Anonymous you certainly live at the correct address. I also assume you live in a cave. The territory called the Louisiana Purchase belonged to or was stolen by Spain who sold their stolen propety to France who had a serious fight on their hands with England and needed some money so they sold it to the wise men (lol) residing in sin city, Washington, DC (lol). What does this all say about government owing property? All these rightists who say that government cannot or should not own property are in the land of wishful thinking. Since the US bought the land of Louisiana and Alaska, under the sacred natural laws and rightis, espoused by the property worhipers, I assume that it is the US's right to do what they wish to do with their property. Is there any difference between leftist slavers, plantation slavers, or capitalist slavers. Anonymous how did Idaho acquire the National Forest and why do they call it a National Forest if it is a state forest. I see state forests and national forests all over this land, am I wrong to assume that there is a difference? Is their more intrinsic value or admiration to be given to a state forest rather than to a national forest, and is there more admiration to be given to state officers than to national officers. I see so little admiration on this site for the concepts of we or us. Like I mean the public house, the city commons, places of public gatherings, parks etcetera have played such an important part in the fabric of this nation but all I see is a worship of the concepts of "private" "me", and no sensitivity to the concepts "public", "we", "us". Are rightists by nature or necessity misanthropes (one who entertains aversion to or distrust of his fellow men".) Are cities, towns, and villages that have created public places all leftists? I think you are a sick man Anonymous.

Why do I find that on the contrary my private property is an albatross around my neck. Grass cuttin', paintin' blah blah blah. The onliest time I feel free is when I am away from it on the open road or sea. I don't fully understand the nexus of property ownership and freedom. I think property ownership and wealth gives us power, power over our lives and potentially over the lives of others. Maybe wealth is a source of freedom but wealth and property are matters of degree. There are wealthy people in the poorest countries. Not wealthy like Americans but wealthy compared to those around them. Socrates said however "Wealth is not owning things it is the ability to use things." I never feel wealthier or freer and I repeat myself but on the top of a mountain or in a National Forest and yet I don't own an inch of it. What is the saying "the best things in life are free." Hope you are all well this evening. Mike if by servant representative you are referring to elected legislators I am confused by that phraseology. They do not take direct commands from you which the word "servant" would seem to suggest.

I have generally been skeptical of garden variety experts. Like in college I spent some real money for text books and then the garden variety professor (after all I did not go to Harvard - no garden varieties there) cast aspersions on the the text and its authors. My first response was "Who the hell does this rinky dinky prof think he is? Not to say however that there are not some unfound geniusess. One does not have to stay in a room too long without fresh air to realize that the increased level of CO2 versus O in the room is causing a problem. Stay there long enough and you will die. I am not a scientist like you Ken but where were peoples brains when for decades and hundreds of years mills throughout this country routinely dumped their waste and/or unwanted by-products into to our rivers and streams. (This gave them short term profits and us long term problems.) I mean where are our brains when we suck smoke into our lungs and lie to ourselves that there is nothing wrong with it, I did it too. But I did quit. Many claimed like you that the Surgeon General and his paid dupe accomplices were just cooking the books in order to feed at the public trough. Thousands of scientists and hundreds of governments and major corporations say that the evidence that carbon emissions caused by the way we do business is causing a significant sustained rise in global temperatures which cause significant changes in the lives and habits of species and they say the EVIDENCE IS OVERWHELMING AND INCONTROVERTIBLE. Whether or not you care about which environment you live in, paradisical or Martian is a value judgement but at least be honest to say that you are opting for the Martian. If you are unsure of the science wouldn't it be better to err on the side of paradise earth rather than just keep dumping like our ancestors did. There is one contributor to these sites who regularly comments on the "theft of the fruit of the noble laborer". I can only guess at what he means by this and my guess is that he means taxation. Yes the public (and some individuals who buy the bonds to build the roads, run the sewers, the military etcetera) owns and empowers agencies to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves very conveniently and authorizes taxation or fees to pay for these things. As one Supreme Court Justice (that hotbed of communism or socialism) said "taxation is the price we pay for civilization".

Ken you do certainly believe that humanity can affect the environment don't you? As far as this being a hoax, what is exactly in it for the pranksters? Do you hoax theorists believe it is totally intentional or just a comedy of errors? This site is loaded with so many individuals that are disrespectful of everything in life from Supreme Court Justices (socialists), Washinton, D.C. in general the politcal cess pool of the world responsible for everything that is wrong with the world, 2500 scientists world wide. As far as the quote one does have a right to his property but virtually everyone must trade his property for the property of others: for example your money for the grocers food, the tire dealers tires, you get the picture. And then you must also exchange your propety for the public roads, the cities police protection, the nations (and your) defense. You get the picture. The public authorities have a right to their propety just as you do yours do they not? So you cannot steal the sewers you must pay for your use. If these authorities do not have a right to their property and its fair rent then they do not have a right to exist.

The two biggest conscriptions I believe were during the Civil War and WWII. Can anyone hazard a guess as to what the world would look like now if we did not have the draft during those two periods of history?

What is the large big difference Warren? Could you explain yourself? "Of, by and for the people", re-public (back to the people), democracy "control vested in elective officers who may be upheld or removed by the people. Republic "a representative democracy". If you listen to Rush (by the way where is he now, jail, Vegas, on drugs or what) he will tell you "This is a republic not a democracy and so you should be a Republican and not a Democrat." Jefferson called his political party "The Democratic-Republican Party". Did you know that in England Public Schools are private institutions.

Robin Williams called William Jefferson Clinton a humanatarian. I don't think a higher accoalde could be given. The best thing he did was raise taxes, balance the budget and start to pay down the national debt. Bush lowered taxes and sold bonds. The war is being fought by men and women from lower income families while the rich bought 5% bonds with their tax cut and are collecting a nice war dividend. Thanks to Reagan and the two Bushes (Bush The First and Bush The Worst) our government is in 8 trillion dollars of debt. One trillion we owe to the Chineese. When Clinton left office the debt was approx. 3 trillion on going down. If you are going to take this country to war at least have the courage to ask us to pay for it. Warren how did you like the war in Kosovo?

You lose me Archer. The states are not soverign because they cannot leave. The question of state soverignity was debated for the first 84 years of the union. Have you ever heard of the Civil War? It was about whether or not a state was soverign and thus could come or go at will. What that war settled was that the states are not soverign. As I stated above the Soviet (re: soverign) Socialist Republics were soverign and thus they could leave their union and did.

Sorry Helorat but I forgot. Was Galileo a hoax? He was kicked out of the church by the Pope. Yeah they apologized 500 years later. Politics and religion always trumps science and common sense. Like some scientists say "they believe we can solve this problem because mankind cannot be this stupid". I think they are right but obviously we still have a lot of folks to educate.

Helorat I wonder where you stand on the 40 year destruction of the Everglades which now is being reversed and may take 50 years to do so. Was that a hoax? When the head of the Army Corps of Engineers was fired by Trent Lott for saying there was to much construction too close to the Gulf Shore of Mississippi and it that it would endanger people and property was that a hoax? Was acid rain a hoax? Was the close destruction of deer, elk and antelope, and mountain lion a hoax? The problem in all of these scenarios is the same problem with global warming. The only interest these naysayers have is money and short term greed. Common sense and care for the environment can Go To Hell as far as these rightists are concerned. And their last argument is "Oh these people are all left wing socialists and communists." 2500 scientists, hundreds of governments, and Al Gore. If socialism is coming to gether for commonality and the common good of each other and the planet I am all for it. John McCain has now called climate change (a republican word for global warming) one of the planks of his Presidential bid. I guess now we can lable him a socialist/commie sym as well as Bush The Worst who is coming over slowly to environmental common sense. We have all of this to thank Saint Al Gore for (and yes he was an important participant in creating the internet. He never said that he invented it.), now that is leadership. Nehamiah said it thousands of years ago, "The human heart and mind is deceitful above all things." All I know is we broke a record in Alabama today at 103.

Has it ever occurred to y'all that we called the "Indians" filthy savages until we finally defeated them. Now we build statues to them and call them noble warriors. And the more noble we make them to be the greater we come off to be because we defeated them. Hmm ain't human nature interesting. I believe that it is an economic fact (but I to am no expert) that a hunter/gatherer society cannot exist with a farming society. Otherwise you got folks chasing buffalo across your corn fields. Something had to give here. I live near where the trail of tears started near Columbus, Georgia. The Cherokees were pretty much assimilated. They dressed Euro lived in log cabins etcetera but that was not good enough for white man. They marched them off to Oklahoma to a concentration camp and put them on the first federal welfare program. All the booze and blankets they wanted, "just stay the hell out of our life" was the message.

I respectfully disagree with your use of "voluntary giving up". Imminent (your spelling does not exist in my dictionary) domain is actually a natural law because as we know we actually own nothing we are just using it for a few years until we start pushing up daisies.

The concepts of socialism and communism is the last defense of scoundrels and intellectually deficient folk. For example while the overwhelming evidence and scientific thinking is that global warming is a real problem the know nothings on the right resort to "It is all a left wing communist plot" etcetera. Once we make something sacred like "capitalism" or "socialism" we create a problem. The answer and always has been in our country pragmatism. The issue between socialism and capitalism is centralizatin versus decentralization. Group dicision making versus individual decision making. Sometimes we need one model of decision making sometimes another.

Bill Clinton was one of the most courageous politicians ever to be in the White House. And still is. To stand on the world stage with what his politcal enemies put him through takes courage. Regardless of whether or not he deserves the ridicule he gets, he faces it courageously and with aplomb. What he is saying in this matter is if the "Inalienable right to bear arms" is interpreted to mean Uzi's and Street Sweepers (a shot gun that fires like ten shells at the same time), nuclear weapons, and weapons of mass destruction, maybe we need to limit this inalienable right. He was courageous when he said "I am the only President to stand up too the NRA while in office." This was a swipe at the facillating ass kisser Bush the First who did nothing when he could about guns in the streets but mouthed off about it after he left office

Republic and democracy are only nuanced descriptions of the same thing. The prefix RE means "back", "again". So we have words like turn and return, do and redo, try and retry and public and republic. It means to go back to the people. If you don't like the word democracy maybe you like my favorite "Of, by, and for the people". Mr. Archer could you explain inalienable property rights versus imminent doman.

MIRRORS. Yes, Anonymous if you cannot face yourself and live with yourself and your own words when you speak or write maybe you should not speak or write. "We the People..in Order to....provide for the common defence..do ordain and establish this Constitution". Section 8. The Congress shall have the power 1)To declare war 2) Raise and support armies 3) Provide and maintain a navy 4) To provide for calling forth a Militia. SO I RESPECTFULLY ASK AGAIN "WHERE THE HELL IS OLE DAN WEBSTER COMING FROM? Can someone get in front of their mirror and answer this one.

Were the Native Americans free? I understand that generally they could not conceive of the idea of owning mother earth. So where is this guy coming from? I fully agree with the first phrase about economics, I am not sure about the second phrase. Hey how about someone handling the conflict between these three phrases: private property, free society, imminent domain.

KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid! Somewhere the Constitution reguires the government to defend the nation. If there are no volunteers then the government must resort to conscription. Where I ask is Daniel Webster coming from? Does anyone know?

You all are going a little overboard here. First of all "We Are The Government". And as you know we are changing policy. The change of party in the last election is proof of that. We are a government and society run on public opinion. After all that is what "republic" means. "Re" means to do again, go back, as in retry, return, retreat etcetera. Thus re-public means to go back to the people. In a representative republic however, change does not happen overnight. What the hell is Webster talking about? Whether or not you agree with the policies or support any war that our nation through its government in DC has been involved in do you believe that this same government and this same nation has no right to fight a war. The terms Webster uses of ambitious, mischievious are subjects of political debate and the votes and support of the Congress and ultimately the People. But once the debate is over and majority speaks I do believe our government and nation has the right and sadly sometimes the responsibility to wage war. Sometimes are dislike of government and dislike of being "governed" gets in the way of clear thinking and understanding history. What our Constitution, the Founding Fathers and the generations that followed accomplished via the "legal" institution known to the world as the "United States of America" is renown. The wise men in Washington (sent there from the hinterlands) created a continental nation. The Washington, D.C. haters out west would be speaking French or Spanish, mankind would not have gone to the moon, Nazi Germnay would rule the world etcetera. You get the idea. Rather than altering a machine like that Europe is poised on copying it with their "European Union". With this larger organization and tax base they can now start to emulate and compete with the USA with their large continental free trade area and now with their own Space Agency. The bottom line for all of these 225 years has been "The Union Forever" and it has been led by that most detestable of all things Washington, D.C.

This don't make sense. Clinton may have been a lot of things but I don't think he was stupid enough politically speaking to say that in that way. Otherwise this must be out of context. Of course the "government" does have the right to limit "the right to bear arms". It can limit an individuals right for example of "bearing" or owning a nuclear bomb, or an operable Army tank etcetera. If Clinton said this maybe this type of limitations is what he was referring too.

It would be interesting to know when Hamilton made this statement. Obviously (or is it) it was before final ratification. Was not one of the main thrusts of the new Constitution to end the "errors" of the Articles of "Con" federation in favor of a "federation" in which states lost all of their soverignity, "In order to form a more perfect union". At least they lost the ultimate right of soverignity; once in the union they were stuck in the union. In the light of history this construction was brilliant if one is interested in preserving the union. Compare it to the legal fraud of the "Union of Soviet (Soverign) Socialist Republics" These states were held together not by law, since even in their name they had soverignity, but by the dictatorship of the Communist Party. When the party fell so did the so called union.

Sorry. I know we all wish to be left alone but there is a contraian view here. Have you ever hear of the Possee Comitatus. They teach that all governing power should go to the county thus they say that they should be left alone by the state and the federal governments. I get incensed over ugly and idiotic bumper stickers and yes other peoples radios on public trans etcetera but this quote was about being left alone by government not our fellow citizens. The courts have ruled that we have no legal right not to be offended by our fellow citizens.

The world of course is made of opinion. I have had two spoken to me that I feel are very telling. One was by a Norwegian foreign exchange student. She said, "In America the people run their own churches." and the inflexion in her voice registered obvious surprise at this fact. Obviously she was comparing the American scene to her native Norway which like most of Europe still had a very cozy church/state relationship. The other was by my Hungarian sister-in-law who said, "There are so many temploms (churches) maybe that is why Americans are so happy or optimistic." So according to these two very modern European observers what Judge Brandeis claims the "makers of the constitution sought to do" has come to fruition in these latter days. What the hell our evil, invasive, detestable, money grapping, lazy Federal government is even "fighting" with the government of Germany to protect the Scientologists rights. So not only has our government under the Constitution sought and delivered these benefits to us but is trying to spread them around the world.

It appears you guys are of the camp that would make airport security a voluntary rather than a required search. The left alone crowd often does not want to be inconvenienced for the common good. If we all want to be left alone then we should abolish all government, from the block captain all the way up to the United Nations and resort to anarchy. How on earth can you correlate the word "govern" with the phrase "be left alone". To govern means to rule, regulate, control. Thankfully our rules, regulation, control, and "theft of the noble laborer's fruits" is done entirely with the consent of the governed. I fully understand that no one personally wants to be governed but generally we do want the other guy to be governed. I respectfully submit that as our species has grown in numbers and in proximity to each other the less alone we are able to be and unfortunately the more government we have required and asked for. As far as being alone I love parking my RV deep into the National Forest where I never see another person for weeks. If you all like poetry you may remember this one "No man is an island unto himself." It is nice to try but in a world of 6 billion homo sapiens I think it is the height of naivety to think each and every one of us can be left alone. I mean it would be great for the five of us to be left alone but if one of those others is throwing their raw garbage on "our" street is he entitled to be left alone also.

To be reasonably let alone is a great idea. But it is unreasonable to be totally let alone in a society where we are plugged in to all kinds of services and benefits. Living in a society (in a constitutional state) also obligates citizenship which ideally requires some involvement.