The constant circulation of new blood is what our founding fathers intended. They never desired a political elite class to arise. We need to just vote in new blood. If it's an incumbant, vote them out. If someone runs for re-election, don't bother with them. That's one method anyways.

Agreed. I am basing my argument on natural law, not positivistic ones. The difference is "Something is bad, therefore a law prohibits it." as opposed to "I made a law to prohibit X, therefore X is bad." The former has a moral foundation, the latter does not.

"Maybe if we have a big turnover in congress as well in 2012... "

This can be arranged :)

You are correct in this respect. Individuals come to a consensus as to what is harmful to the general Public.
"We The people, of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, AND PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE..."

Laws ARE enacted to benefit society by preventing individuals from harming it. You are correct that the society has no *Inalienable* rights, however, and only has such powers granted by it's individual constiuents. However, Laws still have that moral foundation.

This "What measure do you have to steal freedom, God's gift from another?" question is one in which I don't accept your premise. First you claim that Rick Santorum's morality is a false one. How do you know? Perhaps yours is the false morality and not his? I tend to think that the morality which is true, is the one upon which my Christian faith is based. Who of the candidates most closely resembles this? I leave the answer to your own choice, as I don't intend for it to be Rhetorical.

I don't believe electing Rick Santorum, or Mitt Romney or any of the other candidates is "Stealing freedom". Were I to assume your premise for the sake of argument (and I don't), but for the sake of answering your question, I would say, By the measure of an objective moral foundation, I can steal the freedom of a criminal and place him in prison. By the actions of a criminal, they forfeit their right to freedom. I am a veteran btw, and I was the one who made the choice to serve. No one forced me to volunteer to serve in our military.

And What does individual soverignty mean, that it is ok to sin? There is a common saying "you cannot legislate morality." However, all laws have a moral basis. They prohibit actions that are deemed by society to be harmful to that society. One may better say, "You cannot force people to be moral through legislation." Yet without laws, how much more uncivil would society be? There must be some balance, and our founding fathers knew that government must exist, albeit in a very limited form. So where does having a moral Presidenial candidate who supports the right to life, who actually is still married to his first (and only?) wife, and who supports and defends the principles laid out in our constituion, prompt you to such cynicism? You give yourself away when you beg the question of his morality being "false" when each of us has some hypocrisy in our lives. We must strive to overcome it, and we need to return to a moral foundation based upon an objective morality (one that is based on a correspondance to truth and reality).

You hit the nail on the head. It's a load of crap.

While serving in Congress, members should have to divest completely. Let their only income be their salary. PERIOD.

Clueless turd doesn't begin to plumb the depths of his shallow speech.

Does anyone besides me get the fact that Publius obviously doesn't understand that "Hamilton Edition" and John Hancock don't quite mesh together as a Forum Thread continuity?

I completely agree that Newt has many points to make. It's his erratic behavior concerning his conservatism that gets me leery of handing over any control of the country to him. Sitting down with Nancy Pelosi for Global Warming legislation? Lambasting Paul Ryans' extremely well intentioned budget plan, at a time when it had the potential to gain support. (And thus, adding fuel to the democratic criticisms of that plan). I'm sorry, but Newt can't be feeding ammunition to the political opponents, and expect me to support him. Also, his very questionable moral actions in regard to family values makes a mockery of social conservatives. Yes, he deserves forgiveness, but that does not entail that we ought to support him, when the other candidates, especially Rick Santorum, have a much better social values record.