This happened in Berkley, what’s to say this won’t happen elsewhere? When this no longer becomes cities in states, but states in this country. I know this will never happen, at least I hope not, but what if it does? The very people the Marines protect, day in and day out are spitting in their faces! Since 1775 the Marines have been fighting to protect this great nation that its citizens take for granted. Everyone had better hope that the United States of America retains its Marines. Because if it doesn’t, we are all in BIG TROUBLE!

If you are a Marine reading this than I urge you to throw on your Charlies or Dress Blue Deltas, ribbons and badges, and go down to Berkley and just walk around. I know that I’m going to do it when I get back to California, FIRST THING!

Regards–

Worlds FINEST Marine

If the city does not want Federal Goverment offices within the city limts, fine, it is a choice they can make. Then move ALL federal offices out of there. (Please leave a note where they can go to pick up the mail)

Oh I agree that Congress is way too powerful, they are in effect a in-equal branch of Government, as is the Judicial.

They’re all way outside their Constitutional authority.

Liberals love to nibble at our freedoms, a little here, a little there.

Conservatives do it too. Ever notice how many times the Republicans will rail against a Democratic bill until after it passes? Rarely do they ever go back and try to rescind it; often, they’ll even increase the program down the road. The entire federal government has been complicit in the decline of our freedom.

I believe a good first step is to start nibbling at earmarks and funding.

Re-read comment #22. Fiscal conservatives have been nibbling for decades and government is growing faster than ever. Take Bush’s new budget for example; the headline all talk about his “cuts”. The Dems will certainly fight tooth and nail. And guess what? They’re not even really cuts. He’s just trying to slow the bleeding a little. We’re still going to bleed to death; nibbling will only prolong that for a couple years.

If you actually want to turn the tide and undo the damage, you have to attack the source: power.

We have to start cutting the federal budget somewhere, and Berkeley California seems as good a place as any to start with. In many ways, it seems better than others.

I’d rather work on stripping congress of power it doesn’t deserve, knowing that doing so will ultimately save many, many billions.

In other words, if you bite the hand that feeds you, you’re going to go hungry.

Finally, Berkeley has demonstrated a complete intolerance towards opposing views, taking the insanity further and further all the time. They don’t do anything to end the vandalism, which the clean up of is paid for by the Marine Recruiting office. That would be you and me Mr. Taxpayer.

Take the money from the Berkeley defenders of the far left wing. They have freedom of speech, and so do we. We can demand that our representatives shut the tap off, and use the money instead to guarantee our future by paying down the debt RIGHT?

Is this retaliatory, maybe but the university violated the Solomon Act last Summer which by law requires the removal of their funds. Those funds were never taken.

DeMint is withdrawing funds from the entire city, not just the university.

Besides, the Solomon Act is just as repulsive. The federal government has no jurisdiction over education; you won’t find a single word about it in the constitution. All federal spending on education should cease and taxes should be cut correspondingly. States, which do have jurisdiction, could then raise taxes and handle it themselves.

Routing funds through the feds does nothing more than give them power they were never supposed to have.

The government has the right to use the power of the purse and does it all the time. How many states have a lower speed limit on highways just so they can keep highway funds.

Ok, everybody step back from your gut reaction for a second.

I know the feds do this all the time. That’s the point. Are you suggesting that you’re happy with the size and scope of the federal government? I’m certainly not. But if we want to change it, we have to start looking at the root causes.

The root cause is POWER.

This country was designed for power to be dispersed across several levels of government and within separate branches at each level. The point was to make sure any given politician’s power was so limited that it wouldn’t be worthwhile for him to sacrifice his good name.

Instead, we’ve methodically consolidated power into the hands of a few hundred people who live most of the year in a 10 mile radius. For icing on the cake, the party structure makes those few hundred people dependent on a handful at the top of each party.

There’s no way you can spin that into a good thing without outing yourself as a collectivist. If we don’t get serious about this problem, it’s just a matter of when they’ll spend us into bankruptcy. DeMint’s actions sound good (yay! cutting spending!) but the unintended consequences of his approach in this instance are far, far worse long term.