President Obama Taking 90% Of Pay Constitutional?

[Winchester]

[quote name='rkwright' date='23 October 2009 - 10:16 PM' timestamp='1256354178' post='1990498']
Well but thats also the beauty in agencies. If we don't like how its going we just vote the president out (instead of having to change congress, repeal the law, and so on...) If Obama goes out in a few years, we get a whole new group who decides on how to spend the money.
[/quote]
The difference will be, perhaps, some slight change in the people who hold the next president's leash. They're all bought, they're all idiots.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='rkwright' date='23 October 2009 - 11:16 PM' timestamp='1256354178' post='1990498']
Well but thats also the beauty in agencies. If we don't like how its going we just vote the president out (instead of having to change congress, repeal the law, and so on...) If Obama goes out in a few years, we get a whole new group who decides on how to spend the money.[/quote]

Has voting made people more free in the past 200 years?


[quote]I don't have as firm of an opinion on this as I did on the second amendment issue.
[/quote]


Not that incantations by men in black robes mean much, but U.S. vs. Miller (1939) pretty well cinched the fact that the Second Amendment was an individual right. The ruling stated stated that, had the no-show defendant's sawn-off shotgun been "a part of the ordinary military equipment," it would have been legitimate for him to be carrying. In other words, if the military used shotguns with barrels under 18'', (as they routinely do now) Miller would have been perfectly within his rights to be carrying one. Translated to the modern day, fully-auto or select-fire M-4 carbines with 14.5'' barrels would be perfectly acceptable to own and carry and would be exempt from Federal infringements.

But not even the Supreme Court cares about what the Supreme Court says.

~Sternhauser

[aalpha1989]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' date='31 October 2009 - 10:41 PM' timestamp='1257046894' post='1994673']
This sounds envious because who defines what is a unreasonable amount, and when it is ok to take away that person's property?
[/quote]

As I already stated, what is reasonable is a question left to prudence (really it's temperence led by prudence), which is up to the individual to discern- but it is easy to see excesses and defects.

[quote]
And this goes to judging a person's heart, because what you're stating seems quite envious. If I'm not mistaken it was Aquinas or one of the great Saints that taught a person should dress to his lot in life. It would be immodest for a King or Queen to dress down, but it would be immodest for a regular Joe to dress as if he were a king.
[/quote]

Upon further reflection you may be right that I am judging hearts, and so I need to wait before I respond to your point about the Pope (not a philosophical, objective point, but a point nonetheless ...). I still disagree about envy, though. There is no envy in my arguments. They are completely objective, even if flawed because I make judgments I am not capable of making.

As for Aquinas, I should look at the [i]Summa[/i] on moderation again, but I immediately disagree that it would be immodest for a King or Queen to dress down. St. Louis King of France gave enormous amounts of his money to the poor and wore the Franciscan habit. The point of the habit is poverty.

I think the most important example, though, is Christ himself. Though King of the universe, He allowed Himself to be incarnated and His true identity was not discernable by appearances alone. He is the ultimate example of a king "dressing down".


Edit: Aquinas would be the first to say that we shouldn't believe him just because he is who he is. He states that the claim of authority is the weakest claim of veracity possible (except for God, who IS the ultimate authority). Aquinas is wrong more than once, anyway.

Edited November 3, 2009 by aalpha1989