And if you want to do away with all government services, and transfer all of the responsibility for providing those services to private hands, go for it. The quick you transfer everything to private hands, the sooner you will see that government isn't the only organization that knows how to screw up anything and everything. Low standards are not limited to government.

Mike, Public Education is an oxymoron. I know...I grajooated from public skool. As for the Antisocial Security system, I guess I should be ashamed to say that I am almost to old and decrepit to care at this time of night. Try me in the morning.

I wonder whether any of you who gave this quote 5 stars could explain its meaning to me in Modern American English.

Radical? Agenda? Reston: You are the one who on another page asked "What is wholesome restraint?" Barry Goldwater might not have been capable of achieving what he promoted, but he had a clear and wholesome vision.

Inspiring rhetoric.

I love the irony of a Gregoroff, a Canadian ex-patriot Soviet tovarisc telling Americans about government.

Well, Joe, to be fair, I have never known anyone who was not crazy. Adams was generally impatient of wishy-washiness. He was a far-sighted analyst of the political situation. He was a conspirator against an empire. It takes a nut.

If great power were always accompanied by great wisdom, perhaps we would not be in this mess.

John Adams was far from ordinary among his peers. He was a nut. (But remember what Billy Joel said about that.) If John were alive today, you can be sure he would take some decisive action, since the government we have today, including all three branches, is worse than that of King George lll of 1775.

I was not insinuating that the people should give up their guns and be left to the mercilessness of habitual criminals and corrupt police. I was just making an observation. I seem to almost recall the statistics showing that crime rates are lower where the people are well armed. Does anyone have those? I support the Second Amendment. Hitler, Stalin, and Castro's ban on the people's ownership of weapons is enough justification for every home having a machine gun, as far as I am concerned.

It certainly is not a question of whether American tyranny is as bad as any other...it is a matter of defining things correctly. Archer wrote: "If the reason for colluding with tyranny at home is because people in China or Cuba are oppressed worse so just be grateful we haven't become like them yet is delusional." Is he referring to someone in particular, in some specific situation, or is he just delusional himself?

As far as it goes, his logic is accurate and well founded.

Things may once have been that way, but they changed drastically not too long after the time of this quote.

Truman was responsible for the unwarranted deaths of many thousands of human beings, many more than Milosevic. Truman may have convinced many that to drop the A-bombs on Japan were justified, but he tried to cover up the fact that he sent thousands to a terrible death in the Gulag camps. He took thousands of free people and forced them into slavery. He should have been hung.

Thank you, Jack, for clarifying which side of the limit you are on with respect to the ultimate extreme of morally acceptable behavior. To even attempt to justify what Truman did, and yes, he lied to the people he handed over to destruction, is to place yourself beyond reason. I will have no more to say to you, as you are unfit for human consumption, and also enjoy twisting the truth. Adios.

I did not name LBJ. Truman deceived many thousands of people, whom he delivered up to the Soviet Gulag, most of who perished as a direct result. They could have had lives outside the Soviet Union, if Truman had just let them be. Rangel is a great friend of Fidel Castro, and he now wants to invade Darfur, but withdraw from Iraq. He wants to raise taxes, reinstitute the draft, and normalize relations with Totalitarian Communist Cuba. Murtha is a snake in the grass (Abscam), as is Hastings(removed from judgeship), as is Waters(far left), as is Clinton, as was Truman, as was Roosevelt. Kennedy had a great image as civil rights advocate, but he liked to use political assassination - just a historical fact. And what was his justification for increasing US military presence in Viet Nam? But I know, Jack, you really know better than everyone who the bad guys are. Truman and Churchill both handed over many thousands, maybe more than 100,000, of refugees from the Soviets' demented genocidal tyranny to the raving maniacal murderer Stalin, making them both, in my book, among the most treacherous bastards the 20th-century West had to offer. Of course, they have much company.

Jack, I gave the quote 5 stars. It was to your misconceptions that I responded afterward.

Oh, You mean John Murtha? Or Alcee Hastings? Or Charles Rangel? Or Maxine Waters? Or how about Truman? I am sure the thousands of anti-Soviets who were handed over to the Soviets after WWll appreciated his deceptions.

I read one half of Walden. I admit that I did not find it of much interest to me. The book is still on my night table. In it he expresses himself at some length about his experiences of living there in the woods, by the pond. The experience was for Thoreau nothing like imprisonment. Not at all.

Jack, You careen toward lucid, then toward insane, and back again. Why would I wish to argue with the kind of unreasoning logic that you wish to introduce to prove the absolutely false? Argue with yourself.

But it is not this administraion, Jack...it is all administrations.

Nothing whatever (in human terms), not even constitutional law, will protect Americans from these and similar fates, once the United Nations really gets up steam. Get used to the idea. React however you see fit, but get used to the idea, so you won't be shocked and disappointed when it happens. The Constitution will be the toilet paper of the future.

Approximately true.

Archer: I do not have an accurate count of the number of letters and e-mails I have sent to hundreds of people, as well as the major press outlets, severely criticizing the federal government for a variety of abusive practices. No one arrests me, threatens me, tells me to shut up, insinuates a threat, or otherwise shows signs of life. What am I doing wrong? One day at a protest, I shouted that a certain public official should be burned, not in effigy. Am I such a terrible figure that no one dares to approach me, even armed? I do not think so. I guess maybe they just see me as a total nut-case. But still, no response?

I will have to take your word for it. I have TRIED to get arrested on several occasions, without success...maybe I need a new deodorant.