Retrophisch

Gimme a break. This quote has nothing to do with domestic vs. international focus. It has to do with nothing more than fearing the consolidation of power under the roof of a monolithic government...which this one has been becoming since the 1960's. Jefferson may be saying "let the states take care of their own affairs and Washington take care of the external problems", but that doesn't mean that domestic issues are a problem for the individual states.

Maybe if the government concentrated more on its social problems at home, we'd have less to concern ourselves with in the rest of the world. Right now, America is a land of inequities, and that's primarily because of a conservative put-the-tax-burden-on-the-lower-and-middle-classes approach. People see our faults and our problems.

High crime isn't a symptom of low spending on law enforcement, it's a symptom of the inequities in the system. The drug problem isn't going to be eradicated by propping up dictatorial South American regimes and spending on paramilitary forces, it's going to be solved by a combination of legalization and taxation (marijuana), education, and destroying the product in the fields before it can be processed. Joblessness and poverty aren't a symptom of laziness, they're proof that trickle-down economics not only doesn't work, it exacerbates the situation.

Something's gotta give. There's more lower and middle class than upper. And there's a lot more strength in the outrage of injustice and inequity than there is in the dollar bill. And when something does finally give, it's going to be interesting...

It has everything to do with foreign vs domestic, as well as with the consolidation of power. The Founding Fathers were very loyal to their home states. They accounted themselves first as Americans, yes, but after that they were foremost Virginians, Georgians, Vermonters, Carolinians, and New Yorkers. After that I'm sure many would have been proud to stand as Bostonians and Charlottites (or whatever you'd call someone from Charlotte). They were very concerned with the federal government taking over issues they felt were state business, and most of that stuff falls under the heading of "domestic issues." Sure, there are some domestic items that only the feds can handle, things that affect all states, such as the stock market. But other than to ensure compliance with things like desegregation, why do we need a Dept. of Education? Why can the states, and the local districts, not determine the best educational solutions for their children? The Dept. of Education is, to me, a prime example of that fear of consolidation that you mention, Dan.

I would venture to say that federal consolidation of power reaches much further back than the 1960s, though that decade was when a lot of that power-grabbing took place. To me, federal power consolidation really began under Roosevelt and the New Deal, then were strenghtened with the Great Society, courtesy of Kennedy & Johnson.

Yes, we are a country of inequities, because, gee, Dan, and you should know this as well as anyone, life isn't fair. What you hint at in your post is dangerously close to Marxism, and we saw how well that worked in Soviet Russian and Eastern Europe, didn't we?

The "conservative put-the-tax-burden-on-the-lower-and-middle-classes approach" is our big inequity problem? Surely you jest. Fifty percent of the population of this country pays less than 5% of the taxes, and that includes the lower class, since just about everyone in the lower class is exempt from paying taxes. So how's this, straight from the Statistics of Income Division for the IRS, September 2002: In 2000, the top 50% of wage earners in the United States paid 96.09 percent of the taxes in this country. There's your inequity, bud!

I agree with part of your drug war argument: we do need to cut off the drugs at the source and stop supporting governments that do not take of that problem themselves. I see it as a national security issue, as a lot of drug money goes to finance terrorist organizations. The Taliban kept itself in power by selling heroin, which makes me wonder where that fits in with the Muslim faith. Legalization and taxation isn't going to solve the problem, as there would remain a massive underground market for hard drugs; this is way beyond anything this country experienced with Prohibition.

It amazes me that you would say trickle-down economics doesn't work, while stating in your own blog that Americans need to get used to looking ahead further than 2 years. The fact is, the economy doesn't turn on a dime, and policies inacted during the Reagan administration did work: during the Clinton administration. Now we are beginning to experience the effects of Clinton-era economic policies. We will not know the full implications of W.-era economic policies until he is well out of office. The Japanese have long had (well, at least they used to have) a very good understanding of this. They don't plan for next year, two years, or even five years from now. They're thinking ten, fifteen years down the road, and that is how they became a world economic power after World War II. (Thanks, in no small part, to huge infusions of cash from their former enemy, the United States. How's that for foreign policy?)

As for your implications that there is something wrong with being in the upper class, consider this: less than 1% of millionaires in this country inherited their fortune. The other 99.whatever percent worked for it, earned it, the majority of them small-business owners, the people that really drive the economy. More people are employed by small businesses than big businesses. And big businesses do more business with small businesses than they do with other big businesses. So the millionaire on the block who employes twenty-something, thirty-something, fifty-something people, and does business with those evil corporate empires on Wall Street, is responsible for people moving up from the lower into the middle class, and from middle class to the upper middle class, and in to the upper class. How's that for trickle-down economics?