the difference is that constitution does not give rights.. it just guides the federal government..
for example:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom ofspeech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably toassemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
It's different from granting rights to people or even citizens. But what do i know, i am just reading the constitution as written.

I never said it gives, but protects...
In theUnited States, constitutional rights are derived from the people themselves and are protected primarily by the enumerated amendments to theUS Constitution, known as theBill of Rights. Persons may also have constitutional rights protected by the constitution of a state.

Ira, you know, I love(L) you being my intelligent opponent, you also like me for the same thing. But you took a little step onto the dance floor previously occupied by our own Miah-Wallace-sans-Vincent-Vega - Lina T. "The Great Hall of Twisting Everything." Where did you read that any of the conservative members of this group consider you Anti-American? Maria's quote have dealt with Americans (GOP, Dems, Independnents, серo-буро-малиновые) being against redistribution of wealth and appropriation of Health Care, (86% of all Americans, I have heard?) For that reason the author calls the proponents of ever widening government regulation - Anti American. Because majority of Americans are against it - no matter how they voted in November of 08.

Oleg, ( although i believe the answers are only as good as the question you ask ) so if you disagree with the majority of the population of the country you automatically become anti-american?

Mike, if I am a legislator who is pushing an unpopular law - yes I am. As Oleg Sakhno, private tax payer, I am not.

Mike Rabinovich: excellent and timely quotation from James Madison:
"Were the power
of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for,
it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature
of the limited Government established by the people of America."
Ira, nobody even called you anti-American. You took it upon yourself. :-O
The only reason you think that conservatives are against education, is because your good liberal educators want you to believe so. Apparently they succeeded:-(
If you ever heard of William Buckely Jr, you should know that he is a first class intellectual. Perhaps, one of the most educated people in the modern American history. And he was the father of modern American Conservatism.

Ira, It seems to me that you are confused about where conservatives stand oneducation: they support BETTER education for American children .
Liberals, on the other hand, support MORE EXPENSIVE education.
Liberals always seem to run out of money in public schools: no matter how much they get from the government, it's never enough to produce good results.
Meanwhile, much less expensive charter schools where liberal unions do not rule, do wonders with the students education.
Hm...
But charter school/voucher programss are usually supported by the conservative policy makers. And very much opposed by the liberal ones. So, who is against good education?
Tell me now.

This is very simple : just compare the basic knowledge of public school students ( on average, not in the most affluent counties), and the charter school students. Take Washington DC -the most famous example. The public schools there spent the most per student in US -something like $12-15 k a year. With the worst test scores/graduation rates. Next to those schools is a charter school, where some lucky parent ( all poor, for fair comparison) could put their kids -within a year those students start getting ahead of thir public school peer. The graduation rate is almost 100%. The kids go on with higher education.
Same city, same slums - but in one school emphasis is on childrens educaation ( math, reading), in all others - who know what? But they surely get tons of money from their liberal enablers in the Capitol Hill.

We don't blame everything on the teachers - we know parents have to do their job too - we are just saying give parents a choice...if the public school their children go to doesn't provide the children with good education, the government should not keep them in that school and should provide vouchers for the parents to take the kids to a better school...isn't it an American thing to do?

There is statistics that just came out that charter school definitely outperform public school everything equal. ( parent status, living condition etc).
Teachers union is a very powerful liberal lobby. They are interested in getting as much money from the gov. as possible.
You don't believe that they are pursuing their liberal political agenda? :-D ( I wonder why they donate millions and millions to the Democratic candidates)
BTW, there are good teacher in public schools.
There are also very bad teachers there who are not "fireable" due to the union protection.

********online.wsj.com/article/SB125358513141729871.html
Charter Schools Pass Key Test in Study
By JOHN HECHINGER and IANTHE JEANNE DUGAN NewYork City students who win a lottery to enroll in charter schoolsoutperform those who don't win spots and go on to attend traditionalschools, according to new research to be released Tuesday.
The study, led by Stanford University economics Prof. CarolineHoxby, is likely to fire up the movement to push states and schooldistricts to expand charter schools -- one of the centerpieces ofPresident Barack Obama's education strategy.
Should be interesting for you to read , especially since Obama supports it;-)

Mike, if I am a legislator who is pushing an unpopular law - yes I am.
Oleg, with all due respect, i think this is crazy. The reason we have an elective government is so that the elected officials represent their constituency. If you suggest that elected officials should blindly follow popular opinion you should really re-examine how the government of this country works and how it was intended to work.

Mike, this is theory. The example that Maria used and which got Ira so worked up, was an individual opinion. So was my answer to you. I, out of all people, don't believe in popular opinions. "The conversation with an average voter is the best argument against democracy". You were asking me a hypothetical question, I was answering it hypothetically.
Now, all this nonsense beside. Do conservatives in this group believe that they are more American than Irina D.?????
I'll go first. I don't.

Oleg, i am confused to what you just said..
I thought your entire argument of being un-American hedged on having an un-popular opinion.

it's absolutely un-american to push an unpopular bill...so many legislations have failed because of their unpopularity...the government is all about the will of the people (at least when enacting a legislature)..otherwise, it's more like a dicatorship, and less like a represantative democracy (republic)...

Svetlana, of all the funny things you say this is by far the funniest ;)
I this this should go into a КВН topic (fr) (fr) (fr)

Mike, if I was good at political rhetoric, I would be going to some think tank's monthly meeting today, instead of Restaurant Depot to check Christmas Ham prices. My point was that someone who wants to tax Americans to death and to use that money to fund health care for illegals is doing something essentially Anti-American. In theory. Not Ira D., not you, not Julia Stein, not Alexei. But a person who wants American taxpayers to borrow from China to create a Universal Healthcare that will be available for people who don't pay taxes, don't work here and who will go back to their country after being cured. If I'm still confusing you, I give up.

no wonder it's funny to you, Михаил..:-) I just took a closer look at your pic and realized why you have those wildest ideas about pot and whores - it's because you have a baby face...don't get me wrong - a cute one too ;-) boys fantasies...(H)

Oleg, your point was un-popular = anti-american.
Now you have a new point.. providing coverage to people who pay no taxes - anti-american.
I actually disagree with you on both of those points.. so i guess it makes me anti-american :)

The war in Iraq had about 70% of popularity right before the invasion...
Михаил, I am still waiting for you to nail something...:-)

Wow.. it's so amusing to watch people manufacture so-called "facts", when even a 30 seconds google search can disprove them.
May 2003A Gallup poll made on behalf of CNN and the newspaper USA Todayconcluded that 79% of Americans thought the Iraq War was justified,with or without conclusive evidence of illegal weapons. 19% thoughtweapons were needed to justify the war.[9]

Ira, It seems to me that you are confused about where conservatives stand oneducation: they support BETTER education for American children .
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like teaching creationism in science class alongside or even instead of evolution.

Михаил, bravo...you have excellent google skills..(Y) I am so very proud of you...;-)
btw, spoke to my conservative American friend about drug legalization, he told me he would only be for legalizing stimulants - during the WWII it was very American to be productive, and everyone was on stimulants...:-)
there are tons of things that mean to be American - different for the government and for the citizens...
one would be not expecting the government to take care of your problems...btw, the republican solution to healthcare reform is very American imo - they want to PROMOTE (not provide) general welfare - by enacting certain legislations and regulations..totally different than what dems want to do...

it's absolutely un-american to push an unpopular bill
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lots of unpopular things were shoved downpeople's hateful, ignorant throats -like the civil rights act... just because something is unpopular doesn't necessarily
make it un-american, it just reflects the ignorance of the masses.

Issomething popular because the media says so?
And the media - of course is unbiased, right?;-)
Or becuase, some polls say so?

... and I thought You, the people, should think for yourself, and make your own opinions, like was pointed out to me by... some participants here.

Gera, i thought that was the point exactly!
Oleg and Svetlana were calling unpopular anti-american, which by itself sounds like an anti-american statement :)

I thought you claimed to have excellent comprehension skills...what was said was that when the government is pushing something that's not supported by the vast majority, then it's un-American...but anyone is free have any opinion they want, but don't expect us or Americans to say that some concepts are American, just because some support Government health-care takeover or other non-sense...it's not - they clearly violate the principles this country was founded on!

Hmm.... if something is unpopular among a person and his/her 5 friends it does not mean that it is "grossly unpopular" among the rest of the Americans. Some people just have difficulty in extrapolations... which they probably missed in school -- because it is a self-serving, elitist and far-from-real-life place....

but don't expect us or Americans to say that some concepts are American,
--------------------------------------------------
us who?the brainwashed otb's who don't have a clue about the principles this country was founded on. no wonder you didn't refer to yourself as an American - you're not and never will be.

1. I think some people here enjoy misunderstanding others.
2. Aleksey, do you know 5 people who support Health care reform in its present shape?

do you think women's suffrage was popular in the US? although after reading your posts, I can see why some wanted to deny women the right to vote.

i don't know 5 people who support the current shape of the reform because i don't know 5 people who know the current shape..
in fact i don't know 1 person who knows it.. there are so many different bills with 1000s of pages each.. and last few hundred pages of every bill are amendments that looks like
"in section 37 paragraph 3 change "given" to "gives" as per section 122c "

lest we forget, abolition of slavery was also quite unpopular in it's day... who amongst us today would call that un-American? well, I know a few of you would...

I can see how some would still want to be slaves of the state by wanting the government to tell them every step of the way and hand out them everything...
for the government to enact something into a law, it has to be both constitutional (slavery was clearly not, nor is the healthcare reform) and popular (supported by the majority)...
supporting limited government is very American, expansion of the already huge federal government with unconstitutional duties is not..

IF YOU CROSS THE VENEZUELAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU WILL BE BRANDED A SPY AND YOUR FATE WILL BE SEALED.
IF YOU CROSS THE CUBAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU WILL BE THROWN INTO POLITICAL PRISON TO ROT.

IF YOU CROSS THE NORTH KOREAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET 12 YEARS HARD LABOR.
IF YOU CROSS THE IRANIAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU ARE DETAINED INDEFINITELY.
IF YOU CROSS THE AFGHAN BORDER ILLEGALLY, YOU GET SHOT.
IF YOU CROSS THE SAUDI ARABIAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU WILL BE JAILED.
<FONT color=blue size=2 face=Arial>

IF YOU CROSS THE CHINESE BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU MAY NEVER BE HEARD FROM AGAIN.

IF YOU CROSS THE U.S. BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU:<FONT color=blue size=2 face=Arial>
GET A JOB, A DRIVERS LICENSE, SOCIAL SECURITY CARD, WELFARE, FOOD STAMPS, CREDIT CARDS, SUBSIDIZED RENT OR A LOAN TO BUY A HOUSE, FREE EDUCATION, FREE HEALTH CARE, A LOBBYIST IN WASHINGTON AND IN MANY INSTANCES YOU CAN VOTE

for the government to enact something into a law, it has to be both constitutional (slavery was clearly not
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you mean now it's clearly not... back then it obviously wasn't so clear

some may accuse me of the ESL teacher brutality now, BUT I have to admit - have seen similiar arrogance from other daycare "educators" preaching age-appropriate behavior...
actually if someone loved education so much, there are so many degrees you can get, so you don't have to rely on government to provide you with jobs and healthcare...
that's the Amercan way!! (Y)

Slavery was totally constitutional, in fact some of our founding fathers were slave owners themselves and slave-ownership was codified into law.