Ingersoll, as usual, knew whereof he spoke.

It is strange that most people are so brainwashed by the tiny minority of powerful and rich that they don't realize they have been cheated by the system. When the rich who have benefitted beyond fairness are taxed in incredibly less proportion to the largess they receive, even the poor are so brain controlled they holler "tyranny" and "usurpation." The very fact of 500 to 1000 times the disparity of income is logic enough to realize the inequity of the system. The law benefits the rich at the expense of the poor in ways few can understand because the rich also control the mass media and what passes for history. But Mr. is wrong about morality and justice coming from God. God had nothing to do with it. What little exists comes from the best of humankind.

And working people class have been plundered ever since civilization began.

An ignorant opinion undeserving of ever seeing the light of day.

Robert has it right. Until---or I should say only if---we can have a truly United Nations' police force and court of justice will we ever have peace and justice. And I believe we will have destroyed our civilization before we ever reach this stage of enlightenment.

"Strings"? What a fainthearted criticism of one of the most stupid attempts in this country to solve a major problem. The only answer is to legalize drugs the same as alcohol. Reasons should be obvious.

The prevailing orthodoxy in the U. S. for centuries is that we are the most democratic, generous, and compassionate country on the globe---a total inability to think outside the chains of nationalism. This prejudice blinds us to the realization that our leaders have been and are as greedy, unlawful and vicious as any. Orwell and Russell are just two of many great thinkers who have kept us as civilized as we are. A pity there are not more like them today.

Don't know how Joe gets the idea of the poor from this reading?? Jefferson is simply stating the obvious fact of failure of religion to solve anything in this world, but rather to further ignorance and hatred.

I wonder where Hoffer could have found an experience of a benevolent dictator in order to form this opinion?

Bush and his thugs should have eliminated that misconception entirely.

A fine truth and truths are not responsible for who expresses them. It's a pity Churchill excluded Iranians, Arabs and Indians in his statement during the British control of Iran and India.

Read the best history available for war atrocity, PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE U.S., by Howard Zinn. All our wars with perhaps the exception of WWII were fought for power of the state, which has been the power of the rich businessmen. These people have become so sure of themselves and so arrogant they even prepared the Project for the New American Century before stealing the 2000 election for all to see.

To be regretted, hell. That's just what the exploiters expect and want. Just regret, don't get off one's ass and DO something about it.

And mass killer Kissinger should know. Few destroyers of democracy and of innocent people exceeded this man.

Yes, the Bill of Rights and Constitution were extremely radical for their time, but not radical in terms of need and justice. And it is not irresponsibility on the part of the people causing great harm today, it is the perfidy and violation of rights by a coterie of corporations and government controlled by the greedy. The only abuse of liberty is by this cabal of corporate gangsters, not the people.

Ditto

With all mainstream media under control by corporations operating solely and selfishly for profit more than ever before, this great, honest statement is more true than ever.

And unless one becomes aware that corporatism equals fascism, as Mussolini correctly defined it, one may not enjoy this good fortune much longer.

In essence that was what Frederick Douglass said and they are both right. We all have the right to TAKE what is a right. The civil rights movement proved the necessity of having to take it. Otherwise blacks would never have gained that right, but remained under suppression.

Because the individual is, as Herbert says, the prime, indispensable, irreducible element, his (Herbert's) quotation is as ridiculous as it sounds. Socialism is the greatest proponent of and foundation for individual rights. It is laissez faire capitalism that is the glorification of force: the force of might over right.

A quotation that accents the rare value of independent thought as opposed to the great majority of minds controlled by custom, the mass, the sheep-like obedience to faiths and politics laid down by ignorant and greedy humans of the past who profited from such blindness and whose progenitors continue to do so.

Right, as Orwell usually is.

I think it's interesting that military mucka- mucks and rich, powerful people always curse government. That's because they want no restraints such as democracy and protection for working people that government is supposed to provide in this country. Sadly, those powerful people now have control of the government and see where it has led---straight to fascism.

Whitman has it right as he usually did.

When freedom becomes a right to indulge in actions harmful or dangerous to others it no longer deserves to be called that.