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US States are selling transportation infrastructure to foreign companies
businessshrink.biz — US States across the country are taking hold of a new plan called a PPP (Public-Private Partnerships) which essentially allow the states to lease toll roads, freeways, highways and other public property for billions of dollars. Foreign companies are taking advantage of this and have already acquired ownership of toll roads for more than 75 years.
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- iching, on 11/12/2007, -1/+11Let the corporations handle your old-age pension. Let the corporations decide how much protection we and our environment need from their toxics. Let the corporations decide what we're paid. Let the corporations decide what doctor we can see, when, and for what purpose.
This is the exact opposite of the vision for which the Founders of this nation fought and died. When Thomas Jefferson changed John Locke's "Life, liberty, and private property" to "Live, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," it was the first time in the history of the world that a newly founded nation had written the word "happiness" into its founding document. The phrase "promote the general welfare" - another revolutionary concept - first appeared in the preamble to our Constitution in 1787.
What they don't say is that the reason they want to remove government in its protective capacity is because they can then make an enormous amount of money, and have a lot of control over people's lives, when they privatize former governmental functions. They want a power vacuum, so corporations and the rich can step in. And with no limits on the inheritability of riches after the "death tax" is ended, wealth vast enough to take over the government can emerge.
The environment. The Cons have tried to frame this as "We must balance environmental and economic needs." No, we need to define the environment as what keeps us alive, provides the oxygen we breathe, and the clean water and food we drink and eat. When we allow corporate interests to despoil it for profit we drive up cancer and other disease rates and endanger the delicate balance of life that keeps the world safe. Parks and wild places, we should reframe these from "resources to manage" to "these are the wild lands that were held in trust for us by previous generations that we must hold in trust for future generations.
The Ultimate Felony Against Democracy
Why are We The People allowing private, for-profit corporations, answerable only to their officers and boards of directors, and loyal only to agendas and politicians that will enhance their profitability, to handle our votes?- jmpeagle, on 11/12/2007, -2/+2you realize it's specifically says "pursuit of happiness" and not "happiness"
Thomas Jefferson was a laissez-faire towards the economy. For profit corporation are exactly what he intended. Hell he praised a lot of them such as the ones set up by Eli Whitney to build guns (one of the original defense contractors).
He was against government interference such as a National/Central Bank, and he especially hated new taxes, which was one of his big platforms in the 1800 election.
BTW chrnoic conditions are a symptom of longer life expectancies as infectious diseases account for smaller and smaller percentages of death. As countries get richer, their people live longer and are healthier and are therefore more likely to die from chronic conditions such as cancer, heart disease etc... instead of malaria, tuberculosis, etc...- iching, on 11/12/2007, -1/+2" For profit corporation are exactly what he intended. Hell he praised a lot of them such as the ones set up by Eli Whitney to build guns (one of the original defense contractors)."
jmpeagle quote.
WHAT THEY SAID:
"There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by … corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses."
-- James Madison
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"With respect to the new Government, nine or ten States will probably have accepted by the end of this month. The others may oppose it. Virginia, I think, will be of this number. Besides other objections of less moment, she [Virginia] will insist on annexing a bill of rights to the new Constitution, i.e. a bill wherein the Government shall declare that, 1. Religion shall be free; 2. Printing presses free; 3. Trials by jury preserved in all cases; 4. No monopolies in commerce; 5. No standing army.
Upon receiving this bill of rights, she will probably depart from her other objections; and this bill is so much to the interest of all the States, that I presume they will offer it, and thus our Constitution be amended, and our Union closed by the end of the present year."
-- Thomas Jefferson
On December 20th, 1787, Jefferson wrote to James Madison about his concerns regarding the Constitution. He said, bluntly, that it was deficient in several areas. “I will now tell you what I do not like,” he wrote. “First, the omission of a bill of rights, providing clearly, and without the aid of sophism, for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction of monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land, and not by the laws of nations.”
Such a bill protecting natural persons from out-of-control governments or commercial monopolies shouldn’t just be limited to America, Jefferson believed. “Let me add,” he summarized, “that a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.”
The following year, Jefferson wrote about his concerns to several people. In a letter to Mr. A. Donald, on February 7th, 1788, he defined the items that should be in a bill of rights: “By a declaration of rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all cases, no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies. These are fetters against doing evil, which no honest government should decline.”
Jefferson kept pushing for a law, written into the constitution as an amendment, which would guarantee liberties for citizens, prevent companies from growing so large they could dominate entire industries or have the power to influence the people’s government, and reduce the possibility of the nation being taken over by a military coup.
“With respect to the new Government,” he wrote, “nine or ten States will probably have accepted by the end of this month. The others may oppose it. Virginia, I think, will be of this number. Besides other objections of less moment, she [Virginia] will insist on annexing a bill of rights to the new Constitution, i.e. a bill wherein the Government shall declare that, 1. Religion shall be free; 2. Printing presses free; 3. Trials by jury preserved in all cases; 4. No monopolies in commerce; 5. No standing army. Upon receiving this bill of rights, she will probably depart from her other objections; and this bill is so much to the interest of all the States, that I presume they will offer it, and thus our Constitution be amended, and our Union closed by the end of the present year.”- jmpeagle, on 11/12/2007, -2/+1your quote from Jefferson's Letter to George Logan doesn't conflict with what I said as any corporation or person that defies the laws of a country should be held accountable. When Thomas Jefferson is referring to corporations, he means banking institutions as outside of that the largest businesses were plantations until the 1820s.
The remainder of your quotes reflect fear on monopolies of commerce. Monopolies of commerce can only exist through government grants. This is why he was so laissez-faire. Governments often would grants a corporation the SOLE right to do something such as operating in a canal or a shipping lane. He believed in competition and that governments should not allow corporation to "bu politicians" so that they would give them monopoly rights (rent-seeking behavior). - webaddict, on 11/12/2007, -0/+3Wow Iching that was a very well prepared response! :O
- jmpeagle, on 11/12/2007, -2/+1if only he didn't copy and paste the same quote in there twice
- jmpeagle, on 11/12/2007, -2/+1your quote from Jefferson's Letter to George Logan doesn't conflict with what I said as any corporation or person that defies the laws of a country should be held accountable. When Thomas Jefferson is referring to corporations, he means banking institutions as outside of that the largest businesses were plantations until the 1820s.
- iching, on 11/12/2007, -1/+2" For profit corporation are exactly what he intended. Hell he praised a lot of them such as the ones set up by Eli Whitney to build guns (one of the original defense contractors)."
- WhiteRaven, on 11/12/2007, -2/+2Read the Preamble to the constitution carefully. It does NOT state that the point of government is to promote the general welfare. It states that the purpose of the constitution is to promote the general welfare (and tranquility and prosperity and liberty).
The constitution perscribes a specific set of powers to the federal government and then explicitly forbids it from doing anything else.
This leads us to only one possible conclusion with regards to the intent and philosophy of the framers. They firmly believed that the best way to serve the people was to *sharply restrict governments involvement in our lives*.
The facts are undeniable. The government is NOT intended to promote the general welfare. The constitution's entire purpose for existing is to prevent the government from doing most of the crap it does anyway. THAT is how you promote prosperity and welfare and liberty.- jmpeagle, on 11/12/2007, -1/+1you could argue, promoting liberty and freedom is the same as promoting the general welfare, just not via the way of government force
- jmpeagle, on 11/12/2007, -2/+2you realize it's specifically says "pursuit of happiness" and not "happiness"
- SeethisPass, on 11/11/2007, -0/+7I guess they know they've screwed the pooch and are cashing in all of the chips before the game's up
- WhiteRaven, on 11/04/2007, -3/+1Who is "they" exactly? I sense you may mean the Bush administration. That's pretty stupid as this the story is all about State and local governments.
- amsterdamordeth, on 10/30/2007, -0/+1I think he means, the man, our government, which is allowed to do ALL OF THIS underneath the federal government's umbrella of globalization and without the best intentions for the American people. The federal government is stealing all of OUR taxes, which causes this to happen in the first place.
All of our states are so cash strapped because the federal government takes the majority of our money, and blows it up in other countries, or spends it sending billions to mexico to fight THEIR drug problems, etc, etc, etc ***** etc.
- amsterdamordeth, on 10/30/2007, -0/+1I think he means, the man, our government, which is allowed to do ALL OF THIS underneath the federal government's umbrella of globalization and without the best intentions for the American people. The federal government is stealing all of OUR taxes, which causes this to happen in the first place.
- WhiteRaven, on 11/04/2007, -3/+1Who is "they" exactly? I sense you may mean the Bush administration. That's pretty stupid as this the story is all about State and local governments.
- graviplana, on 10/30/2007, -0/+6Dugg. Interesting.
- Frnnkdlxx, on 10/30/2007, -0/+1Dugg. Interesting?
You mean,
Dugg. Frightening!
- Frnnkdlxx, on 10/30/2007, -0/+1Dugg. Interesting?
- amsterdamordeth, on 11/12/2007, -0/+4Where the hell does our money go???? I mean, *****! WE PAY TAXES to fix this kinda *****, and now they sit here and tell us that they don't have the money to fix the roads?
I am tired, ***** tired of paying money to this country so we can go and fix other ***** countries problems and we can't even fix our ***** ROADS.
It is now clearly evident that we have TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.
What a ***** joke. I can't wait until the bridge that walmart owns collapses and our government gives them immunity for this kinda ***** too. Oh, you thought your taxes went to fix roads? No no, they go to pay to build the roads in Baghdad that WE paid to blow up in the first ***** place. - Member148, on 11/12/2007, -0/+5I am afraid the Constitution is being raped. It stands before us yelling for us to help, but we turn a deaf ear to it because of our government manipulating the terminology to suit their agenda, while putting the country in so much debt that taxes are everywhere, which keeps us so busy trying to make ends meet with what's left that we are oblivious to what is happening around us. The nation has successfully been divided into 3 political factions, Democrat, Republican and Independent, which neither can debate with reason for fear of one party dominating the other. They hate each other so much and are so intent on having the country ran their way that they fight and bicker, even if the truth is staring them in the face. So go ahead and listen to these congress men, especially those who have made a life time of dominating and manipulating the public just to stay in office, until they retire. Go ahead and give them your souls just because one side of the opposition is divided against the other in Washington and people of the nation. Let the Constitution keep yelling rape, without the slightest concern. Passively wallow in your hate, until the inevitable happens, and when you wake up under tyranny where everything has been sold to foreign power brokers, and your every move is monitored by the so called government, "for the people"; like in Iran, and what was in Iraq, and other parts of the world, then look in the mirror at the fool staring back at you, as you ask yourself, where was I when all of this happened?
- webaddict, on 11/12/2007, -0/+6Amazing Digg has censored this post and removed it from the system. I can't quite understand why the bury team or Digg team would want this removed from the public's view. If anyone has a clue I'd love to know through a shout or email. You can do a search for "US States selling" and this won't come up. Sweet, I love censorship.
- amsterdamordeth, on 11/12/2007, -0/+3They buried the article about digg being bought by Foxnews apparently.
- Frnnkdlxx, on 10/30/2007, -0/+1Join the world of the leftist and conspiracy website club. We get dugg down all the time. I've tried endlessly to plug the comprehensive annual financial report. I got 37 views, but it stopped there and they banned me for a month. Without telling me why, and without telling me they'd reactivated my accuont. A silent warning I suppose.
- Rubab, on 11/12/2007, -0/+2A curse of privitisation.
- iching, on 11/11/2007, -0/+4'The Matrix is alive and well Mr. Andersen, in your world and mine."
Agent Smith - cattleprod, on 11/12/2007, -0/+3With the dollar so low, the foreign corporations should be able to buy up all public infrastructure and have money left over for a kegger!
- jvontayes, on 11/12/2007, -0/+2Talk about right under our noses!!!
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