The erroneous logic that we can achieve peace through warfare is as non-jesus a notion as there ever was.

Per Logan, philosophically, truth is relative as an evolving investigation of the nature of reality and human perception. However in the public arena, pragmatism demands a concrete approach to the TRUTH that is fact based and not conceptually interpretative. Obviously our government, and the marketing gurus of madison avenue, do not subscribe to this distinction. It is all about what they can sell to the masses who have, as Warren observes, been sorely manipulated in a failed educational system.

Always nice to find out where what has become a colloguialism has come from.

And Paul, you may consider that politicians today, who do not have the wisdom of ability to defend their opinions with sound argument and logic, consistently and romanitcally evoke the FOUNDERS as a smoke screen of double speak. It is like quoting the bible, you can use it to justify anything and everything "under the sun".

ARCHER-the number of times I could have said shame on you I cannot count. At least I have respected the nuances of your observations.

I am so sick of evoking the "founders"...founders this, founders that...It's 2007 for god's sake. We have more relevant wisdom to draw on for relevance to our current crises than romantically going back to the 18th century when they only had flint lock rifles.

The term civil rights has a latin source as Archer writes. When I hear it used I also give it a more connotative association-one in which would imply that people deserve to treated in a civil manner, as in 'we are a civilized' society and thus should treat our fellow man in a decent and civil way. If we think of it in this simple way it is pretty easy to see that many people in our hierarchical, racist, nationalistic and gender biased culture are often denied this respect.

The source says it all -- poetry was more of a vehicle for social commentary and the cause of human justice then political rehetoric that too often falls on deaf ears that is already entrenched in its own preconceived ideology.

Read Al Gore's new book, The Assault on Reason as a modern treatise on why the collective's ability to think rationally and contribute intelligently to a participatory democracy is at terminal risk.

True, but a circular and redundant sentence.

WS for wisdom and vocabulary-disjoin is such a great verb.

Giving the author the benefit of the doubt I am quite sure in the context of commenting on freedom of expression he was referring to punitive consequences.

In the context of the Ireland of Thomas Moore's time this is wrenchingly poignant.

The majority are quite limited in their self determination. They live under the delusion that they make choices but it is just that-a delusion. This is not Ayn Rand's paradigm we are inhabiting.

In a way seems rather stupid, but in truth is profoundly accurate.

Knowing well Baldwin's work, this articulates his idea that the self actualized life is the only ture freedom and liberation.

Per the editor: of course it cannot be taken literally.

Taken as one more lawyer joke it is a good quote-but my lawyers have done far more good for me then otherwise.Certainly applies to lawyer lobbyists running DC.

I believe that the intent of the statement is to say that a priori the need to upset people's complacency is the necessary catalyst for social action and change. As long as people are content with the status quo not much is going to happen to change anything. However, the aftermath may indeed be exhilarating, if not eupohric.

From a previous posting: "Individuality is freedom lived." -- John Dos Passos (1896-1970) American novelist, historian, critic

And isn't it astounding that there are actually people in America who imagine and dream that one day they too will be rich, so in the meantime support the political policies that will certainly keep them from ever being so.

America's typical patriarchal view of peoples who they see as less civilized and socially enlgihtened as they think themselves to be, makes me sick. It is only becasue we are actually novices in the game of statecraft that we are so self righteous. No less true of any group of peole we have earmarked for the need to be 'christianized, democratized, and americanized" the Filipinos may now think their country preferable to the colonized or pre-conlonized state they once were, but like Iraq, they should have been left to achieve transformation through their own loss of life and treasure. In Manila there is one of only three US national cemeteries that is maintained overseas by our national parks system (one other in Mexico City and the other at Normandy)-over sixty thousand americans died and are buried there, tens of thousands more in unmarked graves. Like Arlington writ large.

The loss of human life in any war makes the price too high. But as governments tend to ignore this intangible cost then Reagan is like all leaders who send their children to fight for their vested interest in power.

Prescient to put this inthe same context as Ayn Rand...no such thing as an humanitarian impulse that at is core is not self interest. And once again, how to rate a quote that is true but you hate the truth it reveals..

It has never been definted differently...that the nation state will act in its own self interest. This is its mandate. On a personal level humans are supposed to be able to act with compassion and empathy but that has never been applied to the interaction of governments. This is a concept derived from the earliest practices of diplomacy during the Renaissance, when it was Rome and Florence battling it out for political domination.