Stop calling Iraq a war! It was an invasion of a sovereign country by another country ten times its size, -- and known to be defenseless because there were weapons inspectors going through it for months leading up to the invasion -- for the purpose of taking control of their oil and using it to finance the operation, according to one Paul Wolfowitz (remember him"?). It was a "slam dunk". We are not at war with Iraq or anyone else until Congress gets around to naming someone. Who is the enemy? We were told in May 2003; "Mission Accomplished". Let's be careful how we use the word war or maybe we could be charged with war crimes.

If a jihad, or holy war, is a war, who declared it and how will we know when it's over? If 'terrorists' declared it, who were they? Iraqis? Is that why we invaded Iraq? If 9/11 was an unprovoked attack on the the US, like 12/7/41, then why didn't we declare war on the perpetrators the very next day as we did then? I don't think we are at war. We are occupying another country, which happens to be at war with itself, for unspecified reasons and that country is not our enemy. Any act of violence against our country, outside of war, is simply a crime and should be treated as such, unless we have declared war. We have definite laws to deal with criminals and the means we are using do not comply.

I remind you, David, I said PARADOXICALLY, people THINK they are expressing independence,, when actually they are followers. That's how fads get started. Very few people express themselves independently, and fewer get emulated. That's the essence of Reisman's quote, with which you have said you disagree He said,"...both true and misleading" That's the paradox. I agree wholeheartedly and I refer back to my examples

David, please explain "tyranny from without". I only understand tyranny as an oppressive government, which is from within by definition. Do you mean where an outside government takes over another government? ...but then it becomes inside too. I just can't visualize an outside tyranny until it makes itself an inside force. That is usually the result of war.

It is so true that individuals, paradoxically, think they are expressing their independence by making like the crowd. How else do fads and fashions take hold? Why would a kid wear his cap backwards? Wby do teens take up smoking? Why do women abuse their feet by wearing tight, pointy, spike-heel shoes? They are expressing themselves by being like everyone else. There is no justification for any of them. It's the lemming syndrome.

The quote is as true today as it was in Aristotle's day, and is self evident. . "Liberty and equality.... will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government"

Waco, Elian, and Whitewater were not crimes, David. Elian's family were the only criminals and should have been arrested for kidnapping, keeping a child against his father's wishes who came to retrieve him as they challenged him to do.. The seige of Waco was not criminal but was simply AG Reno employing the FBI in putting down a vicious cult. Regretably, it ended in disaster but that's no crime. And Whitewater was a joke. After spending three years and millions of dollars in Little Rock trying to find something against Clinton - including the failed savings and loan there - he reluctantly gave up, so he settled on Monica (not a crime either) So give me a crime. Merthinks you have a grudge and are grasping for straws if those are the best you can come up with. By the way, you forgot Ruby Ridge, another case like Waco.

I claim you're not a Christian, David. Shall we compare if I'm a better atheist than you are a Christian? I do not believe in a suprreme being, at least not the kind described by most religions, and I don't believe in salvation or an eternal soul, or any of the dogma of religion, so what does that make me?

That's odd, David. I was once a Christian, but thankfully, I am no longer as ignorant as I was either, so now I'm an atheist too. And Reston, what's wrong with treating others as you would treat yourself? It's better than treating them as you wouldn't even treat yourself. If everyone did that it would be a better world, but, of course, if you choose not to treat others that way, then don't. It's your privilege.

I'd like to hear David name one criminal activity of Clinton's, just ONE; other than perjury to a question he should never have been asked. Infidelity is not a crime ...only grounds for divorce. The only convicted criminal to be elected president is GWB with at least three DUIs, which are serious crimes. Nixon committed his after being elected, but he had the decency to resign before he was removed, then arranged to have his appointed successor exonerate him. Now compare Clinton's convictions with these men.

This quote cannot be improved upon. It is perfect. On a scale of 0 to 5 stars, this rates a 6.

I would say the same thing with different words. To begin with, I hate the term African-American, as most blacks have never been to Africa. let alone come from there. Also, what do you call white Africans from, say, Rodesia or S. Africa? But, more than that, it is an insult to blacks to refer to non-blacks as "ordinary Amweicans" It would have been more appropriate to have said "other Americans". As an admirer of Clinton, I can't believe he phrased a good thought in those terms.

My, how some people bristle at the mere mention of the word liberal. Reagan sure did a fine job indoctrinating his conservative base by.not even saying the word liberal, but referringg to it as the "L word" ...as a sort of esoteric code word or euphemism for evil. .. But look where those fiery supporters have gotten us in the years they had control of the government. Reagan raised the deficit from $60 billion to $200 billion This conservative government, in addition to having a very seamy, scandal-ridden character, after inheriting a surplus, raised the deficit to a record $500 billiont. It is surprising that any conservative would criticize something by a conservative such as Milton Friedman

You are so right, Ken, but it is so difficult to overcome the maxim: "birds of a feather flock together". It is not impossible, however, and has been done many times in many places.

Too bad the policy of the government back then, of providing free college education, even paying us $75 a month (a very large sum 60 years ago) besides all books and tuition, to all us WWII veterans who wanted it, was changed to making college almost unaffordable to many today. I feel that is one of the contributing factors making ours the "Greatest Generation", according to Tom Brokaw. My grandchildren really had to struggle to make it, compared to me in the late 40s. I felt sorry for them and for the country It surely isn't the country Roosevelt envisioned....

And what became of the anti-Negro, anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant Know-Nothing party, who answered every question about their policies and practices with "I don't know", after Lincoln died in 1865? They joined the newly formed Republican Party - the party of Lincoln. Would he have approved? "I don't know".

I hate to disagree with Ingersoll, as I do respect his agnostic views, but I don't accept there can't be great men without free women, as witness him and his own generation and that of our founding fathers. I think there were greater men then than today, with women more free than theirs were

At the end of the 19th century, the statement was very true. Women had no rights. Men had all the rights. I call myself a feminist, but I do think today it can be said men and women both want their rights, nothing more and nothing less ...and they both deserve them. Five stars in 1900, one star in 2000.

Archer is correct. Skepticism is good, but as such, it assumes some doubt and requires an open mind.

We needed more skeptics in 2003 when everyone was supporting the invasion of a sovereign country on a hunch there would be "mushroom clouds" if we did not take preemptive action. If skeptics spoke out, as some of us did, we were labeled as weak on terrorism and reminded of 9/11. The only justification given now is; Saddam was a very bad person, even if he was no threat to us or our allies..

I told you abortion is wrong to me, David. What else do you want? But that does not make it wrong for everyone, and we don't need to revise our sacred Constitution to make it so. I simply used that, along with many other things the party of limited government would like to do to alter the basic principles of it. It is a state's right and the federal government should not tamper with the prerogatives of the states. The 10th amendment to the Constitution says: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. Why do they keep trying to amend it to do just that?

You still miss the whole point, Rosenthal.. The argument is not over abortion, or gay marraige, or any other personal activity. It's about the Constitution, which Archer so succinctly descrubed, and which some people, who happen to always be of the party that stands for minimal government regulation, but want to change our unique constitution to one like any other, restricting the people, not the government They don't know what they are doing to our proudly held freedoms..

Quoting your own statements, Rosenthal, "Women's reproductive rights... or what Jack has called a woman's right to her own body is no right at all when it is a euphemism for killing a viable fetus". Who says so? I say a woman has a right to her own body and a fetus is surely part of her body, no matter how some would twist into something else.

Who says so Rosenthal? What authority decides where a woman's body ends? Many of us who also oppose abortions (or we might not have had six kids), don't think it's our place, least of all the government's place, to determine that question. I don't have the same concept of a person and a fetus as you have, but I still think abortion is wrong. As for partial-birth, I am just as opposed to it as any abortion, but not for the same reasons you do.. A woman should have exercised her rights long before the third trimester if getting rid of a fetus is her only concern. You are pointing out exactly my point. There are people in our government who want to restrict rights by constitutional amendment, corrupting the kind of constitution Archer described. It is one thing to regulate such matters by state's rights and statute, but another to change the Constitution from limits on the government to limits on its citizens.

You are so right Archer Too bad there are people in our government who want to go to the inverted type of constitution we have, allowing government to restrict rights instead of extend them...Whenever the Republicans are in power we get amendments like XVIII (1919), Prohibition, which caused so many problems it had to be repealed by XXI; or XX (1951), which prohibited a president from running a third time, no matter how many wanted him to. Then today they want to ban everything from gay marriage to flag burning in protest of the government, or barring a woman's right to her own body or euthanasia, even though voted for in Oregon.. None of the other 25 takes away a single right from anyone. Some politicians don't trust the people. They have to regulate everything. The irony is, those are the same people who advocate getting the government off our backs Give them enough time and we'll have a constitution like the ones you mentioned.