Get a Grip - There is No Secret North American Union - Page 6

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• 1 - Les Slater

  Mar 25, 2007 at 10:47 am

  Dave,
  
  The logic of progress and technology is that boarders become a brake on such progress. Some aspects of the EU make much sense.
  
  The Tran-Texas Corridor sounds like a good idea. Before I looked it up I thought that it might include a straight segment from Brownsville to El Paso, passing through part of Mexico.
  
  That reminds me, I'm moving to Detroit in the next week or so and the most economical, and common, route from that U.S. city and the U.S. city of Boston, is through Canada. At least my car has the capability of going to metric displays like km/hr with push of a couple buttons.
  
  Too bad the backward politicians couldn't be as enlightened as my Chevy Malibu.
  
  Les

• 2 - Jet in Columbus

  Mar 25, 2007 at 10:50 am

  Dave I knew where this was going the moment I read you pronouncing Lou Dobbs a lunatic.
  
  Computer still teetering towards falling off the right side of your desk I see!
  
  :)

• 3 - Les Slater

  Mar 25, 2007 at 10:59 am

  Lou Dobbs is a lunatic.

• 4 - Clavos

  Mar 25, 2007 at 11:11 am

  Les, Dave:
  
  So who is his audience?
  
  This is interesting; you guys, who are somewhat apart politically :>), both think he's a lunatic (as do I, BTW).
  
  Dave, what about Dobbs makes you say he's a lunatic?
  
  Les, ditto?

• 5 - Les Slater

  Mar 25, 2007 at 11:21 am

  Jet,
  
  Watching Lou a few times, he seems to think his audience is not too sophisticated; he preaches to the gullible from a right-wing perspective.
  
  Les

• 6 - Les Slater

  Mar 25, 2007 at 11:22 am

  Sory Clavos, I did not notice it was you.

• 7 - Clavos

  Mar 25, 2007 at 11:38 am

  No prob, Les. Thanks for the response.
  
  He does talk down to his audience, which is annoying as can be.
  

• 8 - Big_Ron

  Mar 25, 2007 at 11:39 am

  If the NAU does not exist could you please comment on why the State of Idaho just passed legislation against it?
  
  Idaho became the first state to have legislation pass both the House and the Senate after 14 other states had measures come to the floor.
  
  You can read the Bill Here
  
  Can you write off a State Legislature as a bunch of Loonies?

• 9 - Clavos

  Mar 25, 2007 at 11:49 am

  Can you write off a State Legislature as a bunch of Loonies?
  
  In a heartbeat.
  
  And I'll give you both houses of Congress as a bonus.

• 10 - Doug Hunter

  Mar 25, 2007 at 1:11 pm

  The trans texas corridor is easy to include in any conspiracy because it's such an obvious abuse or government power. The fact that the voters in Texas reelected the buffoon Perry demonstrates that perhaps the state was onto something. Perhaps the populace is so ignorant they deserve to have their property taken and put into the hands of the government/transnational corporations/Perry campaign donors.
  
  BTW, I have nothing against the construction of new highways or even superhighways. I have a problem with land around the highway being taken and turned over to politically connected developers as a source of funding. The government is being run too much like a business, one with no limits on what it can do or take.
  
  

• 11 - Les Slater

  Mar 25, 2007 at 1:26 pm

  Taking of private property can be abused and certainly has been, but private property cannot stand in the way of progress.
  
  I haven't studied the trans-Texas proposal but I like the idea of it including rail. I presume this rail would be modern and economical.
  
  In any case, what does this have to do with the North American Union? Maybe the NAU is progress so we have to oppose all progress lest we find ourselves in the NAU?

• 12 - Dave Nalle

  Mar 25, 2007 at 1:29 pm

  Dave I knew where this was going the moment I read you pronouncing Lou Dobbs a lunatic.
  
  Computer still teetering towards falling off the right side of your desk I see!
  
  Jet, as you'll notice from the other comments, half the people think Dobbs is a right wing lunatic and half think he's a left wing lunatic. He's both and neither at the same time. He's a conspiracy mongering populist. He's a protectionist which pleases the left and a nativist which pleases the right. But the one thing that's always true about him is that if he believes something it's wrong.
  
  I'm working on a separate article just on Dobbs and his constant misrepresentation of fact and self-serving fearmongering.
  
  Dave

• 13 - Dave Nalle

  Mar 25, 2007 at 1:32 pm

  Oh, and as for the Idaho State Leg., that news broke right after I wrote the article. I think they are the answer to the question of who actually listens to the drivel that Dobbs spews. They're a bunch of pinhead potato farmers who are so isolated from the rest of the country that they don't know any better than to believe what they see on CNN.
  
  On the more positive side, I guess you can pass laws against the NAU whether it exists or not, just in case. If such a conspiracy DID exist it would certainly be a bad thing. But there sure isn't any real evidence to support its existence.
  
  Dave

• 14 - Arch Conservative

  Mar 25, 2007 at 4:57 pm

  "Lou Dobbs is a lunatic."
  
  No more so than Al Gore and his human induced global warming propaganda.

• 15 - Mark Schannon

  Mar 25, 2007 at 5:33 pm

  Nah, there couldn't be a conspiracy. I'd have heard about it long before now. That's how you can make a few bucks, and I ain't heard nothing but the woodpecker trying hole my house to death.
  
  In Jameson Veritas

• 16 - Clavos

  Mar 25, 2007 at 6:50 pm

  private property cannot stand in the way of progress.
  
  Progress toward totalitarianism, one hallmark of which is the taking of property by force, cannot be allowed in a society which proclaims the freedom of its citizens as a prime principle.

• 17 - Dave Nalle

  Mar 25, 2007 at 7:00 pm

  "Lou Dobbs is a lunatic."
  
  No more so than Al Gore and his human induced global warming propaganda.
  
  Don't look to me for an argument there. The fact that one person holds irrational beliefs doesn't make the irrational beliefs of another person any more rational.
  
  Dave

• 18 - Dave Nalle

  Mar 25, 2007 at 7:24 pm

  Taking of private property can be abused and certainly has been, but private property cannot stand in the way of progress.
  
  It's not real progress if it results in the loss of basic rights like private property rights. Progress should enhance the lives of the people, not diminish them.
  
  I haven't studied the trans-Texas proposal but I like the idea of it including rail. I presume this rail would be modern and economical.
  
  Don't bet on it. Modern maybe, but the cost will be prohibitive and every existing study suggests no one will use it.
  
  In any case, what does this have to do with the North American Union? Maybe the NAU is progress so we have to oppose all progress lest we find ourselves in the NAU?
  
  That's pretty much the rationale of a lot of the conspiracy theorists. Any change or any new way of doing things MUST be part of an evil conspiracy.
  
  Dave

• 19 - Iddybud

  Mar 25, 2007 at 7:34 pm

  Re: SPP -
  The U.S. Department of Commerce is, for all intents and purposes, rewriting U.S. administrative law with absolutely no Constitutional justification. This isn't conspiracy - it's happening in the open. We have every logical reason to question what's happening and every right to know exactly how our individual rights will be afected. With our common sovereignty at stake, I think that we need to get active to stop the unconstitutional replacement of American authority for a supranational replacement created by elites. We need to be watchdogs over our own individual rights, freedoms, and our democracy. I don't see the fear (or theory) of conspiracy couched in these concerns. It's more like worrying about how we stop naive government officials from trading away our rights, our democracy, and our sovereignty in their rush to keep Wall Street well afloat. Would the Founding Fathers accept this kind of trade-off? I happen to think not.

• 20 - Dave Nalle

  Mar 25, 2007 at 7:54 pm

  Iddy, have you BEEN to the SPP website? Have you read their documents? You're right that it's all being done above board. It's also all very well documented.
  
  And what's obvious to anyone who actually reads those documents and is not clinically diagnosed as paranoid, is that what the SPP is doing is almost entirely harmless.
  
  Our sovereignty is not at stake as you claim, nor is american authority being replaced by elites. Where do you get this crazy stuff from? Turn off Lou Dobbs and turn on your brain.
  
  At the most the country whose sovereignty is threatened is Mexico, because they are the target of a lot of the efforts of the SPP. It's their border security and their economy which are at issue. I think the Mexican Lou Dobbs might be close to correct if he complained that the SPP comes close to making Mexico a client state of the US - but isn't that already kind of true?
  
  The ugly truth is that all of these efforts are basically designed to benefit the US, our businesses, our citizens and our government.
  
  Dave

• 21 - Ian

  Mar 26, 2007 at 12:53 am

  Dave,
  
  If the SPP/TTC is helping America, then why are companies from other countries purchasing our toll roads? Some of these companies are Cintra, a Spanish company, and Australia's Macquarie Bank. Does this improve our sovereignty?
  
  Read this
  
  Ian

• 22 - Clavos

  Mar 26, 2007 at 1:59 am

  And Pan Bimbo (of Mexico) now owns most of the US bread makers, thus is the biggest bakery in the US, Rinker Materials, an Aussie company is the biggest construction materials supplier in the USA, after having bought up several US materials companies. Telmex is a majority stockholder in Southwestern Bell, etc. etc.
  
  How does this hurt our "sovereignty?" It's business, which has been multinational for nearly a hundred years, now, beginning with US companies spreading all over the world. Have other nations sovereignties been destroyed by American companies operating in their territories?
  
  

• 23 - Dave Nalle

  Mar 26, 2007 at 2:50 am

  Ian, aside from the toll road example, what you're talking about are multinational corporations who may be based in other countries, but are owned internationally. If you look at the shareholder lists of those companies which are nominally foreign you'll find a hell of a lot of Americans owning their stocks. The nationality of companies like that is an illusion. And it's just as likely that US interests will own companies in other countries which you think of as belonging to those countries.
  
  Do you realize that US investment in foreign assets tops 4 trillion dollars? No other country has anything like that amount invested in the US.
  
  As for Cintra and the TTC, I agree that it's a bad idea to have a foreign company getting the contract - but mainly because it was essentially a no-bid contract. But then you have to deal with the question of WHY it was a no-bid contract. And the facts are that there are no US companies which have the experience and resources to run high-speed rail. To get qualified companies you have to go to Europe. All that aside, the TTC is a terrible idea and I think it's pissed off too many people to ever actually get built, but the problems with it have more to do with the huge waste of money, the fact that it's not needed and the violation of property rights, than any conspiracy or foreign involvement.
  
  Dave

• 24 - STM

  Mar 26, 2007 at 3:22 am

  I think with all the talk around at the moment of the "Anglosphere", a favourite of the neo-cons (but which actually makes some sense), that kind of stuff feeds into the minds of nutcases and conspiracy theorists. It's possible that the three might at some point (a long way off) form a real and genuine economic union of sorts, with some binding three-way agreements that don't favour one over another, but a North American Super State ... nah. Makes as much sense as us joining forces with New Zealand and Indonesia.
  
  Plus, I'd be worried, on Mexico in particular, that the great tortilla shortage might lead to supply problems in the southern states of the US. Imagine that!
  
  Can't see the borders coming down just yet, either ... specially not in your neck of the woods.

• 25 - STM

  Mar 26, 2007 at 3:33 am

  Schanno wrote: "I ain't heard nothing but the woodpecker trying hole my house to death."
  
  Woodpecker? Is that all ... try a whole flock of sulphur crested cockatoos who've flown in from the bush to escape the drought.
  
  Every house and garden in town = breakfast, lunch and dinner. The bastards are getting into my trees and chewing the supports on my front verandah, and they seem to outsmart every single device I use to get rid of them - including various kinds of hand-thrown missiles.
  
  I have this weekend, however, taken possession of a portable hooter of the kind used for surf contests - operated by an aerosal can. These are so loud, surfers can easily hear them from the water at least 100 yards from the beach. I suspect you can also hear them in New Zealand.
  
  The next mob of cockies eating my beautiful front fir tree is going to get an almighty blast. I have warned all the neighbours, so there's no holding back. Perhaps you need one too. I'll keep you posted.

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