The GOP has given the people what they asked for: a nation where the rich rob from the poor and that is controlled by the special interests of corporate socialism.

... its called journalism & involves journalistic research... good job to the Glasgow Sunday Herald

A wonderful sentiment, but ignores the fact that very few truly "live by his own work", almost all of us depend upon the work of others in our societal connections... we eat food raised by farmers, we consume power from others, we use tools made by others, etc... and we depend upon the security and other services provided by our government, which are paid for by our taxes. So, to those who think otherwise: return to your caves and consume nothing you have not raised & made by your own hand... use no tool you did not forge yourself from the raw materials you extracted from the earth by hand.

A great example of extreme self deception on the part of the author of the quote.

Susie Q: get your facts right... or do you lie on purpose? http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm Bush inherited a budgetary surplus which he immediately turned into a deficit, Obama inherited the great recession which he has had to turn around before addressing the short term debt, but has already done much to correct the long term debt equation. Good to see at least one poster here knows that FactsMatter!

Even those who lived at the time of its writing (indeed, even its signers) had to interpret it as it is the output of a collection of folks... each with their own view as to the meaning of the words. Those who claim otherwise are just attempting to enforce their own current interpretation upon all others.

and thus the GOP takes steps like naming a bill to allow more air pollution a "clear skies act", pretty clear which party is the liar in congress...

whining

... and many want to go back to a world of child labor & slave ownership too... just because it didn't exist in the 1700's does not mean it is right for a civilized society to do it...

I've worked for gov & for profit private & non-profit private, and by far the best compensation package (both in terms of pay and benefits) has been in for profit private industry, with neither of the alternatives coming even close to matching what our for profit folks pay. And yet, it is at those very same for profit private companies that I have found the least innovative and under motivated employees... Mann's got it right, public libraries are indeed a noble enterprise compared to the large book store chains.

It was fine right up to where you attempt to claim that capitalism is inherently ethically pure & correct... this claim is a baseless leap of (non-)logic. Capitalism may or may not be a good system, but that is not even remotely supported by this quote.

The Roberts Court certainly is doing much legislating, and poorly too... but the problem with this quote is that it is just a piece of the writing with no way here to know if it is taken out of context (the "...") or not... worse than worthless, potentially down right misleading.

You did not earn all that you have, much of that came to you due to the environment which society prepared for you (an educated workforce, fiscally capable consumers, infrastructure to bring you raw materials and distribute your goods, air waves to advertise your goods over, etc). You do indeed owe back to society for those enabling capabilities and environment. Anything less is to just return to the caves to live by the rule of might makes right.

too many ill-defined terms to have any meaning as a valuable quote

and thus the push by the GOP to label everything as terror and refuse the civil trials of those it so labels... even our citizens!

None is "kept", it is all given away... employees and contractors are paid for work (mostly) performed. It is the contractors who tend to keep their portion (in the form of CEO pay).

The wolf wants to eat the sheep... I think we can all agree on this... just like the 0.1% are doing to the 99%. It is through government action by good folks like Cordray (recently appointed by Obama) that the wolf will be held at bay from the sheep.

Freedom takes more than knowing the truth, and a whole lot more than just thinking you know the truth.

... or that fools would exist that think that despite the meaning being intended to be self-evident, it still needs to be interpreted as everyone inherently has a different point of view at an individual level and the interpretation must occur at the societal level... and a great example is the 2nd amendment (complete with its lack of punctuation and words which have very different meaning at the time it was written to those which are self-evident for today's reader).

Society only exists to the extent that there is a moderating force and that force is called government... so it seems he wants humans to devolve back to a cave life...

It is wrong to think of funding relief for a widow of the military as "charity". Obligations of society are not "charity".

and so he'd send us back to the caves...

Its not Congress so much as Wall Street... and they are moving on them it seems!

and so they invent them as needed... just as man has invented the gods & goddesses to meet our need to feel special...

... "they" are out to get ya, beware... BOO!