It is true, but it does not mean that any ideas can be expressed anyplace at any time by any means. Society should have the right to restrict some speech to appropriate times and places. We don't need loudspeakers driving around neighborhoods preaching all day, or using the air waves in primetime to spout vile and offensive language or ideas. The basic concept of the quote is correct, of course.

You're right, Reston. Besides, what is Real freedom vs, FAKE freedom? The adjective serves no purpose. It is a poor quote, but sounds good at first.

You can interpret facts any way you want, Mike, as most religious people do. Like Bush, just today, twisting the NEI assessment of Iraq to suit his wrong-headed actions. How can you call an anti-theist like Bakunin as a religious person? He was no more a Christian than I am. Bakunin said, ""The idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice"

Mike, Where do you get the idea that we Atheists have to borrow our standards from other religions? We think for ourselves and rely on no one - especially some unknown and unseen spiritual concept, or a self-important clergy who claim to know him to do our thinking. Christians have no monopoly on morals or ethics. I resent people speaking for us as much as you dislike folks complaining about Christians.

Not bad for a Russian Anarchist and Socialist Bakunin was the precursor to Russian collectivism during Czarist times. The diffference between him and Marx was, Marx believed in the benevolent dictator approach to Socialism, Bakunin was more of an Anarchist, but both men had the same goals for collectivism. Of course, Marx won out eventually leading to the rise of the Bolsheviks and eventually to Lenin and then to Stalin. The quote reflects the idealism of Socialism's origin.

The so-called conscience is usually the fear of being caught or losing face, not a mystical inner spirit independent of consequences.There are truly altruistic people who perform acts of heroism or self-denial, but for the most part, people behave either out of fear or greed.

Too arbritary! It depends on who the individual is and what seems good to him. Mankind was not better off suffering what felt good to Saddam Hussein. The same could be said of George W Bush. Mill is saying Mankind would be better served with no laws governing behavior.

Limiting speech to a time or place is not censorship. Censorship is prohibiting speech.

No teacher should ridicule a releigious belief. Those who do should be reprimanded. That is true suppression of speech, which is illegal, but Creationism has no place in public schools. Let the adherants suffer ignorance the rest of their lives. Evolution is not atheism. I know many Christians who accept it. Evolution is a provable fact, Creationism is a matter of faith.

Right on, Archer! I don't call your remarks Christian, but rather an exapmle of true ethical, moral practice - often missing from Christians, who often try to force their rites onto the unwilling.

What does the quote have to do with religion? The quote is true but the interpretation is wrong. Limiting where religion can be expounded is not censorship, nor a violation of the first amendment. Everyone has the right to practice and preach his religion, as long as it doesn't intrude on someone else's right not to suffer it. Religion is a personal thing and should not be forced on others, especially the captive audiences in schools and public activities. I won't preach my atheism if you don't force your religion on me, which usually happen to be a Christian sect of some sort.

I agree with the second half of the quote. The censor is indecent whether the artist was decent or not. Censorship is wrong. Expression is wrong only if libelous

I still think P.J. is wrong, Ken, that egalitarianism is coveting. I don't covet what anyone has but I am for fairness. Ken Lay stole what he had from his stockholders and employees and there are others like him almost as bad out there. There is no other way of looking at them. They can bankrupt a company and go off in their golden parachutes It is still a fallacious statement. Egalitarianism is not coveting, no matter what you think of redistribution of wealth, and that was the question.

I agree with you 100%, David. O'Routke is way off base. He confuses egalitarianism and redistribution of wealth with coveting. I don't want any more of someone else's wealth for myself, but I do think the unworthy ones with too much, like our overpaid CEOs, should be made to share some with those who work hard and have so little. When wealth is unevenly distributed it is right to redistribute some of it.. Is a top exevcutive worth 400 times as much as his workers?

As long as you brought it up, David, I have never even personally known a priest, let alone been abused by one. I used to call myself a "mainstream" Protestant until it came to raising my six kids and I could no longer profess to be what I was not. I could spout all the banalities you do. I didn't interfere with their Sunday School experience, though, and today one of them is still a Christian. I don't think any of the others, now in their 50s, are. That's their business, but I am not. I am in my 80s and probably don't have too long to go, but at least I am satisfied I know where I'm going ...the lights will go out and I'll be back where I was over 80 years ago. Where will you go and what evidense do you have? I know floating around with a harp forever and ever does not appeal to me. What would there be to talk about?.

Forget it, Joe. There's no use arguing with people like David or Mike. Their minds are made up and no facts will change them. There are millions of Americans just like them, too ...look at who's in the White House. Is there any wonder the young people of the U.S. don't understand science? That was not always so, but somehow the Christian right rose up and has changed the priorities from knowledge to faith. Faith is fine as a personal guide, but is no way to run a heterogeneous nation. Logic, based on facts, is what's needed

Nobody said Copernicus or Columbus discovered the world was round, David. They lived in the 15th century when everyone knew that. Copernicus is known for figuring out the earth revolved around the sun and Columbus merely set out to find a new route to the Far East, which he thought he had done. He thought the people he met were real Indians. What did he know? He had never seen an Asian. Why should anyone challenge you on anything, David, when you didn't even explain where Job said the earth was an orb, and no references to the Babylonians or Persian discovery of it either? After all, these cultural regions lasted some 2000 years, and covered much of the same vast region from what is now Pakistan to the Mediterranean. Where and when were these early observations made? Of course, there are lots of things not "universally accepted", especially the Bible.

David, if you please, you must know the scripture you referred to in Job, or any place in the Bible, saying the earth was an orb. I don't recall seeing it anywhere. I know Job does consider the vastness of the earth and at one place mentions shaking the earth out of its place, causing the pillars of it to tremble (Job 9:6), but no mention of an orb. I know the Bible is full of metaphors and problems with translations, but I have yet to see anything remotely refering to a spherical earth. I know Creationists latch onto misquotes and preach them as fact. I'd like to refer you to one web site that very effectively explains how this type thinks. Please go to: http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2001/PSCF9-01Schneider.html In fact, I challenge you to find any historical reference to a sperical earth before about 500 BC, when Pythagoras observed ships approaching over the horizon, first the masts showing, then the hull as they came nearer. Then Aristotle, a couple of centuries later, noticed the round shadow of the earth on the moon during a partial eclipse of the moon. I may be wrong but those are the earliest accounts I am familiar with. What observations did Job make to come up with his remarkable conclusions?

The question I always have with the explanation of the universe and all that is in it, being so complex it could not have happened by chance, it had to have been created by a supreme being is; how much more complicated must a creator have had to be to think it all up and carry it out, and how could he/she/it have just happened by accident? Was there a super-supreme being first? Scientists speaks of a Big-Bang, not as gospel truth, but as a possible theory until something better comes along, and there are plenty of others out there. They have made their calculations and different scientists have come to different conclusions. Religions, on the other hand, regard their gods as absolute truth and any explanation that tends to refute that is flat wrong. Some still swear by a flat earth, some that the earth is 6000 years old, others that there is a heaven somewhere up in the sky because Jesus ascended into Heaven, etc. They don't let facts stand in their way. Their minds are made up. And the worst part of that is, most, if not all wars, are fought over the differences in religions.

Sorry David, science and faith are direct opposites, at least as faith is used in this context. Faith is the belief in things unseen. On the other hand, the word science is from the Latin; "scientia"; having knowledge ...in other words, known and provable. One can have faith in anything, including science, as I have, but that is not the way the word faith is understood. It means dogmatic acceptance of an idea without proof, as a personal God, of which Einstein speaks.

The quote is so general as to be meaningless. Everyone can agree with it, but I'll wager my list of abuses is a lot different from Eastwood's. Without context I can only rate it as so much feel good drivel.

By this logic, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Niger, Haiti, or many other such places with virtually no government should be the most successful countries in the world. Welcome to lawless chaos. Compare them to Sweden or Norway, for example, with extensive government services, such as universal health care and the highest standards of living in the world. The statement is a foolish cliché typical of Ronald Reagan.

I think the readers are guilty of the same problem as Disraeli is - accepting no middle ground. Very few things are all right or all wrong - all good or all bad. Most things are somewhere in between and very much subjective judgement calls. Therefore statements should be judged with something in between as well. Sometimes what Disraeli said might be true, but not entirely true. The comments should reflect this with the degree to which it is read as true. For my part I give it 3 stars - more true than false.

Right on! The Bill of Rights was a very radical idea in the 18th century. It was added to the Constitution to limit the power of the Government, guaranteeing certain rights of the People. It is sad to see them being eroded today in the name of "Security".

General MacArthur's words are probably more true today than when he spoke them almost 50 years ago