Did you VOTE!!!!

[desertgirl]

Hey ya'll -- This thread was about doing YOUR part in a democracy -- which was Go Vote! The time has come and gone ...so let's move on and exercise the "Right to Free Speech" on a different thread or even better on a political message board

Let's get back to hiking!
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Photos: http://www.pbase.com/desertgirl/galleries
Life is but a dream ...there is no end to what you can dream!

[Al_HikesAZ]

[evenstar]

OK Gentlemen, let's keep it civil and non-personal, OK? I hate locking a topic, but will do so if it keeps going in this vein. If you want to take it to the personal level, exchange e-mail addresses and go to it.
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John Richardson and Richie Rich, El Perro de Playero
http://members.tripod.com/~evenstar/index.html
http://www.arizonahikers.com
When the Man waked up he said, "What is Wild Dog doing here?" And the Woman said, "His name is not Wild Dog anymore, but the First Friend, because he will be our friend for always and always and always. Take him with you when you go hunting."
--Rudyard Kipling, from Just So Stories, 1902

[thesuperstitions]

It IS our job to keep politicians "In-Check", certainly. If you look back throughout the history of this country, you'll see that all of the great "crises" that have befallen us were directly related to, at best, misdirected good intentions and, at worst, blatant greed and stupidity. The Great Depression, in large part was caused by the Federal government through the manipulation of monetary markets, international trade and the stock market.

FDR basically opened the floodgates to "interpretation" of the Constitution when he solved a short-term problem (created by the Federal Government) by saddling us with the beginnings of what will likely be the death of our society; ever-growing, all-consuming Federal power.

It wasn't supposed to be that way. We were supposed to be a loose confederation of independent states. Those rights and responsibilities not specifically granted by the Constitution were supposed to be left to each independent state to decide. If a state wished to secede, the Constitution provided a means to do so.

Now that our Federal government is all-consuming and growing larger every day, is the Constitution irrelevant? Do we only give lip-service to it while we go about the business of extending the powers of government in direct violation of the very Constitution that we are sworn to protect and uphold?

How many of the working poor would be able to have a better life if the Federal and State governments were still of the size and scope of what was envisioned so long ago?

What if you actually got to keep what you earned and didn't have to pay for a "Ponzi Scheme" out of every paycheck. What if you, instead of paying for other people's health care, had the opportunity to pay for your own? Shouldn't we be proud to take care of ourselves and our families instead of being beholden to a faceless entity that controls the teet from which we gain our sustenance. We've allowed the concept of "government" to be turned upside down. Instead of them working for and depending upon us, we now work for and depend upon them, under threat of imprisonment.

As Benjamin Franklin said: "In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, — if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and I believe, farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other."

[fairweather8588]

someone needs to just lock this thread, politics and hiking don't mix
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But let the mind beware, that though the flesh be bugged, the circumstances of existence are pretty glorious


Kerouac

[Tom Treks]