NASA

This agency has presided over too many disasters - lost satellites, exploding space shuttles. It's sunk billions of dollars into the space station white elephant - which really has no purpose. It needs to be reduced to dealing with only national security satellites, etc. Private enterprise should take over commercial satellite launches, and the those of scientific satellites such as from the NSF, NOAA.

Amtrak

The rolling joke of the national transportation system, this other white elephant receives a billion dollars a year to very highly subsidize its very few passengers - for what? Close this baby down fast.

Dept of Education

This department had decades to improve the education of american students, and has utterly failed. Education should at most be a state issue. Close it.

CIA

Organized as an extension of the WWII era OSS, this cold war era anachronism has been wrong over and over - it should be replaced with a completely new intelligence organization designed around the threats of the 21st century.

FEMA

Obviously a failure. It should be replaced by regional organizations where known threats occur - eg a gulf state consortium on hurricane preparedness.

FCC

Another anachronism, created when there were only radio channels. With the explosion of media communication, this agency is no longer needed.

USSC

The USSC has evolved over 200 years as america's monarch - but unlike the UK, with real, unanswerable power. Consider what a king is: he rules for life, he's not democratically elected, and he has ultimate power - just like the USSC. This court should be changed so that the members serve for say ten years, not till they're drooling and alzheimic. Their decisions should be able to be overridden by congress - say with a 75% supermajority. All their trappings of demigodhood - the USSC "temple" building, their religious-like robes, should be prohibited by law.

BIA

Sorry to reuse the word, but this is REALLY an anachronism. The special status of reservations should be changed to simple land ownership, the BIA should be dissolved, and (here, a recommendation only) the indians should join the 21st century.

INS

An utter failure - should be replaced by an adequately-funded 21st century organization dedicated to success in keeping 100%, or (*)(*)(*)(*) near to it, of illegal aliens, contraband, and islamofascists from entering the country.

PBS, NPR

Taxpayer funded lib propaganda - off with its head.

NEA

Taxpayer funding of "art" that they wouldn't subsidize willingly - to the chopping block.

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Science requires mistakes to advance. Can you come up with a private program that has done more to advance technology and knowledge of the universe than NASA? Is GM gonna get your grandkids' butts off this planet when the contribution of your SUV fumes have finally made our atmosphere a total joke? There is no suitable alternative to NASA at this time. Your beloved Fox News wouldn't have satellites to help it along if not for NASA and your cell phone would be lousy and we wouldn't even have all those missles you love so much.

I have no defense for Amtrak.

Be serious, Jake. You simply do not care about education. It's obvious by your "state issue at most" comment. We do not elect people with such disdain for the very existence of an education system. So it's pointless to even complain.
I'd like to see how education has undergone NO improvements. Not enough maybe. But NO is an overstatement.

They're workin' on it. Which is a bigger waste? Reorganizing the system we have or tashing it all to build a new one. Besides, the whole "rogue state doctrine" was designed to look exactly like the Cold War.

That makes sense, I suppose.

Yeah, that one's pretty outdated.

The point of the Court is to be a check on the people themselves, a check against mob rule and the corruption in electoral politics. True, it's flawed... but do you have a better system for this necessary check and balance? I certainly don't.

Perhaps. But it will not be as simple as just dissolving the org and watching everything blossom. And what's with apologizing for using the word "anachronism"? More anti-intellectual stuff. That's the main problem with America these days. It's "cool" to be anti-smart.

So in other words it needs to be changed. And given more funding.

It's there as a check on market forces to ensure that in worse case scenario, there is a trustworthy news outlet (and unfortunately a bunch of "cultural" crap). It's mostly funded through private donations and overseen by a bipartisan board. It is less left-biased than CNN and less right-biased than FoxNews and tends to be the only outlet to focus on important issues more often than celebrities and the latest big trial. The popular market should not be able to keep us entirely blinded to the world simply on the basis that important news is not as popular as fluff and mindless political banter disguised as commentary and discussion.
If anything, NPR and PBS should be forced to quit being the last stand for overrated artsy-fartsy "entertainment". That stuff should be subject to market extinction as it does not inform.
Ironically the super-con George W. Bush appointed to head CPB is a big voice in cutting down information programs for more music and such.
Sabotage.

I agree with that one.

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"It's never over... BOY!"
The Tall Man, Phantasm III

Who says Liberal indoctrination doesn't work........that's a clear example . It's also a clear example, JB, of how Liberals simply shove the Constitution aside whenever it stands in their way.

The Constitution authorizes no such federal control over education, but does state that authority not specifically given the feds will remain jurisdiction of the states.

However, during the suspension of the Constitution period of "civil rights," the federal government decided to use blackmail and extortion to wrestle control of the education system away from the populace and into the iron fist of Liberal Washington DC politicians. Since the federal government still has no legal authority to manipulate our education system, they still do what they learned worked initially.

Taxes got raised, followed by a federal promise to give some of it back to each state for complying with the federal demands. It's been working for Liberals for twenty years before Carter made the beaurocracy official>

Now, that we know how the feds grabbed power unConstitutuionally, how 'bout we compare the results. Socialist agendas and indoctrination has skyrocketed at the same rate the reading, math, and science scores have plummeted. That's the scores with the lowered standards factored OUT of the equation.

I'm with Jake on this one. Regardless of Liberal ideals, results do matter.

This part requires some proof. Have the standards lowered. Have scores lowered in a way that can be traced through time AND is not related to a larger portion of the population receiving education?
Overall looking at the very top kids in the education system, I'd put them to bat against those of yester-year any day. I'd also put the bottom percentile kids up against the uneducated of yesteryear.

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"It's never over... BOY!"
The Tall Man, Phantasm III

Since JB didn't take this one on, I will.

Amtrak is a mess, agreed; but the question is, why?

Is it the chronic underfunding?

Is it the fact that it is pretty much prohibited from owning its own track, except in the Acela corridors on the east coast? That means it is dependent on freight companies for track maintenance (meaning no high-speed trains, because the freight companies neither need nor want such track) routes (freight lines generally get sent through the hinterlands. The nearest Amtrak station to Madison, Wis., for instance, is in Columbus -- 30 minutes out of town) and schedule (freight trains get the right of way).

Is it the fact that the government wants Amtrak to be self-supporting, while providing all sorts of tax support to the bus industry in the form of free roads and the like?

Maybe its the fact that all of the above means limited routes and times, so reliability is poor and you get ridiculous layovers in hub cities like Chicago?

Maybe if Amtrak was allowed to operate as it's supposed to -- as an independent agency gradually weaning itself off of government subsidies -- it would work. Instead it must labor under ridiculous restrictions imposed by the federal government -- often by people who oppose its very existence. Having thus crippled Amtrak, those same people then point to those hampered operations and say "See? It doesn't work!!"

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Man up.

Pretty good list, but you left out a couple:

BATF - Formerly the Bureau of Prohibition, the socialist FDR, who never met an unconstitutional spending program he didn't like, couldn't just abolish it once Prohibition was repealed, he had to let it live on as a totally useless government agency just to pay some federal salaries and buy some votes. It should be abolished immediately. Drive a stake in its heart. Alcohol, tobacco and firearms are all legal. If any laws are broken concerning their use, law enforcement is adequately equiped to prosecute the offenders.

Bureau of Indian Affairs - The government has no business micro-managing the lives of any particular ethnic group. I think we would see quite a bit of outrage if there had been a Bureau of African-American Affairs to keep African-Americans on regulated lands...separate but equal anyone????

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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." - Schopenhauer

Yup the BIA sucks but the fact is that until you are ready to give the tribes billions in long owed mineral rights on the lands that they have long been owned your going to need the BIA to give you cover....pay what we owe them then get rid of it otherwise you just lost your cover and its either pay what you owe or show the world that all our treaties mean crap.....well give them some proof not associated with the current admin!

But, if Americans were knowledgeable about their own legal system, they would know that the USSC is not the final authority on law - the citizen is, through jury nullification. So, there is a limit on their power. Judges don't want people to know this, because they obviously lose power as a result, but that is precisely what the Founders intended:

"It is not only [the juror's] right, but his duty...to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court." - John Adams, 1771

".....it is usual for the jurors to decide the fact, and to refer the law arising on it to the decision of the judges. But this division of the subject lies with their discretion only. And if the question relate to any point of public liberty, or if it be one of those in which the judges may be suspected of bias, the jury undertake to decide both law and fact." - Thomas Jefferson, "Notes on Virginia," 1782

"Another apprehension [about the French Revolution] is, that a majority cannot be induced to adopt the trial by jury; and I consider that as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution...." - Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Tom Paine, 1789

"It is presumed, that juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that courts are the best judges of law. But still both objects are within your power of decision.....you have a right to take it upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy." - Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay, Georgia v. Brailsford, 1794

"Jurors should acquit, even against the judge's instruction...if exercising their judgement with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction that the charge of the court is wrong." - Alexander Hamilton, 1804

"Petty juries, consisting usually of twelve men, attend courts to try matters of fact in civil causes, and to decide both the law and the fact in criminal prosecutions. The decision of a petty jury is called a verdict." - Noah Webster, Dictionary of the English Language, 1828

"If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by a judge, and contrary to the evidence...If the jury feels that the law under which the defendant is accused is unjust, or that exigent circumstances justified the actions of the accused, or for any reason which appeals to their logic or passion, the jury has the power to acquit, and the courts must abide by that decision." - 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, United States v. Moylan, 1969

"[The jury has an] unreviewable and irreversible power...to acquit in disregard of the instructions on the law given by the trial judge...The pages of history shine on instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard uncontradicted evidence and instructions of the judge; for example, acquittals under the fugitive slave law." - D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Unites States v. Dougherty, 1972

"The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both the law and the facts." - Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Horning v. District of Columbia, 1920

"It is universally conceded that a verdict of acquittal, although rendered against the instructions of the judge, is final, and cannot be set aside; and consequently that the jury have the legal power to decide for themselves the law involved in the general issues of guilty or not guilty." - Justices Gray and Shiras, Sparf and Hansen v. United States, 1894, dissent

http://www.crfc.org/americanjury/nullification.html

http://www.fija.org


But some authoritarian aspects are part of a republic - and that's what we are - a republic and not a democracy. I understand your point, but the issue is Americans recognizing their own powers in our Constitutional system and fighting for their rights. As Jefferson said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be." If your population consists of ignorant retards, your form of government really doesn't matter. It will ALWAYS eventually degenerate into tyranny. And we're well on our way...

I wouldn't disagree with limiting their power further. Although I think making impeaching them easier would keep them in line better. We definitely need a way to remove them from the bench.

I wouldn't disagree with that either, except maybe make the supermajority requirement a little higher - 90%. Maybe even require a unanimous vote. Sometimes Congress can get pretty loopy themselves. EDIT - Sometimes? What am I saying? Let me correct myself - MOST of the time...

Now I definitely like that. I'd love to see the robes go. I think it does stem from a religious ritual mentality.

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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." - Schopenhauer

I would say just let them be exempt from the income tax and property taxes for the rest of their lives.

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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." - Schopenhauer

[quote]Good - we'll use that to excuse management blunders, WPA projects for engineers like the space station white elephant, and inexcusable mistakes like when a mars lander crashed because mission control was using the english system and the software people the metric system.

I'm not interested in forming a private company. Are you? If so YOU put it together and YOU come up with the financing, instead of taking the tax money of waitresses and factory workers and janitors and using it for these engineer ego trip spectacular space farces.

Equivalencing the Dept. of education with education itself puts you at the zero level of issue grasp.

The personnel, organization, methods EVERYTHING have to be revamped. Like putting a patch on a pair of pants with 50 patches already - what's needed is a completely new organization.

I just told you what it is. And you've got a bizarre notion of their role - they are supposed to apply the constitution, not their ideology, to the cases that come before it.

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