Please don't construe this as an attack in any way shape or form, but you lawyer types inevitably say some variation on this phrase and it makes me wonder. I understand that pragmatism might cause the use of this phrase when opining on some legal type matter, but have there been actual cases where some lawyer neglected to include this little C.Y.A and got caught up in an actual lawsuit where someone interpreted the "off duty" opinion of a lawyer as real legal advice? Or is it one of those things that you just say just in case?

Personally, I don't care for Paul or his ideas. That being said, would I vote for him? Absolutely. Put up or shut up. Honestly the president doesn't have the power to push through even a fraction of what these fools proscribe for "fixing the nation". Why couldn't Obama fix the economy? Because the president of the united states of America, while figuratively the "leader of the free world" actually has but the most limited of powers.

And for that exact reason, Ron Paul, assuming he became president, couldn't possibly follow through with even a quarter of his high flung campaign promises. None of them can. The congress decides the ins and outs of national policy. The president merely gets to implement it.

All these sweeping campaign promises are nothing more than dust in the wind, sweet nothings whispered into the ears of a public who has forgotten (if they were ever taught!) about the way this country's government actually works. To paraphrase Portal, "the president is a lie".

And we all still believe in the fallacious "social contract theory", which, as theories go is about as debunked as possible.

Why do the scumbags in congress vote for endless graft? Why do they ignore the constitution? Because it actually is just a god damned piece of paper. It's not as if the founding fathers magically imbued it with some spooky powers. It's paper, scribbled on by men, with all the force that implies, I.e, none what so ever.

Whatever force the constitution ever had was (and remains) is entirely social and the idea that it is some force of nature is the very epitome of naivety. The fact that you're surprised that this country is drifting BACK to the default power structure of totalitarianism merely highlights your naive belief that "liberty" and "freedom" and all the other fallacies of the enlightenment are anything more that the fleeting dreams they turned out to be.

Face the facts: the reason governments devolve into authoritarian/totalitarian models is simply due to the fact that humans are not the enlightened, rational actors that enlightenment era thought made us out to be.

This the exact same reason that the libertarian's ideal society wouldn't work. We already tried it. Welcome to the future of the libertarian utopia.

One last thing, since I just can't let a good rant lie. So, libertarian/anarco-capitalists, once we're freed from the yoke of government what exactly is supposed to stop the same processes that formed the concept if government in the first place? One has to imagine that whatever force of nature which necessitated the forming of governments in the first place hasn't just up and vanished. The whole argument is just a hand waving, idealistic nonsense.

I'll be in my cave, if you need me.

Are they all in the same photo? That would at least prove it was one hell of a party!

Oh yes, nothing like another layer of indirection to make everything much simpler!

Pointers to pointers. Fantastic.

In an ideal world, you and I. Unfortunately, that world only exists in textbooks and dreams. Monied interests have always trumped the public and always will

Fair enough :)

Methinks you missed the point of the OP's argument.

Yeah, the crazy powers the Federals have granted themselves are bad. But it's an out and out fallacy to assume that it was ever any different. We're talking matters of degree here.

The grand old Founding Fathers created a "new world order" with their little Constitution thing. Expecting future generations to honor their prejudices? Oh, well that's just the definition of optimism. Holding up a document written by dead men as the holy grail of politics is an argumentative non-starter. We all (for an expansive definition of all) wish that modern legislators would abide by the silly little social contract laid out by the the Constitution. Except the Renaissance is over, and well the ideal of a "social contract: has been thoroughly debunked,

The real problem Americans have is that they bought into the idea that a "social contract" has any meaning outside of the willingness of the current power structure to maintain that contract. The very idea that some historical document like the U.S. Constitution is supposed to be binding now and forever is naive at best.

Don't get me wrong, I want to be free just as much as anyone else, but the idea that some "ancient" document is somehow supposed to magically constrain future development is, as delusion goes, turned up to 11.

Let me be clear, our current raft of politicians are treating the U.S. Constitution as the piece of paper that it its, forget about the ideals behind the document, they don't actually matter. We've got a rather "American" problem of arguing from the premise that this grand document has any actual, physical legitimacy in the first place, let alone it's applicability to future generations.

I'm slipping into ranting territory here, so let me end this post with this: The essential problem we're running up against here is due exclusively to the naive "social contract" theory embodied by the U.S. Constitution itself. The fact that our current crop of "representatives" are supposed to uphold this contract is predicated in nothing more than the social ideal that they're "supposed to". What we are witnessing here is power doing what power does.

Go ahead, keep pretending that your pretty little "social contract" theory is anything more than an echo of the Enlightenment. Yeah, we had a good run under the social contract theory. If I were you, I would hardly be surprised that this particular contract got broken, since it was predicated on the same unrealistic ideals as our much maligned Communism.

Don't be stupid! It's not corruption it's political speech! Remember folks, money talks. And it talks loud. Oh, and the Supreme Court went ahead and kicked us in the balls by capitulating and unequivocally equating money with speech.

Cliff notes: We're doomed.

Lets not forget to mention that the laws (such as they're applied) are sufficiently ambiguous that "donations to campaigns" and "outright bribery" is so pathetically blurry that any attempt to bring an actual bribery case against a standing congress-critter would be a non-starter at best.

I say non-starter at best because I don't believe that there's enough political capital in the world to even start criminal proceedings against these slime balls. They're in charge of policing themselves, and well, that method of enforcement has rather predictable results. "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" anybody? Bueller? Bueller?

While I agree with you for the most part, the reason that something like SOPA could possibly "wake up" the populace is that this is going to hit them in their "bread and circuses".

The Patriot Act only applies to "bad people" and "terrorists". The consequences of this unjust law will be directly visible to the general public, and will in fact directly impact them. Even if that impact is only that they can't download free copies of shit they weren't going to pay for in the first place.

Not that I believe that the American people are going to suddenly "wake up" over this, it's one more ingredient in the "revolution stew" so to speak. This stupid, unconstitutional law isn't actually going to materially impact piracy or copyright infringement. It's just going to make the war against the people much, much more obvious.

Then again, maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe "we" will wake up. And maybe it'll rain pancakes tomorrow.

Yes. But pointing it out doesn't seem to help. At this point it's reached meme status and will be endlessly repeated ad nauseum. Plus it makes good rabble-rousing material for muck-rakers and politicians.

So yeah, expect to keep hearing "ZOMG! CHINA OWNZ US!!" pretty much forever.

I'll bite. Why?

LOL, I try to tell myself the very same thing, but it sure doesn't help me sleep at night.

But don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!

Well, to be fair he IS important, at least as far as the role he plays in contributing to the averages in the "web surfer person" dataset... While it's possible that Google has some nefarious database detailing our AC's entire search and browsing history, the primary utility of that data is feeding the averages.

As much as the advertising industry wants to believe that targeted ads are the "wave of the future", ads are ads and trying to target them with laser guided accuracy isn't likely to provide much more than a bump in the usual click through statistics.

Oh ho! Google knows I bought an iPod. Now they're trying to sell me accessories, but I don't want any. So... fail?