Sadly, the religious "right" are oh so wrong on this point.

Right on Anonymous! With Jester Dick claiming the 4th branch to himself, and the (now 5th) branch of the press for the most part silent to King George W's mad power grabs we all need to speak out! Impeach!

Norwalk's & rat of the underworld's true colors come out, they just want to optimize their personal existance, even if it is just by "kill kill kill" tactics... sad we let such sick little boys out to play with the adults of the world. Webster speaks of reform from within and personal responsibility of non-violent resistance, not of violence...

Finally, Joe & I agree... impeach King George W! Sadly, the rodent from the underworld is confused as usual, thinking that the IRS is some evil control organization and seeing conspiracy where there is none...

How typical of the rodent from the underworld... votes twice with commentary that has nothing to do with the quote... which is indeed a pretty poor excuse of a quote, as the two axis are close to independant.

It is sad to see so many take what are good words and turn them to evil... people such as Pete & Ken seem to feel that it is fine for the rich owner class to abuse the down trodden... as long as they personally on top... and far too often it is done "in the name of Jesus", who would throw you all out of the temple along with the money changers!

Well said Robert!

... and the third half for the freedom to do.... and the forth half for the freedom to enjoy the preceding three halves in this forth half... again, just not all that quotable...

Slave owners... intellectual elite... robber barons... business tycoons... there are so many words to describe them... this quote is just not all that quotable.

To question IS the answer...

LOL, Gandhi's words are wonderful... makes me wonder how Mike can twist them so as to justify turning one's back on those in need... but it says so much about the self-rightious right that they see the world in this light.

Oh, this is rich... the man who writes against teaching science talking of ignorance & arrogance... and he thinks others are fools, it would be funny if it were not so scary!

Too bad today's politicians (and most of the public) do not seem to understand this...

I don't think it is just the great authors (or even just authors) who do this. Nor do I believe that it takes making disagreement to make people aware of their differences. I suspect most are already quite aware of differences, and the real gift is to make others aware of the complexities and possibilities of the elements of truth in such differences...

To bad it seems that the four previous readers have misparsed this quote... the author seems to be agreeing with their position that silencing people by force is bogus and wrong. As is also typical, Joe not only misread the quote, but also had to insult all who disagree with him, revealing his true self...

It is neither conformaity nor aberration that moves us forward, but rather a combo of communicated insight by the few backed by good old hard work by the many.

"To question is the answer...", not sure what this has to do with being PC though, and while I agree that PC is BS, it is not BS to take into account the feelings of others which is often at the heart of being PC... do unto other as they would have you do unto them (none of that Golden Rule BS, its just Bass Ackwards)...

And yet, there was far worse to come under King George W and his jesters...

While this may have been ment to say that there should be no negitive consequence from the act of writing, a part of that act of writing is often not just to express, but to actually cause actions by others to be taken... consequences... so, for a lack of clarity (on the part of either the writer... or of the creators of this site), this gets a thumbs down.

And it pales with what is being done today by KGW.

don't throw the baby out with the bath water... while the solution seems off base, the problem identification is well formed. The destructive effects of King George W's policies are a fine example. Big business rules the roost today, and it rains destruction upon the little person who has no one to protect their interests... KGW is building nothing more than a variation upon feudal society, and the middle ages were hardly a marvel we should seek to reproduce.

Joe (in Rochester), that is a perversion of a liberal's point of view. Let me take a case in point: me. My father often worked 60+ hour weeks in a small factory, yet there were times when work was slow and it would only be 10 hour weeks, and there was no other jobs to be had in our little town. During those slack times what put food on our table (literally) was welfare & food stamps. What put me through an Ivy was my hard work & federal loans. Today I pay more in taxes each year than my father ever made in a year... Why? Because welfare worked! It keep ME alive such that I can now provide for others via the same channels. So, Joe, do YOU support a living wage? Could YOU live on $5.15/hour and a 30hr/wk job and NO outside help? Do YOU support affordable day care facilities that provide their workers with a living wage? Reform welfare such that it is an assistance, a means to segway between difficult times, but take mean spirited unjustified fear elsewhere!

Yes, the US government under the reign of King George W has for all intents & purposes reintroduced the inquisition...

This seems overly simplistic, indeed I don't even agree that courage is the most important criteria, for the courage to do the wrong thing is in many ways worse than doing nothing... so I believe that first is the wisdom to know what is right and worth attempting.

Yes, we should study history and learn from it, this allows us to avoid fiascoes like Vietnam II (oops, I mean invading Iraq for oil while telling lies to the world). But it is also the case that this should not prevent us from learning from this study, correcting our assumptions and moving forward... something today's common shrub is incapable of.