The Framers realized that the greatest internal threat to a republic was a strong central government. It is easy for a republic to begin free and then become mired in laws and bureaucracy only to be usurped by tyrants and/or foreign powers because it can be done progressively. In that we're not much different than frogs in a pot.

Due process should be given to illegal aliens. If they are found guilty they should recieve swift justice, applied even-handedly. Unlawful combatants are another story. The U.S. gov't shouldn't be taking them from their country of origin and should be turning them over to local authorites when done interrogationg them. I hope Obama does the right thing and sends those people back to their native countries where they can find swift justice.

Private institutions should be able to make and enforce their own standards. And if those standards reduce the credibility of that institution it will suffer the scorn of public opinion in the free market.

He is speaking of the american abolition of slavery movement. The sharing of chains is not literal but speaks to empathy. The last line is an appeal to not only support the movement ideologically but to act against slavery. Five stars for saying so much with such economy of words. Hopefully we can abolish slavery in America before this poem is 200 years old, though we are currently heading in the wrong direction.

To Anonymous in Reston, you make a great point. Decentralization absolutely does not prevent the ills outlined. It allows for choice. If a state or local government is oppressive you can move to a place that is less oppressive. This provides competition to provide more liberty or become depopulated. Where power is centralized and absolute there is no escape and no competition.

To Tom Cox I'll take power spread over the 50 states for the protection of liberty (it cannot be created since it is the absence of restriction) too.

I found it easier to visualize by replacing "a tyrant" with Barack Obama, replacing "extermination of blacks" with enslavement of blacks and replacing "Jews and Catholics" with whites and everyone else.

Bucky my response to Al was an intentionally juvenile poke at his equally juvenile belief that any government, however depraved, would launch indiscriminate attacks on its populace to justify an already justifiable military conflict.

The U.S. is in fact conducting operations in two military engagements that are both authorized by congress, one against the Taliban and al Qaeda authorized by SJ Res. 23 and one in Iraq authorized by HJ Res 114. Formal Declarations of War should be (and have in practice been) reserved for instances when the U.S. is willing to commit all of its resources to the singular goal of finality in a conflict with another soverign nation.

Al, you need to spend less time studying conspiracy theories and spend more time studying Occam's razor. If that doesn't work you might try not smoking crack.

Cudos, Waffler you got one exactly right. President Bush and Congress definitely and somewhat understandably over-reached with the Patriot Act, a piece of legislation that is in hind-sight fairly disgusting. That our federal government has far-reaching enough power to enforce such legislation is the real root of the problem.

A simple and true statement. Waffler, civil rights and hate crime legislation don't guarantee constitutional liberties they guarantee that one group gets preferential treatment over another group, which is unconstitutional. I guess we're back to 0 things big government does well. Sorry Sargon of Akkad but your quest for world domination will have to wait until Waffler can find one thing bigger (meaning more centralized, buffoons) government can do well.

Also, Waffler, if you feel like you are living in a would-be Nazi Town you must be living at Smith College in Northampton. I suggest you move to a more free part of the country like Smith, Tennessee or Smith Talahassee, Alabama or even Fort Smith, Arkansas.

By not "forcing" children to learn about our founding and the Constitution we deprive them of their citizenship, allowing them instead to become dependents. And to answer your question Waffler, I think you might be more socialist than Nazi but I don't know you that well.

Gilbert has it wrong again. The business of Conservatives is to try to prevent the so-called Progressives from making the same mistakes repeatedly. Trial and error only works if you learn from the errors. Preventing past mistakes from being correced is the job of the Statist.