OK, Archer, then what should an individual do to reform a system that abuses rights, or that does not function as it is supposed to function? Or should the individual just live with it, since it is not his job to reform it, according to you? To reform the world, or to reform any given system or process or aspect of it, is the job of anyone who takes it upon himself. There are plenty of areas in which reform would be a good thing. So who made you boss to decide what my job is?

Can't live with the reality that your idol is a false god, huh, Jack?

Clinton said what Clinton said: "When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it." Clinton said that. He did not say that others said that. How do you think the children at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco felt about Clinton's stand on rights, which he demonstrated by sending in a flamethrowing tank to free them from their skin? ..................... "If the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution inhibit the government's ability to govern the people, we should look to limit those guarantees." --President William Clinton, August 12, 1993 .......... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I can do any goddamned thing I want. I'm President of the United States. ..." -- Clinton, Oct.,1993 "The United States can't be so fixed on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans..."--President Bill Clinton, March 1, 1993, during a press conference in Piscataway, NJ Boston Globe, 3/2/93, page 3, USA Today, March 11, 1993 .........Thgere is more, Jack, but you have your idol on a pedestal, and that is where you will keep it.

Oh, I don't know. What about the millions of slaves in the world who are owned by masters and controlled in every aspect of their daily lives.

If what you say is correct, Archer, then we are in trouble indeed. How could an individual reform the world, without the collaboration of all other individuals, including the ones who run governments?

Excuse me if I continue to believe and insist that even our American system of government, call it what you like, is overrated and incapable of putting right a world that badly needs reform. The total value of inept individual sovereignty is more destructive and barbaric than its parts.

But you are not saying that crimes are not crimes, are you? Because that would be hard to rationalize. In the context of this quote, crimes are crimes, and liberty is not a license to commit crime.

Crimes are crimes, Joe. Or can you define them in such a way as to make them other than crimes? If so, you could be a lawyer.

This aspect of history will be repeated many times.

Archer must be joking, when he refers to people putting themselves in order. Or maybe he just does not pay attention to what goes on around him. Or maybe he believes that miost of the crimes committed in American cities are committed by government agents in order to create an illusion of broken people.

Just a side note: The name of one of the most cruel white overseers of the slaves, mentioned in chapter 3 or 4 of Douglass' autobiography, is named Mr. Gore. Any relation?

Oh, yeah...and the French revolutionaries, like the author of this quote, did a great job of reorganizing French government and society. Didn't they?

There's something in the water.

Complete dependence on a tyrant? An odd possibility that seems unlikely. Perhaps complete subjugation is what he meant.

'Nuf said.

"You end corruption by putting term limits on all political offices." Funny man.

Hey, Joe, what about the tanks, bazookas, mortars, armored personnel carriers, artillery, fighter jets, helicopters, and all the other neat military weapons the citizens don't carry? Oh, you forgot. The invading forces didn't forget.

What I would like to know is how you all intend to prevent the same degree of corruption from prevailing after the new revolution eliminates the current corrupt governing bodies, judicial, executive, and legislative. Or are you just going to replace the old corruption with new corruption? And while this revolution is taking place, what will keep the foreign enemies of the nation from invading it? Some of you tend to whine over the tyranny you claim prevails in America today, as though it were on a par with the totalitarian regimes of the world that rule over one third of the world's population. Yesterday I heard one scientific fool on a television program compare America's enforcement of restrictive building codes to totalitarianism, and point to China's lax enforcement of these codes as though that were a sign of greater freedom, rather than of corruption or ineptitude. America is in trouble, no doubt, as much from those who want to fix it by revolution as by those who have corrupted it.

Mike: No matter how well meaning they might seem to themselves, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot amd other psychopaths, killed, enslaved, or tortured millions of people. There is no way to compare them to George W. Bush, or even to Bill Clinton. Now, if Bill Clinton gets his wish and becomes secretary general of the UN, then you might want to load your weapons.

Seems it unclear does it as well to you also as to me so much?

This completely ignores the reality of the regimes of Stalin, Mao, and Castro

The first part may be sincere, but the second part must be sarcasm.

Joe, Where do you get your figures on expenditure of tax dollars? The New York Times (not Bush-friendly) indicates 19%, at : http://www.dopcampaign.com/action/mothers/piegrapgh.html

"Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint." -- Alexander Hamilton (Federalist No. 15)

Well, just to be honest, I don't expect much from anyone.