Not all slaves are equal... some are "more equal than others". This is not at all descriptive of either socialism or of capitalism, for in each there are those who are "more equal than others".

Just because a quote is about an abhorant subject (such as slavery) does not mean that it deserves an immediate thumbs down... it is not bad to speak out about such practices... indeed, this quote is clearly against such practice... indeed, it serves well to point out how our current King George and his hench men have turned us all into a form of modern slaves.

A cesspool of negativism...

Yes, a deplorable step to legislate the ability to have children... but the reality is that when there are too many people, the very value of a person's life is degraded. The simple truth is that this planet is a closed eco-system and that as such it has limits as to how many people it can support. Yes, I know that the US's Taliban (a.k.a. Radical Religious Right) do not fear this, 'cause they know that they will cause their blessed global Armageddon long before we reach that state... but some of us think that we (humanity) are capable of much more than that... we are optimistic that we will not destroy ourselves either by global thermo-nuclear war or by simple over-breeding like rats in a sewer.

Marvelous... it recognises that society has a direct and real responsibility for the youth of that society. To produce outward looking, innovative adults we must see an investment which engenders this... and that is one in education. Teach your children at home and all you get is little clones of the parents... teach them at public schools and when done right you get worldly knowledgable, society aware, independant thinkers and doers!

And those who would oppose this are the same ones who no doubt see no harm in turning their daughters into baby factories before they even get a chance to set aside their dolls. Everyone deserves a chance to grow up before they become responsible for another human being.

Right on Kathleen! No one is saying that you can't be a parent, just that you have to be competent before you are allowed to be responsible for the life of another being. Society is little more than a set of social conventions and contracts to better serve the needs of the many for the betterment of all.

Poor parenting is very likely at the very heart of most of our social ills today. If we did a better job of building better parents, we would no doubt solve many ills within just a few generations. It used to be that there were parenting classes given in high schools for the females, so at least half of the parental units got some training. Today, no such luck. Too bad so many have caused our education system to become more narrow minded, just like most of those home schoolers do as an excuse to make sure that their children are educated in religion and have no contact with outside systems which actually show some semblance of rigorous thought processes.

Too bad today's dark and narrow minded court does not see the value of such a broad minded vision.

aahhhhh, that the current set of (anti-)social activist judges would walk this walk instead of promoting their own (anti-)social agendas.

While the implementations are often not preserved, the ideals certainly are...

Behave towards others as they would have you behave towards them... think about it, it is very ego centric to assume that they want the same thing that you want... honor them with what they really want, not what you want!

Right on Jack! And I concur w/ Mike, no rating until better understanding of the context (as it seems to clearly be out of context).

Now we must stand behind those forces which invented us and defend them... and we don't do that by war and hate, but by kindness and love and acceptance of differences.

First we must start with a concept, and this is a glorious one... then we must implement the policies and actions to make that concept real. So, like Robert points out, make love not war... and while we are talking about Virginia, that means block their anti-marriage, homophobic attempt to modify their constitution by putting hate and inequality statements into it.

Perhaps this is a part of what FOX means by "fair & balanced" (which they are neither).

Equality is not really desireable, as we are not all equal... Equitable treatment is desireable... thus, we should not tax the poor, and we should tax the rich more than the average... because they are not equal, but this is indeed equitable. All should be able to expect a minimum level of basic humane treatment from our social systems (e.g. health care, etc), but the rich should not be prevented from buying more... same for housing, transport, etc. A mixture of capitalism over a base level of socialism...

Sadly, just as with technology, so too can social progress be turned to evil... so we have atomic energy... and a bomb. Likewise we have the teachings of Jesus and Mohammad... and the perversions that organized religion makes of those teachings.

Prisons are just as (or perhaps even more) full of conformists... those conforming to the bad influences around them rather than standing up and doing something better...

He seems to only miss the boat by not explicitly listing the need to remove preconcieved assumptions from the process.

I think what the other posters are missing is that there is a very marked difference between "extremist" and "violent extremist".

This is the path to anarchy. A successful society is one where there are interdependantcies between individuals. So, while there may be freedom to provide for one's own self independent of all others, in reality very few will do so, choosing instead to pool resources to create such institutions as trade, insurance, shared defense, etc.

And likewise, just because a thing is unlawful, does not make it unjust...

No better argument for the complete exclusion of religious indoctrination by the radical religious right (of all religions) from our public school system.

And it is just as possible that given complete freedom that great evil will come of it, which compromises the human dignity of others... so it appears to me that the quote attempts to tie too much together under "motherhood & apple pie", making assumptions of the inherent good in all which is in actually just not there.