If only there was a special six-star radio button. I will have to start rating more excellent quotes with four stars.

Waffler, he means that in a democracy, the ignorant rule and in a meritocracy (republic) the most intelligent rule in spite of the ignorant.

Especially true for self-imposed intellectual slavery.

So can a large group of thoughtless citizens.

We are the slaves of slaves. Is there anything lower?

A portion of every nation are too lazy and apathetic for liberty. They have the mind of slaves. Thanks to the welfare state, our portion grows daily.

E Archer, let us not forget that there are still plenty of totalitarian and collectivist governments with compulsory religions.

RBE, you are so perpetually engaged in the religion vs. science struggle that you too often miss the point. I will attempt to clarify. To simplify future discussions I define religion as the merging of metaphysics with philosophy. The purpose for and fruits of this merging are specific to various religions. Science is a process for the acquisition of knowledge through the application of the scientific method, based on logic and reason. My comment on self-deception deals with those in science who create false knowledge by applying illogical arguements to data, or discarding data that does not support their hypothesis. Science by definition is based on reason. Therefore, false knowledge based on non-scientific methods used by self-decieving scientists is not science but pseudo-science. Unfortunately, most of the public cannot discern pseudo-science from science, especially when it comes from a respected scientist or scientific institution, or when it is mixed with actual science. Pseudo-science becomes obvious, even to the public, when it is used for political gain.

The self-deception is most obvious when men of science abandon reason in favor of emotion.

It's no great wonder that collectivists are low and miserable, even when they are in control.

Waffler, Are you talking about the warm and compassionate incompetents that botched the humanitarian response to Katrina, the ones preventing the cleanup of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, or the ones at the IRS? Perhaps you mean the ones running the post office into the ground? Or the ones that raided Social Security or Medicare? You will have to be more specific. Which compassionate bureaucratic malcontents do you mean?

Freedom is borne of self-sufficiency.

The veto was once used to protect the People from the usurpations of the government, not to control what shape the usurpations would take.

So much for original intent.

Anonymous in Reston, Torture is the greatest evil that our government has committed? Really? Not the economic security provided by entitlements and protectionism? The government will take away from me nearly half of my adult life through the confiscation of the products of my labor. Being a slave to the welfare state for 25 years is a little worse than three hours of waterboarding I imagine, but my theory is easy to test. Just offer a lump sum reimbursement of all the income taxes they will ever pay to any free American (welfare slaves don't count), provided they will allow you to waterboard them for three hours. You'll get more than 50 million takers I would guess.

As to my original post, allow me to clarifty if I can. Leftists who have never had an original thought, and blindly follow the collective are by definition slaves, pampered bodily and starved intellectually. The only labor required of these slaves is the occasional bus ride to the nearest poll to blindly cast a vote for whichever leftist politician promises to increase their "freedom", which they interpret to be their ability to confiscate the labor of the productive for their own comfort. A similar arguement can be made for the slaves of the right, religious zealots who brainlessly vote for republicans who would trade away their liberty for the "freedom" to pass morality laws. Both groups have traded away their freedom of mind, and as such are fit only for slavery.

RBESRQ, reforming a quote into a question while eroneously changing its text adds nothing to the discussion. Please try to leave the leftist toolbox at home.

This nation has far too many pampered slaves.

Roger, if you cite Ashcroft you should cite the ACLU as well. For they are equal and opposite enemies of Liberty.

"I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the general government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood." - Grover Cleveland

I believe the last democrat president to fight against the nibbling away of liberty was Grover Cleveland. Pitiful.

And they will have neither, in the end.

Anonymous, I wish you had given your name so that I could thank you personally for your most eloquent explanation of freedom.

This one's too easily twisted into an endorsement of collectivism. Freedom as a natural right is individual, and independent of the will and actions of others.

At the risk of being unpopular, Liberty can be protected by violence, but never created by it.