Why California Sucks Ass!!!

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Radar

I get my mail at my house. In order for the postal service to deliver mail to my house, a road must be built. This means that all roads are post roads because they all lead to some address.

And that you should contribute to them - ie: pay taxes.

[jinx]

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl

Everyone should live in the way they did when the Constitution was written. Then it can be accepted for the truth that it is. Roads? Who needs roads? Your slaves can cut across country.

Do you think every country that has a constitution, every organization that has a charter, should just throw it out the window and forget about it after its written? Because people at the time had some different beliefs than we do now - nothing they believed then has any value to us now? Look beyond the roads for a minute.... you don't see any tax money being wasted anywhere that maybe wouldn't be if were sticking more closely to the 'rules'?

Originally Posted by UT

That's a question that was answered by the Courts in the late 1800s, but I'm sure Radar will have the correct answer for us through divination of the meaning as originally written. We wait.

So you know the answer but you're not going to tell me because Radar pisses you off?

[Radar]

Originally Posted by classicman

And that you should contribute to them - ie: pay taxes.

It's called postage stamps and gasoline tax. I pay for both of them.

[Sundae]

I have no issue with the average American's average regard for the foundation of your laws. It's just Radar's blinkered belief that it is the beginning and end of all possible solutions for your country that is so alien to me. Honestly, fom my POV it's the same as the convoluted "laws" Hassidic Jews follow which are apparently based ont he 10 Commandments.

Seems like there's nothing written down that can't be deified.

[Radar]

I have never said that the Constitution is the beginning or end of any solution. Government doesn't solve problems. Government is force. It should only be used when necessary and only when directed in the right way.

All possible solutions for our country rest in the hands of our citizens. They can work to solve their own problems, or seek help from each other. But government is not the answer. I don't deify the Constitution. I remember that it is the foundation of our entire government and that it was created specifically to restrict and limit the powers of the federal government.

Originally Posted by Michael Badnarik

"Good evening fellow Americans. I’d like to share a quote from George Washington: ‘Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence. It is force, and like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.’ "If you lived in a log cabin, you’d require fire for your survival. You’d use the fire to heat your home and to cook your food. Fire is such a necessary part of your survival that you’d create a special place for fire. It is called a fireplace. "Government is necessary for our survival. We need government in order to survive. The Founding Fathers created a special place for government. It is called the Constitution. "Anytime the fire is in the fireplace, it is a good fire. Anytime a fire gets outside of the fireplace, it is a bad fire. Conversely, anytime the government stays within the limits of the Constitution, it is a good government. Anytime the government is outside the Constitution, it is a bad government, and it is time to stomp it out."

-Michael Badnarik

[BrianR]

In many rural areas, mail is not delivered to an address. Instead, mail is collected at the post office and the addressee must go and pick it up in person.

[Radar]

Originally Posted by BrianR

In many rural areas, mail is not delivered to an address. Instead, mail is collected at the post office and the addressee must go and pick it up in person.

The federal government should only pay for roads as far as the postal service needs them to deliver mail in a timely fashion...like freeways between cities.

I guess the states can handle roads beyond that, and this is done through gas taxes.

I pay the post office in the form of stamps to build post offices and to sort and deliver mail. Actually most of this is paid for by junk mail people, but I pay my share in this form. For the rest of the roads, I pay via gas tax. I'm always willing to pay my fair share for the services I actually use.

[skysidhe]

I think it's cute when someone bases their ethics and morality on an old piece of paper, written by people who lived in a very different world. Whether it's the Bible, the Koran or the Constitution.

G.W.B's mantra.

I swear!

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by Radar

I get my mail at my house. In order for the postal service to deliver mail to my house, a road must be built. This means that all roads are post roads because they all lead to some address.

As far as the original intent of the founders, they intended for people to get their mail. A postal road back then was a road to connect post offices so mail could be delivered between them. Since then, the postal service has changed a bit, and delivers to a lot more places. It's up to the fed to make sure there's a road everywhere that mail is delivered.

Let's work from Answers.com since the Wikipedia entry lacks one crucial aspect of post roads. (Once the W is not so slow, I may improve the entry.)

http://www.answers.com/topic/post-roads

Mail routes between New York and Boston took shape in the late seventeenth century. These roads traced routes that became great highways and are still known as the post roads. The Continental Congress began creating post roads during the revolutionary war.

Okay, fine, but why use the term "post roads" and not just simply "roads"?

To designate a highway as a post road gave the government the monopoly of carrying mail over it; on other roads, anybody might carry the mail.

Huh! So that's the original understanding of the term, when the C was written: Post roads provide a monopoly on mail on those roads to the Feds. That was the understood meaning all along, and during the 1800s they began converting regular roads to "post roads". These were and remain roads that the Feds did not build and did not maintain. But they became "post roads". And even the rivers:

Steamboat captains also carried letters and collected the fees for them, until in 1823 all navigable waters were declared to be post roads, which checked the practice.

Day-um! And that was what they did during the period you say was "free". Gawrsh!

Private letter-carrying companies after 1842 did much house-to-house mail business in the larger cities; but the postmaster general circumvented them in 1860 by declaring all the streets of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia to be post roads.

Through your interpretation you've just prevented all private mail delivery. Nice goin', genius.

[Radar]

I haven't "interpreted" anything. Someone said that if we followed the Constitution, we'd have no roads. I said we would. I was correct. Post roads are roads. They are all roads. It's nice that now the government will back off from making the claim that only the government may use those roads for mail delivery, but it doesn't change the fact that all roads are post roads or the fact that nothing I've said would prevent private mail delivery. The government's bogus claims of exclusive access to these roads would prevent it, not anything I've said.

I am unfamiliar with your source so I the veracity of your claim of the roads being the exclusive domain for government to deliver mail is questionable. Even if this is the case, the government has long considered itself to have a monopoly over delivering mail and over the use of force. The government claims the Constitution applies to citizens and not to the government when it furthers governmental power and the Supreme Court agrees. The Federal government says the Constitution doesn't apply to it when it comes to slavery, pollution, and a host of other things.

[xoxoxoBruce]

The roads between Boston, NY, Philly and points south, were established long before the revolution. Indian trails became horse trails and then wagon roads.
In 1737, when Benjamin Franklin was appointed Deputy Postmaster General by the King, he was charged with placing mile posts along those roads to determine the cost of sending mail. That's why they are called "post" roads.
Now back to your regularly scheduled thread.

[Undertoad]

Post roads are roads. They are all roads.

Then why did the C not just say "roads"?

[Radar]

Probably because post roads are for delivering the mail, but not all roads back then led to a post office or a delivery address. Most of the roads back then were trails or paths that led to homes as someone mentioned earlier, back then the post office didn't deliver to homes. It delivered to other post offices. But the times have changed and now all roads are used to deliver the mail.

Bruce mentions that there were posts for each mile of road. Perhaps this is the reason. It really doesn't matter though.

What matters is the U.S. Constitution grants authority to the federal government to collect taxes to pay for roads and the fact that we had roads for 137 years before the 16th amendment was fraudulently ratified to create permanent income taxes. Lincoln created the first income tax in America, but it was temporary for the reconstruction effort. It did open the door for Taft though.

[smoothmoniker]

UT, quit interpreting, dammit!

[smoothmoniker]

Originally Posted by Radar

Probably ... <snip> ... Perhaps ...

HOLY SHIT!!!!!

Radar just said the words "probably" and "perhaps" in relationship to an issue of constitutional interpretation!

Radar, you can't have it both ways. It very much does matter what kind of roads the Constitution granted congress the power to create, because anything beyond that specific type of road is an illegal expansion of power, and the road crews hired to build those roads should refuse to do it, and must in all good conscience quit their jobs.

As you yourself have so eloquently argued before.