H.L. is my favorite curmudgeon and he always got it exactly right...how about this one? "As democracy is perfected the office of president represents more and more closely the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last when the White Hose will be adorned by a downright moron." H.L. Mencken (1880-1956 Red State America and those Plain Folks gave us this administration and we do, indeed, have a moron in the White House...

Of course you can...

Oh, 'Winnie' Thought he'd write the history thus establishing himself as some kind of hero. He was one of the biggest frauds ever to walk the face of the earth. But a great writer.

Ohmigod! THIS is where the administration got their ideas...tit for tat, apparently.

A Peoples' Revolution against the banks? In fact, a Peoples' Revolution against anything? Nah...

The quotation, in my opinion, applies to today's Superpatriot whose every word and deed says the State is right.

Kierkegaard has hit the nail on the head... Observe the ruminations from basically the Right on the issue Immigration... they stand together in their hatred of THOSE people INVADING our country... they won't admit it - ever, but the truth is that they cannot abide their complexion and THAT language!

Baloney. The taxpayers of this country would do absolutely nothing...because there IS nothing they can do and they know it.

And here's another chilling quotation from the Neocon's journal, The Weekly Standard, by one, Irving Kristol, the editor's father who notes that neoconservatism has a vital mission, "to convert the Republican party, and America conservatism in general, against their respective wills, into a new kind of conservative politic suitable to governing a modern democracy." "Neoconservatism is hopeful, not lugubrious; forward-looking, not nostalgic; and its general tone is cheerful, not grim or dyspeptic. It's 20th century heroes tend to be TR, FDR and Reagan. Such Republican and conservative worthies as C. Coolidge or Herbert Hoover or Dwight Eisenhower or Barry Goldwater are politely overlooked. "Neocons do not feel the kind of alarm or anxiety about the growth of the state in the past century, seeing it as natural - indeed inevitable."

Rankin's statement is an early example of extreme right-wing gibberish. In fact, the U.N. has proven itself to be rather good for nothing.

Brian: you must be a devotee of Ayn Rand.

Plato had it right...how prescient he was...human nature doesn't change. Even our pols - nay, especially our pols - find their ways around laws: even the president.

Yes, I've seen this before. I wonder why if GHW Bush thinks that his son's war in Iraq is so wonderful He didn't continue with his...didn't He say that it would have been a mistake to bring the Kuwait/Iraq war into Saddam's territory? Didn't He say that we knew the devil we had and we don't know the devil we might get? Of course he did.

Yes, the Bush administration DOES, indeed, pass out the marching orders to its water-carriers daily. And they jump to the task...a gentle 'suggestion' usually does the trick.

The statement is apropos the NSA Presidential Powers debate going on. Congress fell for a line of baloney post 9/11 emotionalism and gave away the 4th amendment of our constitution.

One only had to listen/watch NBC's David Gregory on Meet the Press this Sunday to know exactly what Swinton meant. Gregory all but teared-up with apologies at how he acted with WH Press Sec. Scott McClellan. Ugh!

Machiavelli was a political animal who had us pegged a long, long time ago. We don't change. I wonder if THE PRINCE is required reading in high school or colleges these days. It should be.

America won't be destroyed either from within or from afar despite the Bush/Cheney plans to 'fix' the world...we will, however, be 'at war' for the forseeable future because of oil.

H.L. had it exactly right...what a prescient mind he had! The mob in this 21st century is being led by the Religious Right (Protestant denominations) whereas in the old days it was led by the Catholic Church.

America's version of 'socialism' (read The Republican Right) is Statism and it fits Nozick's quotation to a "T".

I wonder if John Stuart Mill would say these words today...and if he did I would disagree with him. "The voice of protest...is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum is bidding all men obey in silence the tyrannous word of command." -- Charles Eliot Norton

Absolutely on the mark. Roe v Wade hasn't stopped abortion - even late term abortions. Brown v Board of Education hasn't stopped segregation. People have simply found more subtle ways to get around the Supreme Court's opinion.

Exactly...that is why placing so much emphasis on the Supreme Court is a waste of time. Justices are pols and as pols they pay attention to what the people are doing and saying. Roe v Wade hasn't stopped women from having late-term abortions...and gun laws haven't stopped the proliferation of the weapons. And on and on.

What a very vile man...part of God's 'Intelligent Design' I presume. And isn't censorship what religion is actually all about? Of course it is.

Ingersoll was absolutely on target. "Intelligent Design"??? Harrumph...