinates in support of a political party or candidate

Penalties for Violating the Hatch Act

If the Merit Systems Protection Board finds that the violation warrants dismissal from employment, the employing agency must either remove the employee or forfeit a portion of the federal assistance equal to two years salary of the employee. If the Board finds the violation does not warrant the employee's removal, no penalty is imposed.

Last Updated: 10/31/08

http://www.osc.gov/ha_state.htm

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 08:03 AM

Hatch Act of 1939

[From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Hatch Act of 1939 is a United States federal law whose main provision is to prohibit federal employees (civil servants) from engaging in partisan political activity.

Named after Senator Carl Hatch of New Mexico, the law was officially known as An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities.

The act precluded federal employees from membership in "any political organization which advocates the overthrow of our constitutional form of government."

During the Second Red Scare, this designation was interpreted to include communist and labor organizations.

Background

The Hatch Act grew into a general tradition of electoral reform.

In essence, it finally did away with the last vestiges of patronage, and one could say it was the end of the civil service reforms started in the 1880s.

But the most significant impetus, affecting both its timing and its content, was the widespread allegation that Works Progress Administration (WPA) funds had been misused by staff members and local Democratic Party politicians during the congressional elections of 1938.

Although criticism of WPA workers centered on Kentucky, Tennessee, and Maryland, the political clout of federal dollars nationwide in the midst of the depression was undeniable; even without malfeasance, programs like the WPA attracted votes.

Many Republicans, however, were convinced that WPA workers had gone farther, intimidating staff members, pressuring clients and using public funds for political purposes.

The Act was sponsored by Senator Hatch following disclosures that WPA officials were in fact using their positions to win votes for the Democratic Party, just as many had alleged.

Hatch, himself a Democrat, saw this as outright corruption which should not be tolerated under any circumstance by either political party, a feeling shared by most of his colleagues in the Senate.

Content

The original Act forbids intimidation or bribery of voters and restricted political campaign activities by federal employees.

It prohibits using any public funds designated for relief or public works for electoral purposes.

It also forbids officials paid with federal funds from using promises of jobs, promotion, financial assistance, contracts, or any other benefit to coerce campaign contributions or political support.

The most restrictive measure was brought about by Republicans in the Senate.

It dictates that persons below the policymaking level in the executive branch of the federal government must not only refrain from political practices that would be illegal for any citizen but must abstain from "any active part" in political campaigns.

An amendment on July 19, 1940 extended coverage to state and local employees whose salaries include any federal funds.

This amendment also set an annual ceiling of $3 million for political parties' campaign expenditures and $5,000 for individual campaign contributions.

Controversy

In 1947 and 1974, The Hatch Act was appealed to the Supreme Court; both times claiming it was a violation of free speech, and both times it was upheld.

A proposed amendment, which had the same argument in mind, to permit federal workers' participation in political campaigns passed the House but not the Senate in 1987; in 1990 a similar bill passed both houses but was vetoed by President George H. W. Bush, and the veto override failed in the House.

Section 7324 of The Hatch Act provides an exemption to the ban on political activities to:

(i) an employee paid from an appropriation for the Executive Office of the President; or

(ii) an employee appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, whose position is located within the United States, who determines policies to be pursued by the United States in the nationwide administration of Federal laws.

Recent Events

On November 18, 2008, Vanderburgh County, Indiana Commission President Jeff Korb filed an injunction against Steven Melcher, who defeated Korb in the November 4, 2008 general election, citing the Hatch Act.

Melcher is the facilities manager for the Community Action Program of Evansville (CAPE).

CAPE is an agency that adminsters Head Start, LIHEAP heating assistance and Section 8 housing assistance among other federally-funded programs in a three-county area of southwestern Indiana.

On October 6, 2008, federal investigators announced that they were investigating Sheriff Mike Scott of Lee County, Florida for possible violations of the Hatch Act.

The previous day, Sheriff Scott spoke, in uniform, on stage, at a rally for presidential candidate John McCain.

On May 6, 2008, FBI agents raided Scott Bloch's offices. NPR and the Wall Street Journal reported that the raids were in relation to an investigation into allegations of obstruction of justice by Bloch's office.

The New York Times reported that the investigation concerned whether Bloch had hired an outside company to "scrub" computer files to prevent an inquiry into whether he had violated the Hatch Act by mixing politics with his job, which is to shield whistleblowers.

In November 2007, Terre Haute, Indiana mayor Kevin Burke challenged the candidacy of then-mayor-elect Duke Bennett under provisions of the Act.

In November 2008, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled that Bennett, who took office after a Vigo County, Indiana judge ruled that he was eligible to serve, was ineligible under the terms of the Act.

The ruling is nonbinding, pending Bennett's appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court.

In June 2007, Lurita Alexis Doan, then Administrator of the U.S. General Services Administration, was found by the United States Office of Special Counsel (OSC) of violating the Hatch Act when she took part in a video conference with Karl Rove and other White House officials, and sent letters asking how to help Republican politicians get elected, and was accused by Special Counsel Scott Bloch of lying to deliberately mislead investigators.

In 2006, the Utah Democratic Party challenged the candidacy of Ogden City Police Chief Jon Greiner for State Senate.

The challenge was upheld by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel because the year prior the Ogden City Police Department received a federal grant to help pay for bullet proof vests.

Jon Greiner appealed the decision, remained on the ballot, and won election.

He now serves as a Utah State Senator while the results of the appeal are unknown.

On about July 29, 2004, the United States Office of Special Counsel (OSC) cited the Hatch Act while ordering NASA to remove photos of Senator John Kerry taken during his visit to the Kennedy Space Center.

The OSC later gave a press release stating that Kerry's visit did not violate the act.

In 1993 Congress amended the Hatch Act to allow Federal employees to take an active part in political campaigns for Federal offices.

Active Federal employees are able to participate in campaigns for President, Senate, and House of Representatives.

(Retirees, spouses, and family members are not bound by the Hatch Act.)

Extension to state and local workers

The Hatch Act also applies by extension to certain employees of state and local governments whose positions are primarily paid for by federal funds.

It has been interpreted, for instance, to bar employees of state agencies administering federal unemployment insurance programs, or appointed local law enforcement agency officials with oversight of federal grant funds, from political activity.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatch_Act_of_1939"

graham4anything

Feb 21 2009, 08:16 AM

best way to get rid of politics would be to get rid of Republicans, since everything they do is for political thought

(like that moron in Louisiana giving up any help for the people that once elected him, because he wants it not on his record)

Let's try and then hang all republican traitors, then it will be clean after that.

Put a little fear in them

No law says republicans gotta stay a party, ask the Whigs

rla

Feb 21 2009, 08:46 AM

I think this is an enlightened inquiry into a significant issue...I do think, however, that such an inquiry
needs to be within the larger context of how much to be influence by the presumed intent of the
author/s and how much to be influenced by Semantic Interpretation of the Historical Text, according
to current useage? Where one starts out on this issue is likely to influence where one ends up
on the Traditional vs Empirical dimension of the multivariate Political Dimension of Self-in-situation
adaptation...

TheRestofUs

Feb 21 2009, 09:54 AM

I think our Founding Fathers would go ballistic once they learned that after the Supreme Court ruled money is "Free Speech" (and picked Bush in Bush v Gore) we did not descend on the court en mass with torches and pitchforks and enough tar and feathers and rails as there were votes for it.

Once they calmed down (after beating Alexander Hamilton to a pulp for daring to voice his support for the rulings while unwisely standing among them) a quiet rage would prompt them to go on a media blitz loudly calling for the Court's Impeachment for at the very least gross incompetence.

jeffmoskin

Feb 21 2009, 12:17 PM

QUOTE(TheRestofUs @ Feb 21 2009, 07:54 AM)

Actually, the FFs didn't really have a set idea for the Supremes. They sort of defined their own job in Marbury vs Madison.

believe_it

Feb 21 2009, 12:23 PM

QUOTE(TheRestofUs @ Feb 21 2009, 10:54 AM)

I think our Founding Fathers would go ballistic once they learned that after the Supreme Court ruled...

QUOTE

http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/m...2000_4_20.shtml

July/August 2000
Since When Can You Patent a Gene?
And why is it not really so different from patenting anything else?
BY FREDERICK E. ALLEN

By the time you read this, the race to decode the entire human genome—transcribing the DNA that makes us what we are—will be over. The race has been a two-way contest between the Human Genome Project, a public consortium coordinated by the U.S. government, and the Celera Corporation, a private business, and its finish will complete one of the great breakthroughs in human scientific knowledge. As the race has progressed, hundreds of patents have been awarded, and thousands more applied for, on human genes, the essential units of information in the genome.

How can this be? How did we get from a patent as protection for an invention like a cotton gin or a steam engine to a patent as ownership, in effect, of the basic chemicals that keep us alive? You must know the answer to that question to understand the controversies over the patenting of genes.

The story begins with the Constitution, in which the framers gave Congress the right “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” That meant trademarks and patents respectively. Of the three longstanding basic criteria for patentability —that an invention must be new, useful, and nonobvious—the first two go back to those beginning years.

Just how new an invention had to be took a long time to be settled. In 1850 the Supreme Court threw out a patent on a doorknob made of porcelain rather than wood, arguing that although the idea was clearly new, it lacked “that level of skill and ingenuity which constitute an essential element of every invention.” It would have seemed undeniable, then, that you couldn’t patent a product of nature, which depends on no human ingenuity. Indeed, this was confirmed in 1928, when an appeals court rejected General Electric’s attempt to patent tungsten, for that very reason.

In fact, for a long time the demand for novelty kept getting stricter. In 1880 Supreme Court Justice Noah Swayne ruled that a patentable invention must involve a “flash of genius,” a standard that long held, even though no one knew exactly what it meant. In 1950 Justice William Douglas, ruling on a supermarket checkout device, set the bar almost impossibly high. He wrote that a patent must “push back the frontiers of chemistry, physics, and the like.…The Constitution never sanctioned the patenting of gadgets.” That would have surprised anyone who had spent time among all the old patent models at the Smithsonian.

A new patent law in 1952 helped clear the air Douglas had clouded, introducing the concept of nonobviousness. Since then, an invention has had to be not only new in the most basic sense but also not “obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art.” This has led examiners to think in terms of a hypothetical Mr. Phosita, for “person having ordinary.…” Would he have thought of the thing? If so, it can’t get a patent.

Over the years the realm of what gets invented has broadened enormously. At first inventions were mostly mechanical; the idea of patenting living things first took hold when the Plant Patent Act of 1930 was passed, permitting commercial monopolies on new asexually reproduced varieties, and was reinforced by the Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970, extending protection to sexually reproduced plants as well. But these were a new, limited kind of patent that said nothing about invention, unlike the traditional “utility” patent of the sort that covered the light bulb, the telephone, and now the gene.

On the road to patenting genes, the big turning point was a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, Diamond v. Chakrabarty, in 1980, interpreting the patent law of 1952. The Patent Office does not set policy; it administers policies decreed by Congress, and as in so many other areas of life, Congress is often vague, evasive, or behind the times, leaving the courts to step in and decide how the law applies.

Chakrabarty was a microbiologist for General Electric who developed a new hybridized bacterium that would eat petroleum, to clean up oil spills. The Patent Office refused to give it a patent; as John Doll, the office’s director of biotechnology, puts it, “We were under the impression that life isn’t patentable.” Chakrabarty appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. In a five-to-four decision, the Court ordered that the patent be issued.

The Patent Act of 1793, written by Thomas Jefferson, had authorized a patent for “any new and useful art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new or useful improvement [thereof]” the current 1952 law kept the exact same wording except for the change of “art” to “process.” Chief Justice Burger, in his majority opinion, held that the bacterium was clearly a new, manufactured composition of matter and not anything that existed in nature. As for the argument that Congress had never foreseen the patenting of genetic technology, he replied that Congress had never foreseen any invention—and couldn’t, since inventions must be new.

The Court arrived at its decision right when genetic technology was starting to speed way up. When a patent for a much more complex organism was applied for, the Patent Office again balked, rejecting a genetically engineered oyster—“a higher level life form, a bunch of steps down the road from Chakrabarty’s bacterium,” as Doll says. The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences threw out that rejection in 1987, largely on the basis of Chakrabarty. The Patent Office was then forced to issue a statement that it “now considers nonnaturally occurring nonhuman multicellular living organisms, including animals, to be patentable subject matter.”

The implications were confirmed the next year, when a patent for a mammal was granted, for the Harvard Mouse, an unhappy rodent altered to contain a human cancer-causing gene. And if a whole mammal was patentable, then a part of one must be too. So the only thing preventing genes from being patented was the requirement that they be new, useful, and nonobvious.

That first necessity might sound impossible, but what gets patented as a gene actually has enormous differences from what’s in your body. Most of the genome, which cannot itself be patented, is white noise or instructions for using genes; a patented gene has had all that extraneous material meticulously winnowed out and has been reassembled and made artificially in a lab. As Doll explains it, “a gene or a gene fragment in nature is part of a very large organic polymer. Man has reached in and taken one small piece, isolated it, and purified it, and at this point it’s a compound not much different from an unorganic polymer.” It is now clearly something new that does not exist in the same form in nature.

What about usefulness? “The burden is on the Patent Office to find non-utility,” Doll says. “You get a patent unless we can tell you why you don’t deserve one, why it doesn’t meet a statutory requirement.” The Patent Office applies three criteria for usefulness: First, the utility must be specific, not shared by many other things of the same class—that is, you must know what a gene does that others don’t do. Second, it must also be substantial. As Doll says, “You can’t say you’re going to make a protein for dog food from the DNA.” Third, the use must be credible. “If you claim you’ve got a cure for AIDS,” Doll says, “we won’t accept that without a certain amount of evidence, given the state of the prior art.”

Before 1980, at the Patent Office, “We were under the impression that life isn’t patentable.”
As for nonobviousness, the Patent Office looks to Mr. Phosita, as with any patent. Among other things, this means that you can get a new patent on an already patented gene if you find a use for it that wasn’t obvious before—just as a new patent was granted for Minoxidil when someone discovered that it could not only lower blood pressure but also make hair grow.

If the history of patent law makes clear why people can patent genes, that still leaves two unsettling questions: Isn’t it morally wrong to, as the activist Jeremy Rifkin put it, “convert the genetic blueprints of millions of years of evolution to privately held intellectual property”? And isn’t it wrong to monopolize any information so medically invaluable?

The first question is the far simpler of the two. If you grant that what is being patented is not what exists in nature, and that by being extracted and purified and manufactured it is made medically useful for the very first time, then it is a medical development as original and valuable as any, and its pursuit is as worthy of the encouragement of the patent system as any.

The problem of having such precious information monopolized is more difficult, but it’s also as old as the patent system itself. After all, the whole idea of the system is to make a tradeoff. The recipient gets the right to prevent other people from using his or her invention for twenty years; society gets all the details of the invention, as laid out in the patent itself, and gets the increased number of inventions that people produce knowing they have a chance to profit from them. In the long term, patents have been a great spur to invention—just as the hope for temporary monopolies has been a big spur to the speedy decoding of the genome. But the price is paid in the short term, and always has been.

Back in July 1788, soon after the Constitution was ratified, one Founding Father found that price entirely too high. “The benefit even of limited monopolies is too doubtful to be opposed to that of their general suppression,” Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison. But he came around. Two years later, as Secretary of State, he was one of the nation’s three first patent examiners.

QUOTE

http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstrya594.html?recid=540
International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA) analysis of Supreme Court decision in patent case

(Dec. 19, 2001 – CropChoice news) – The following is an analysis of last week’s Supreme Court decision in the case of PIONEER HI-BRED INTERNATIONAL v. J.E.M. AG SUPPLY, FARM ADVANTAGE, et al. 534 U.S. (2001)...

QUOTE

http://www.politicalfriendster.com/showCon...75&id2=1308
On December 10, 2001, by a vote of 6-2 the Supreme Court upheld the viability of the Pioneer Hi-Bred seed patents. Justice Thomas wrote the majority opinion joined by Rehnquist, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter and Ginsburg. Scalia wrote a brief concurrence. Justice Breyer wrote a dissenting opinion joined by Stevens. Justice OÕConnor recused herself...
Prior to being on the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas was a Monsanto lawyer. (Should Anita Hill really have been the flashpoint of his confirmation hearings?)

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/dec/11/business/fi-13601
Tuesday, December 11, 2001
Patent Ruling Aids Seed Biotech Firms
By Melinda Fulmer
(in print edition C-3)

In a victory for companies that develop genetically modified plants, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that seeds and seed-grown plants can be patented. The 6-2 ruling, which upheld a court of appeals decision, strengthens the intellectual property rights of the nation’s largest seed biotechnology companies. If these protections had been struck down, companies such as DuPont, Monsanto Co. and Sygenta would have seen hundreds of patents invalidated or restricted, giving other companies and farmers access to their technology without having to pay for it.

“We have spent hundreds of millions, if not billions, to bring forth our products, some biotech solutions, some not,” said Monsanto spokeswoman Lori Fisher. The court “clearly wanted to protect the rights of investors.”

With biotechnology advancing at a rapid pace, the ruling sends a signal that the nation’s highest court is taking a tough stance on intellectual property rights in every industry, said analyst Donald Carlson of J.P. Morgan.

The U.S. Patent Office has granted patents to plants for 16 years. To date, more than 1,800 patents have been issued for plants and plant parts.

J.E.M. Ag Supply, an Iowa seed firm, brought the legal challenge after it was sued for patent infringement by DuPont’s Pioneer Hi-Bred unit for reselling 17 patented varieties of its corn. J.E.M. had argued that because hybrids are not mentioned in the Plant Protection Act, these products are regulated by the Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970, a less restrictive certificate program administered by the Department of Agriculture. Putting regulation under that program would have hurt biotech companies because it would not have allowed Pioneer and other seed companies to collect licensing fees for seeds used in research or for seeds that farmers collected from their fields and replanted.

Justices struck down J.E.M.’s argument, saying that because seed-grown plants qualify for the less-restrictive USDA certificate program doesn’t mean they can’t be patented.

“Denying patent protection simply because such coverage was thought technologically infeasible in the 1930s, however, would be inconsistent with the forward-looking perspective of the utility patent statute,” said Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the court’s majority.

But critics say the ruling perpetuates a system that slows the pace and diversity of research and punishes farmers by driving up costs.

But biotechnology proponents claim that protecting the profits of these firms ensures that new, more efficient varieties of plants will keep coming to market.

“Intellectual property rights are every bit as important to the seed industry as they are to the software industry,” said analyst Donald Carlson of J.P. Morgan in New York. “If your competitor can quickly [come out with a new product] by stealing your germ plasm, your advantage in the marketplace is substantially diminished."

QUOTE

http://www.calt.iastate.edu/soybean.html
U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Hear Soybean Patent Case
- by Roger McEowen

On January 7, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case involving Monsanto’s dispute with a farmer over the famer’s use of Monsanto’s patented Roundup Ready soybean seed. Contrary to press reports and Monsanto’s own statements concerning the case, the court did not rule in Monsanto’s favor – they simply refused to hear the appeal. The Supreme Court did not validate Monsanto’s position taken in the case.

The facts of the case involved a farmer, Homan McFarling, who purchased and planted Monsanto’s patented ROUNDUP READY ® soybeans in 1997 and 1998. He signed Monsanto’s technology agreement that limited the use of the seeds to “planting a commercial crop only in a single season,” directed him not to “save any crop produced from this seed for replanting, or supply saved seeds to anyone for replanting,” and provided for liquidated damages. He saved some of the seeds from his first harvest and replanted them the next growing season. Monsanto sued for breach of contract and patent infringement.

At the trial court level, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri entered summary judgment against McFarling, and in favor of Monsanto on some, but not all, of the claims being litigated. The trial court held that, when McFarling replanted some of soybeans that he had saved from his prior year's crop, he breached the technology agreement that he had signed as a condition of his purchase of the patented seeds. The trial court also held that McFarling had failed to demonstrate a genuine issue of material fact that prevented entry of summary judgment on any of his counterclaims or his defenses to Monsanto's breach-of-contract claim. Finally, the district court held that a liquidated damages provision in the technology agreement was valid and enforceable under Missouri law and entered a judgment in the amount of $780,000.00.

McFarling appealed to the Federal Circuit on several of his counterclaims and defenses, as well as its ruling on the contractual damages provision. The court affirmed on the counterclaims and defenses, but vacated the district court's judgment as it related to the damages provision (the court said the provision was an unenforceable and invalid penalty clause) and sent the case back to the trial court for a determination of Monsanto's actual damages. Under the damages provision in the technology agreement, McFarling would have had to pay 120 times the applicable technology fee per bag of seed (amounting to a total of $780,000 based on a per bag technology fee of $6.50 per bag). Monsanto tried to get the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case and overturn the appellate court’s ruling on the contractual damages issue, but the Supreme Court declined to take the case in 2005.

Of particular importance before the appellate court was McFarling's defense that Monsanto committed patent misuse (patent misuse is an affirmative defense to a suit for patent infringement or for royalties due under a patent licensing agreement). McFarling claimed that Monsanto had impermissibly tied an unpatented product to a patented product. Specifically, McFarling claimed that, "by prohibiting seed-saving, Monsanto has extended its patent on the gene technology to include an unpatented product--the germplasm--or God-made soybean seed which is not within the terms of the patent." McFarling was particularly disturbed that the license controlled what he could do with second-generation seeds--the seeds that he "made" using the seeds that he acquired under the license.

The issue had never previously been addressed by the Federal Circuit. So it was unclear how the court would rule in such a situation where there were restrictions placed on goods made by, yet not incorporating, the licensed good under the patent misuse doctrine. The court noted that the Technology Agreement presented a unique set of facts, and involved a situation where licensing restrictions on the use of goods produced by the licensed product could be beyond the scope of the patent grant at issue. However, the court also noted that the licensed and patented product (the first-generation seeds) and the good made by the licensed product (the second-generation seeds) were nearly identical copies. Thus, the court explained that they must presume that Monsanto's patent applies to the first-generation seeds, and also applies to the second-generation seeds. Because the patent would apply to all generations of soybeans produced, the court held that the restrictions in the Technology Agreement prohibiting the replanting of the second generation of ROUNDUP READY ® soybeans did not impermissibly extend Monsanto's rights under U.S. patent law.

That’s the issue that the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review. Further litigation in different cases can likely be expected on the matter. Monsanto Co. v. McFarling, 488 F.3d 973 (Fed. Cir. 2007), cert. den., No. 07-241, 2008 U.S. LEXIS 73 (U.S. Jan. 7, 2008).

believe_it

Feb 21 2009, 12:35 PM

How can Thomas not be required to recuse himself from biotech patent cases? And what's next?

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Huma...i/patents.shtml
Genetics and Patenting
HUMAN GENOME PATENTING INFORMATION

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 01:09 PM

QUOTE(rla @ Feb 21 2009, 09:46 AM)

I think this is an enlightened inquiry into a significant issue...

I do think, however, that such an inquiry needs to be within the larger context of how much to be influence by the presumed intent of the author/s and how much to be influenced by Semantic Interpretation of the Historical Text, according to current useage?

Where one starts out on this issue is likely to influence where one ends up on the Traditional vs Empirical dimension of the multivariate Political Dimension of Self-in-situation adaptation...

The first question, rla, is WHO were the "founding fathers"?

Everyone treats that question AS IF it was just a handful of Americans back then, who were actually British citizens at the time ....

I personally think, although I myself use the term, that the term is really a MISNOMER, since it was THE PEOPLE at large themselves who ratified these decisions ....

The ones treated as the founding fathers were simply representatives of THE PEOPLE AT LARGE ....

The question in this thread is really a simple one:

WHETHER OR NOT THE FOUNDING FATHERS WANTED AMERICAN CORRUPTION TO REPLACE FOREIGN CORRUPTION IN GOVERNMENT BACK THEN, ARE WE MODERN AMERICAN CITIZENS STUCK WITH IT?

billfmsd

Feb 21 2009, 01:12 PM

I don't understand what it would mean to criminalize politics. I see politics as a necessary evil. Science and Religion may be alternatives to politics. But you can never get everyone to completely agree on everything. That's where politics comes in.

billfmsd

Feb 21 2009, 01:22 PM

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 02:09 PM)

WHETHER OR NOT THE FOUNDING FATHERS WANTED AMERICAN CORRUPTION TO REPLACE FOREIGN CORRUPTION IN GOVERNMENT BACK THEN, ARE WE MODERN AMERICAN CITIZENS STUCK WITH IT?

We are stuck with both foreign and domestic corruption. I would add that we are stuck with personal, interpersonal, and intrapersonal corruption as well. And ever since the first man decided that it was a good idea to put faith in systems, we've added have algorithmic corruption, what I call artificial intelligence. Oh, and let's not forget linguistic corruption.

The founding fathers knew that they just couldn't foresee the kind of problems that the future world would face. That's why they allowed for the constitution to be amended, making it a living document.

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 01:25 PM

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 02:12 PM)

I don't understand what it would mean to criminalize politics.

Well, I have to admit to questions in that regard myself, for the reason that the word "politics" has several different meanings, many or all of which have existed for better than 2,000 years, since Roman politics and our politics are not all that much different, if at all ....

There is a book entitled The Last Generation Of The Roman Republic by Erich S. Gruen, and it would really make a good companion textbook to this particular thread, as it gets into the various laws the Romans had to limit corruption by their own elected officials ....

They also had laws concerning election fraud and bribery of the electorate, and such, and when you read that book, you find that the Roman people were not tolerant of corrupt public officials, or lawyers ...

Soooo ....

ARE WE AMERICAN PEOPLE SOMEHOW FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT THAN THE ROMANS?

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 01:33 PM

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 02:22 PM)

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 02:09 PM)

WHETHER OR NOT THE FOUNDING FATHERS WANTED AMERICAN CORRUPTION TO REPLACE FOREIGN CORRUPTION IN GOVERNMENT BACK THEN, ARE WE MODERN AMERICAN CITIZENS STUCK WITH IT?

We are stuck with both foreign and domestic corruption.

Actually, we ARE NOT stuck with domestic corruption ....

Not if we are in fact a nation of laws ....

And foreign corruption is beyond the scope and intent of this thread ....

OR ....

You well could say that BECAUSE of persistent foreign corruption, there is an independent United States of America today ....

If we were for foreign corruption, then we could just as well have stayed colonies of Great Britain, and our wish would have been fulfilled simply by doing nothing ...

But obviously, the people back then decided that doing nothing was just not an acceptable choice for them to make ....

So they rebelled ....

BUT ....

WHAT EXACTLY DID THEY REBEL AGAINST?

FOREIGN CONTROL OF GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION IN AMERICA?

OR CORRUPTION IN GOVERNMENT, ITSELF?

And so ...

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 01:35 PM

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 02:22 PM)

The founding fathers knew that they just couldn't foresee the kind of problems that the future world would face.

There are NO founding fathers of America ....

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 01:38 PM

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 02:35 PM)

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 02:22 PM)

The founding fathers knew that they just couldn't foresee the kind of problems that the future world would face.

There are NO founding fathers of America ....

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.html

billfmsd

Feb 21 2009, 01:40 PM

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 02:25 PM)

I think what you are calling "politics" in that context is what we now call "special interests." Politics is currently most accepted as meaning "the art of compromise."

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 02:25 PM)

ARE WE AMERICAN PEOPLE SOMEHOW FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT THAN THE ROMANS?

Yes in that we strive not to be imperial.

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 01:40 PM

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 02:22 PM)

The founding fathers knew that they just couldn't foresee the kind of problems that the future world would face.

And this thread has nothing to do with whether or not the people back then had presicent vision or not, as to what the future might bring ....

The topic deals with CORRUPTION in our government ....

OR IS IT REALLY OURS?

Perhaps that is the FIRST IMPORTANT QUESTION to answer in here ....

And so ..

billfmsd

Feb 21 2009, 01:44 PM

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 02:33 PM)

WHAT EXACTLY DID THEY REBEL AGAINST?

FOREIGN CONTROL OF GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION IN AMERICA?

OR CORRUPTION IN GOVERNMENT, ITSELF?

They rebelled against both. They fought against both the enemy abroad and the potential for the enemy within. They won the first battle in 1812 and lost the second battle in 1913.

billfmsd

Feb 21 2009, 01:47 PM

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 02:35 PM)

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 02:22 PM)

The founding fathers knew that they just couldn't foresee the kind of problems that the future world would face.

There are NO founding fathers of America ....

If you are counting those who approved the constitution, then there are more founding fathers than the ones we commonly recognize. But I wouldn't say that there were no founding fathers.

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 01:47 PM

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 02:40 PM)

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 02:25 PM)

ARE WE AMERICAN PEOPLE SOMEHOW FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT THAN THE ROMANS?

Yes in that we strive not to be imperial.

The people of the Roman Republic also stove to not be imperial ....

They lost that struggle ...

AND THE TOPIC IS NOT WITH RESPECT TO IMPERIALISM, WHICH IS AN EXTERNAL POLICY!

THE TOPIC IN HERE IS ONE THAT IS TOTALLY INTERNAL TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TODAY ....

DO WE WANT TO BE GOVERNED BY A CORRUPT GOVERNMENT?

YES?

OR NO?

Or isn't there really such a thing, in the first place?

billfmsd

Feb 21 2009, 01:51 PM

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 02:40 PM)

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 02:22 PM)

The founding fathers knew that they just couldn't foresee the kind of problems that the future world would face.

The kind of corruption is the problems that they couldn't foresee.

It is our government, but most of us choose not to involve ourselves in running it.

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 01:53 PM

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 02:47 PM)

AND THE TOPIC IS NOT WITH RESPECT TO IMPERIALISM, WHICH IS AN EXTERNAL POLICY!

THE TOPIC IN HERE IS ONE THAT IS TOTALLY INTERNAL TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TODAY ....

DO WE WANT TO BE GOVERNED BY A CORRUPT GOVERNMENT?

YES?

OR NO?

Or isn't there really such a thing, in the first place?

BUT OF COURSE THERE IS SUCH A THING .....

Or at least there was back when the Declaration of Independence of the 13 "united states" was signed back in 1776, when these word were written therein:

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance ....

Soooo .....

Once again, what were they objecting to with these words?

IF IT HAD BEEN FELLOW AMERICANS HOLDING THESE OFFICES, INSTEAD OF THE KING'S MEN, WOULD IT THEN HAVE BEEN ACCEPTABLE FOR THESE AMERICANS TO HARASS OTHER AMERICANS AND EAT OUT THEIR SUBSTANCE?

IS IT ACCEPTABLE TODAY?

And so ...

billfmsd

Feb 21 2009, 01:58 PM

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 02:47 PM)

THE TOPIC IN HERE IS ONE THAT IS TOTALLY INTERNAL TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TODAY ....

DO WE WANT TO BE GOVERNED BY A CORRUPT GOVERNMENT?

YES?

OR NO?

Or isn't there really such a thing, in the first place?

Yes there is such a thing. And I doubt anyone wants to be governed by a corrupt government. We just can't all agree on what is corruption. Corruption is relative to motives. Are motives aren't all the same. Therefore one mans corruption is another mans special interest or representation.

billfmsd

Feb 21 2009, 02:01 PM

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 02:53 PM)

IF IT HAD BEEN FELLOW AMERICANS HOLDING THESE OFFICES, INSTEAD OF THE KING'S MEN, WOULD IT THEN HAVE BEEN ACCEPTABLE FOR THESE AMERICANS TO HARASS OTHER AMERICANS AND EAT OUT THEIR SUBSTANCE?

IS IT ACCEPTABLE TODAY?

And so ...

The key word is "harassment." Nobody finds harassment acceptable. The trick is getting everyone to agree on what is harassment. One man's harassment is another man's self-defense or law enforcement.

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 02:10 PM

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 02:51 PM)

The kind of corruption is the problems that they couldn't foresee.

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 02:53 PM)

BUT OF COURSE THERE IS SUCH A THING .....

Or at least there was back when the Declaration of Independence of the 13 "united states" was signed back in 1776, when these word were written therein:

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance ....

Soooo .....

Once again, what were they objecting to with these words?

IF IT HAD BEEN FELLOW AMERICANS HOLDING THESE OFFICES, INSTEAD OF THE KING'S MEN, WOULD IT THEN HAVE BEEN ACCEPTABLE FOR THESE AMERICANS TO HARASS OTHER AMERICANS AND EAT OUT THEIR SUBSTANCE?

IS IT ACCEPTABLE TODAY?

And so ...

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 24 2007, 03:56 PM)

CORNBURY

Viscount Cornbury was the son of Henry Hyde, the second Earl of Clarendon.

Because Cornbury often overindulged in his lavish tastes, he overspent a considerable amount of his income and found himself being pursued by numerous creditors.

In an attempt to escape from his problems, Cornbury fled to the colonies with Queen Anne's blessing.

Immediately upon his arrival in New York in 1701, Anne appointed Cornbury as governor of New York.

Only one year later, in 1702, the Queen added the title of governor of New Jersey to Cornbury's list of duties.

The populace of both New York and New Jersey would learn that Cornbury was not a fit governor, as he was unruly and for the most part indifferent to the needs of the people.

When he first arrived in New Jersey in 1703 the colony was rife with factional and political tension.

In what had earlier been a proprietorship of East and West Jersey, a group of political parties sought Hyde's favor as they fought with each other over such things as land, money, power and religion.

Cornbury was indifferent to these issues, but he saw the possibility for personal gain, hence his poor reputation began.

Hyde gathered a group of politicians who shared his political sentiments, and they called themselves the "Cornbury Ring."

Instead of simply allying himself with an existing faction, he created the Cornbury Ring.

It engaged in such corrupt activities as grabbing land and looting public funds.

Hyde and the Ring had an especially large grievance with the Quaker population, which dominated West Jersey politics.

The Ring tried to disenfranchise the Quakers, attempting to seize control of the assembly.

These unlawful tactics which Hyde resorted to were not successful, and the Cornbury Ring failed to control the assembly.

The Ring passed a number of bills that were designed to enhance Hyde's fortunes, both financially and politically.

It pushed through a militia bill that included a fine on all those who refused to serve and allowed militia officers to levy taxes for the support of their forces.

This severely hurt the Quakers, whose property was confiscated by the militia when they refused to pay.

While this was a direct blow to the Quakers, the Cornbury Ring greatly benefited from the practice, gaining 1,000 pounds a year.

Looking at Viscount Cornbury's governorship in New York, it is apparent that he was equally as corrupt as he was in his New Jersey legislation.

In New York, Hyde allied himself with the Anti-Leislerian party to secure gifts and a revenue.

He twice dismissed uncooperative assemblies, who were largely uncooperative because of his impossible demands.

And he even embezzled a large part of the money raised for the defense of the colony during Queen Anne's War.

An example of his unfair reign as governor of New York is when Hyde illegally seized a Presbyterian parsonage and a church in Jamaica, New York.

He unjustly prosecuted the minister, Francis Makemie, for preaching without a license.

This type of political tyranny, religious oppression, graft and theft were only the beginning of his soiled reputation.

This image was not one that the colony of either New York or New Jersey wanted to portray, and in 1707 an effort began to oust Hyde.

The New Jersey assembly acted first, opening up an investigation of Hyde's conduct and drawing up a list of grievances.

The assembly sent a copy of this list to the Board of Trade, asking the body to "relieve them from the oppressions they groan under by the arbitrary and illegal practices of his excellency."

New York followed suit in 1708, unanimously adopting resolutions condemning Cornbury's illegal activities in the colony.

This double whammy perturbed Queen Anne, who dismissed Hyde of his duties in December of 1708, saying, "his near relation to [her] should not protect him in oppressing [her] subjects."

Upon his dismissal, Cornbury was arrested by the sheriff of New York for his debt.

He stayed in a New York jail until the death of his father, when his inheritance enabled him to pay his debts and return to England.

At the time of his death in 1723, Cornbury had become a symbol of despotism in America.

http://cuhistory3057.tripod.com/hyde/id1.html

A study of the history of those times argues against that conclusion, billfmsd ...

By the time of the American revolution, I don't think that there was any kind of corruption or perversion of office that those people back then were not aware of ...

As is evidenced by this story of LORD CORNBURY above here ....

Which is a part of the history leading up to the American Revolution ...

And so ...

billfmsd

Feb 21 2009, 02:14 PM

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 03:10 PM)

By the time of the American revolution, I don't think that there was any kind of corruption or perversion of office that those people back then were not aware of ...

Being aware of it and being able to prevent it are two different things.

They made a nice attempt. But I think their plan for checks and balances was missing a few departments.

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 02:15 PM

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 03:01 PM)

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 02:53 PM)

The key word is "harassment."

Nobody finds harassment acceptable.

The trick is getting everyone to agree on what is harassment.

One man's harassment is another man's self-defense.

billfmsd ....

You are trying to take this thread everywhere but on topic ....

WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOVERNMENT IN AMERICA AND US, THE ALLEGED CITIZENS OF THIS NATION ...

How does government harassment of its citizens turn into SELF-DEFENSE?

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 02:17 PM

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 03:14 PM)

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 03:10 PM)

By the time of the American revolution, I don't think that there was any kind of corruption or perversion of office that those people back then were not aware of ...

Being aware of it and being able to prevent it are two different things.

They made a nice attempt.

But I think their plan for checks and balances was missing a few departments.

Now, perhaps we are moving in a more forward direction in here ....

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 02:19 PM

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 02:58 PM)

Therefore one mans corruption is another mans special interest or representation.

And there is right where we are in America today ...

Sooo ....

Are we just stuck here then, like a boat on a reef?

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 02:23 PM

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 02:25 PM)

ARE WE AMERICAN PEOPLE SOMEHOW FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT THAN THE ROMANS?

The jurist Sextus Pomponius said, "At the beginning of our city, the people began their first activities without any fixed law and without any fixed rights: all things were ruled despotically by kings".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Law

billfmsd

Feb 21 2009, 02:32 PM

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 03:15 PM)

How does government harassment of its citizens turn into SELF-DEFENSE?

I'm not saying that government harassment turns into self-defense. It's the other way around. Self defense can turn into harassment or be perceived as harassment.

billfmsd

Feb 21 2009, 02:34 PM

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 03:19 PM)

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 02:58 PM)

Therefore one mans corruption is another mans special interest or representation.

And there is right where we are in America today ...

Sooo ....

Are we just stuck here then, like a boat on a reef?

More like a rip current of partisanship.

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 02:37 PM

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 03:23 PM)

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 02:25 PM)

ARE WE AMERICAN PEOPLE SOMEHOW FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT THAN THE ROMANS?

ROMAN LAW

Public law

The Roman Republic's constitution or mos maiorum ("custom of the ancestors") was an unwritten set of guidelines and principles passed down mainly through precedent.

Concepts that originated in the Roman constitution live on in constitutions to this day.

Examples include checks and balances, the separation of powers, vetoes, filibusters, quorum requirements, term limits, impeachments, the powers of the purse, and regularly scheduled elections.

Even some lesser used modern constitutional concepts, such as the block voting found in the electoral college of the United States, originate from ideas found in the Roman constitution.

The constitution of the Roman Republic was not formal or even official.

Its constitution was largely unwritten, and was constantly evolving throughout the life of the republic.

Throughout the 1st century BC, the power and legitimacy of the Roman constitution was progressively eroding.

Even Roman constitutionalists, such as the senator Cicero, lost a willingness to remain faithful to it towards the end of the republic.

When the Roman Republic ultimately fell in the years following the Battle of Actium and Mark Antony's suicide, what was left of the Roman constitution died along with the republic.

The first Roman Emperor, Augustus, attempted to manufacture the appearance of a constitution that still governed the empire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Law

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 02:39 PM

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 03:34 PM)

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 03:19 PM)

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 02:58 PM)

Therefore one mans corruption is another mans special interest or representation.

And there is right where we are in America today ...

Sooo ....

Are we just stuck here then, like a boat on a reef?

More like a rip current of partisanship.

That is too abstruse to grasp ...

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 02:44 PM

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 03:32 PM)

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 03:15 PM)

How does government harassment of its citizens turn into SELF-DEFENSE?

I'm not saying that government harassment turns into self-defense.

It's the other way around.

Self defense can turn into harassment or be perceived as harassment.

You are saying that the citizen's self-defense against a corrupt government is or can be construed by that corrupt government as HARASSMENT?

In CORRUPT New York State, if you keep calling a public official who refuses to deal with you, you can and most likely will be arrested and tried and likely convicted of AGGRAVATED HARASSMENT ....

It is a favorite WEAPON against its citizens of CORRUPT government up here, anyway ....

And so ...

billfmsd

Feb 21 2009, 02:44 PM

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 03:39 PM)

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 03:34 PM)

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 03:19 PM)

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 02:58 PM)

Therefore one mans corruption is another mans special interest or representation.

And there is right where we are in America today ...

Sooo ....

Are we just stuck here then, like a boat on a reef?

More like a rip current of partisanship.

That is too abstruse to grasp ...

It's not that we are just stalled or being tossed about. Rip currents are currents that take you out to sea when you are trying to swim or sail back to shore. In other words, our partisanship is taking us all places were neither side wants to go. And we are all in the same boat.

billfmsd

Feb 21 2009, 02:52 PM

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 03:44 PM)

You are saying that the citizen's self-defense against a corrupt government is or can be construed by that corrupt government as HARASSMENT?

That dynamic could be understood (or misunderstood) either way, government official/organization to citizen/private organization, citizen/private organization to government official/organization, or citizen/private organization to citizen/private organization.

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 03:44 PM)

In CORRUPT New York State, if you keep calling a public official who refuses to deal with you, you can and most likely will be arrested and tried and likely convicted of AGGRAVATED HARASSMENT ....

It is a favorite WEAPON against its citizens of CORRUPT government up here, anyway ....

And so ...

That would be an example of citizen/private organization to government official/organization. It could be interpreted as self-defense or harassment, depending on who's judging.

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 02:54 PM

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 02:47 PM)

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 02:35 PM)

There are NO founding fathers of America ....

If you are counting those who approved the constitution, then there are more founding fathers than the ones we commonly recognize.

But I wouldn't say that there were no founding fathers.

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 02:38 PM)

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.html

You seem to assume that the United States of America begin in 1787, or 1789, or 1790 ....

As is incandescently clear from the above language from the 1776 Declaration of Independence, however, the "united states" of America already existed as political entities in 1776 ....

If there are "founding fathers" of America, it is the MEN AND WOMEN of those times, in toto ....

Not some handful who eleven years later met in Philadelphia to hammer out a new system of government for the "united states" ....

And so ...

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 02:57 PM

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 03:52 PM)

It could be interpreted as self-defense or harassment, depending on who's judging.

Up here, it would be a political judge who was judging, and a political person who was prosecuting ....

To them, the fact that you were charged is evidence enough of your guilt ....

And so you would be - GUILTY!

NEXT CASE!

And so ...

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 03:01 PM

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 03:52 PM)

billfmsd ....

To bring this back down to a more comprehensible level for me, anyway, are you stating or implying that in the United States of America, the "government" is somehow separate from us, the body of citizens of this nation, ALLEGEDLY?

There is the government over there ....

There is us over here ....

And in between is a chasm or gulf that we citizens cannot cross?

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 03:08 PM

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 03:44 PM)

It's not that we are just stalled or being tossed about.

Rip currents are currents that take you out to sea when you are trying to swim or sail back to shore.

In other words, our partisanship is taking us all places were neither side wants to go.

And we are all in the same boat.

Okay ....

That is well said ...

And plain-spoken ...

BUT .....

You say "our partisanship" and "neither side" .....

Wouldn't it be more correct to say "partisanship in America", as opposed to "our partisanship"?

What about those of us here who are NOT on either of those two sides?

I'm not partisan to the republicans and I'll be damned if I am going to be partisan to the democrats ....

If I am partisan to anything, at all, it is our unique history as a nation, our written system of laws, and our state and federal constitutions ...

Not some political party, or other ....

And so ...

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 03:30 PM

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 02:44 PM)

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 02:33 PM)

WHAT EXACTLY DID THEY REBEL AGAINST?

FOREIGN CONTROL OF GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION IN AMERICA?

OR CORRUPTION IN GOVERNMENT, ITSELF?

They rebelled against both.

They fought against both the enemy abroad and the potential for the enemy within.

They won the first battle in 1812 and lost the second battle in 1913.

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 02:53 PM)

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance ....

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 24 2007, 03:56 PM)

CORNBURY

The New Jersey assembly acted first, opening up an investigation of Hyde's conduct and drawing up a list of grievances.

The assembly sent a copy of this list to the Board of Trade, asking the body to "relieve them from the oppressions they groan under by the arbitrary and illegal practices of his excellency."

New York followed suit in 1708, unanimously adopting resolutions condemning Cornbury's illegal activities in the colony.

This double whammy perturbed Queen Anne, who dismissed Hyde of his duties in December of 1708, saying, "his near relation to [her] should not protect him in oppressing [her] subjects."

Upon his dismissal, Cornbury was arrested by the sheriff of New York for his debt.

He stayed in a New York jail until the death of his father, when his inheritance enabled him to pay his debts and return to England.

At the time of his death in 1723, Cornbury had become a symbol of despotism in America.

http://cuhistory3057.tripod.com/hyde/id1.html

billfmsd ....

The "REBELLION" was in 1776 ....

One of the specific grievances against George III of England at that time was as follows:

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance ....

end quotes

Prior to that, back in 1708, the people of New Jersey and New York had successfully petitioned Queen Anne of England to remove the yoke of tyranny of LORD CORNBURY from their necks:

The New Jersey assembly acted first, opening up an investigation of Hyde's conduct and drawing up a list of grievances.

The assembly sent a copy of this list to the Board of Trade, asking the body to "relieve them from the oppressions they groan under by the arbitrary and illegal practices of his excellency."

New York followed suit in 1708, unanimously adopting resolutions condemning Cornbury's illegal activities in the colony.

This double whammy perturbed Queen Anne, who dismissed Hyde of his duties in December of 1708, saying, "his near relation to [her] should not protect him in oppressing [her] subjects."

end quotes

HIS NEAR RELATION TO QUEEN ANNE SHOULD NOT PROTECT HIM IN OPPRESSING HER SUBJECTS ....

That was in 1708, which is 68 years BEFORE the "united states" of America came into being with the 1776 Declaration of Independence ...

And it is 104 years before the War of 1812 ...

Those people in New Jersey and New York in 1708 were not yet American citizens like us, they were still subjects of a monarch, and even so, they could not simply be saddled with corrupt government with no recourse available to them ....

SO HOW DID WE LOSE THAT RECOURSE?

And what does the War of 1812 have to do with any of that?

You have lost me there, as well as with your reference to 1913 ...

And so ...

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 03:42 PM

QUOTE(graham4anything @ Feb 21 2009, 09:16 AM)

best way to get rid of politics would be to get rid of Republicans, since everything they do is for political thought

No law says republicans gotta stay a party, ask the Whigs

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 09:03 AM)

Hatch Act of 1939

[From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Background

The Hatch Act grew into a general tradition of electoral reform.

But the most significant impetus, affecting both its timing and its content, was the widespread allegation that Works Progress Administration (WPA) funds had been misused by staff members and local Democratic Party politicians during the congressional elections of 1938.

Although criticism of WPA workers centered on Kentucky, Tennessee, and Maryland, the political clout of federal dollars nationwide in the midst of the depression was undeniable; even without malfeasance, programs like the WPA attracted votes.

Many Republicans, however, were convinced that WPA workers had gone farther, intimidating staff members, pressuring clients and using public funds for political purposes.

The Act was sponsored by Senator Hatch following disclosures that WPA officials were in fact using their positions to win votes for the Democratic Party, just as many had alleged.

Hatch, himself a Democrat, saw this as outright corruption which should not be tolerated under any circumstance by either political party, a feeling shared by most of his colleagues in the Senate.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatch_Act_of_1939"

Well, graham .....

I can accept that about the republicans ....

Just as I can accept the same fate for the democrats ....

They are the obverse of the same coin ....

And no law says that they have to remain a party, either ....

Good riddance to the lot of them ....

They both erect a multitude of New Offices, and send hither swarms of Officers to harass WE, THE PEOPLE, and eat out our substance ....

And so ...

billfmsd

Feb 21 2009, 03:44 PM

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 04:01 PM)

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 03:52 PM)

It's both ours and their government. There is no chasm or gulf that we citizens cannot cross. The government is composed of "us" citizens and is therefor "our" government until we let our private interests conflict with what "we" agree is government policy via our elected representatives. If our private interests conflict, then "they" the government "over there" in congress (some times in secret) will attempt to enforce "their" policy. The only (legal) way we make sure that "their" policy doesn't conflict with "our" private interests is to first know the policy, and then convince existing members of congress and/or vote new members in to change "their" policy "into" our policy, assuming we've already convinced a majority of voters. We could also (illegally) bribe some politicians to sell or legislate our private interest agendas if we have enough green ballots (money) to override the white ballots from the majority.

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 03:53 PM

"Those apologies, therefore, in which men take refuge as an excuse for their devoting themselves with more plausibility to mere inactivity do certainly not deserve to be listened to; when, for instance, they tell us that those who meddle with public affairs are generally good-for-nothing men, with whom it is discreditable to be compared, and miserable and dangerous to contend, especially when the multitude is in an excited state."

"On which account it is not the part of a wise man to take the reins, since he cannot restrain the insane and unregulated movements of the common people."

"Nor is it becoming to a man of liberal birth, say they, thus to contend with such vile and unrefined antagonists, or to subject one’s self to the lashings of contumely, or to put one’s self in the way of injuries which ought not to be borne by a wise man."

"As if to a virtuous, brave, and magnanimous man there could be a juster reason for seeking the government than this—to avoid being subjected to worthless men, and to prevent the Commonwealth from being torn to pieces by them; when, even if they were then desirous to save her, they would not have the power."

- Cicero, Roman Statesman circa 1st century B.C.

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 03:56 PM

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 04:44 PM)

We could also (illegally) bribe some politicians to sell or legislate our private interest agendas if we have enough green ballots (money) to override the white ballots from the majority.

Of course we could ...

Which would just preserve the status quo ....

And so ...

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 03:59 PM

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 04:56 PM)

QUOTE(billfmsd @ Feb 21 2009, 04:44 PM)

We could also (illegally) bribe some politicians to sell or legislate our private interest agendas if we have enough green ballots (money) to override the white ballots from the majority.

Of course we could ...

Which would just preserve the status quo ....

And so ...

QUOTE(Arneoker @ Feb 20 2009, 12:01 PM)

You have taken us full circle in here, billfmsd ...

We are back to Arneoker's original post ....

You have given us some Genesis ....

And so ...

billfmsd

Feb 21 2009, 04:04 PM

QUOTE(Livyjr @ Feb 21 2009, 04:08 PM)

you say "our partisanship" and "neither side" .....

Wouldn't it be more correct to say "partisanship in America", as opposed to "our partisanship"?

What about those of us here who are NOT on either of those two sides?

I'm not partisan to the republicans and I'll be damned if I am going to be partisan to the democrats ....

If I am partisan to anything, at all, it is our unique history as a nation, our written system of laws, and our state and federal constitutions ...

Not some political party, or other ....

And so ...

There's many more than just two sides. It's just that there's only two parties that are powerful enough to rival each other.

The only way to change this is to get runoff voting somehow turned into a policy by those in the position to change the current policy that benefits incumbents such as themselves.

That's why I say fund 3rd parties even if you are voting for one of the two major parties.

Livyjr

Feb 21 2009, 04:08 PM

I never vote republican or democrat, myself ....

I only vote third party ....

I voted for Obama because he was on a third-party line here in NYS ....

If he was only on the democrat line, I would have avoided him like the plague ...

And so ...

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