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re: A Basic Business Principle You Seem To Have Missed
Tom Brosz — (archived)

Your quibling of representative versus direct democracy is nothing but obfuscation Tom. It is still democracy with government ultimately having to answer to majority opinion. The bill of rights was not part of the original constitution so it was not considered as fundamental to our union as democracy ipso facto.

The Bill of Rights was added on at the insistence of those who realized that some rights needed to be spelled out specificially, or they would be abused by the Federal Government. In the opinion of many, it is as important, or more so, than the main body of the Constitution. It is SPECIFICALLY designed to supercede simple democracy, as is the design of our representative government. Pure democracy is three wolves and two sheep deciding what to have for dinner, and it is already being abused to a great extent in this country.

It is also worth remembering that the right to vote was quite restricted in the days of our founding, and it was assumed that a person needed to have certain aspects of a responsible citizen to vote. Property, for example. Many people who should have been able to vote...women for example...could not. Obviously, this is not good. Now, we have swung the pendulum in the other direction, and we have the idea that anyone with a pulse should be able to vote, citizen or not in some cases. This isn't that good either.

George Washington levied taxes so the idea that our founding fathers were against taxes has no basis in fact.

The Founding Fathers were extremely leery of the power to tax. The Articles of Confederation included no taxing power. Taxes were a state issue. The Federal Government levied no taxes until the Constitution was enacted. In 1789, the Federal government relied on import taxes and excise taxes on goods like whiskey and refined sugar. The first tax on citizens was passed in 1798 in the amount of 2 million, divided among the states. It was temporary, and intended to pay off the government's war debts. There was a temporary income tax from 1862 to 1872. In 1913, the first real income tax was levied, and about 1 percent of the population paid it. That didn't last long.

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