An essential element to conforming every individual to one central plan. Make the majority share in the blood, and conform the minority to this plan through means of terror.

The OSTENSIBLE supporters of Constitution without a doubt fall into these three categories. I've seen the Constitution be used too many times as leverage to effect a personal goal. The saddest thing is that I have met VERY few people that have not had one of these three mentalities ground into them. As a final point, I would like to confess, that in all honesty, I belong to the third category.

While true to certain extent, I have to agree with Waffler's belief that when beliefs interact it is necessary that some overriding force must be installed to ensure that common laws of civility are maintained. It must also be acknowledged that "power", for lack of a better term, has a tendency to expand in the scope. The real challenge is assuring that power is distributed horizontally rather than vertically so as to assure that the government does its job which is to safeguard society rather than dictate it. We often allow government to cross its boundaries and interfere with our lives in a way that we did not create it for. Its a shame that the people of America do not realize that they are the source of power. Its all become very Orwellian in some respects if you will pardon how extreme it may seem to say so.

I am a fifteen year-old high schooler attending a public school. I participate in MUN (Model United Nations) and Mock-trial, making me the perfect guinea-pig for this social experiment. I will start by stating my belief on such things as the UN (which is obviously the super-state organization they speak of), then sating what I see in relation to this "popular education" so as to give everyone reading this a plain, unbiased eye-witness account of what I see. The UN, in my opinion, is an organization that has succeeded in effecting great change with a minimal level of supranationalism, but the general trend of all international or regional organizations is to grow teeth (this can be seen in the EU with the Treaty of Lisbon that Ireland recently backed leaving it half a step away from ratification). Furthermore, it must be realized that it is only a matter of time until there is further reform in the UN that limits America's power in it. For this reason and, for the most part actually, other basic facts, the UN is not a beneficial organization for America (I've heard of a book written by Bush's ambassador to the UN that supports this, but I have not received the opportunity to read it). On the subject of public schools, the majority of students do not even know what the UN is. Even more students think that history is merely organizing chronological events making it absolutely useless to them in their opinion. It is my opinion on this subject, that while the government has not made a concerted effort to turn our children's brains to "mush" there are unintended consequences because, "if we are unable to comprehend the correlation between past and present events we quickly become disenchanted by modern events keeping us from effectively participating in the government, and in the eyes of the government, turning us into uneducated masses that cannot lead themselves and are susceptible to exploitation," (Jordan Hoiberg (myself) on The Importance of History in School). This is further backed up and actually expanded by the quote I received today from Liberty Tree by Eric Hoffer stating that,"Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Of what avail is freedom to choose if the self be ineffectual? We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of the ardent young Nazi, 'to be free from freedom.'" A couple days ago, I experienced an example of this that confirmed my conviction in my earlier statements when I began talking to a fellow student on the measures he that had advised to eliminate terrorism which were kill anyone for whom there was a reasonable enough cause to believe was a terrorist. The class had nearly unanimously agreed that this was necessary to combat terrorism. Needless to say, I was shocked. I immediately remembered two things: The Red Terror and later purges by Stalin as well as the legal ramifications (law is dictated in many ways by society which uses law to hold the government in check). After a short conversation in which I attempted to point out the flaws in the logic of their solution, I began to cite the Patriot Act as an attempt by our government to defile the rights endowed to us by the Bill of Rights. I got the terse response of, "What do I have to hide from the governments?" I immediately remembered a quote (I forget by whom) stating that, "When they took the 4th Amendment away, I was quiet because I didn't deal in drugs. When they took the 6th Amendment away,I was quiet because I had never been arrested. When they took the 2nd Amendment away, I was quiet because I didn't own a gun. Now they have taken the 1st Amendment away and all I can do is be quiet..." He didn't seem to care and that was when I realized that we really have been played for puppets by our government.