I've never known a happy drunk.

The answer, Archer, is no. People are naturally SOB's and that will not change. People will naturally take every advantage for themselves and their relations that they can get away with and that primitive nature will always underlie peoples' more altruistic behaviors. As long as there are people there will be theft, murder, and war. That is why there will always be the need for government, whether it is government of a church or a secular government. The question is always going to be how big and how much control is necessary to bring out the better nature of most people while being least limiting of freedom.

The meek shall inherit the earth. Successful people have the bad habit of coming to believe that they are the best, brightest, most knowledgeable and of forgetting that they are not all knowing and that every move they make is not perfect. They engage in the hubris of pride, whether it is in finance or foreign policy. They forget that there are natural laws that exist and will continue to exist no matter how much they try to manipulate them or wish them away. In the end it always leads to disaster. Look around you now. We are living in a disaster which I am sure will be made worse by the coming government solutions. Will the "Obamessiah" save us? Hubris would be his middle name if it weren't for that name which cannot be spoken.

Many seem to believe that fable and myth are unimportant. As I learned many years ago in my liberal arts studies myth, folklore, and legend have a very important part in every society and always has. They are simply the framework that holds up the the precepts of civilization. Jefferson seems to believe the framework, the scaffolding, is artificial and unnecessary. How is it that every civilization in the last five thousand years has had one, and when the people stop taking their myths and fables seriously, those civilizations have fallen? As Americans part of our mythos is the Judeo-Christian framework. Another part of it that is unique to America (our own personal myth) is that of the founders themselves. They were not really all knowing and some were not particularly wise, yet we hold them collectively in esteem and we look to them for how government should interact with the people. Just as Jefferson thought the Christian myth was an unnecessary framework, so today some believe the founders themselves are also an unnecessary framework. They are both wrong.

The scientific method is a very powerful but limited tool. It can never explain the metaphysical ideas on which we base our civilization; without which we cannot have a civilized life. Science can sift through every subatomic particle in the universe and never find justice. Science can observe autonomic responses and pheromones but it can never isolate the pure substance of love. It cannot give us a reasonable explanation of why someone would give his life to save a stranger. Yet justice, love, and self-sacrifice exist. We can see it but we cannot prove it. Until science can explain these scientifically inexplicable things, faith and hope are not anachronistic.

Everyone is going to know in the end whether Jesus was divine or not. In the meantime we should find a little (un)common courtesy to tolerate each others' nonsense. Somebody's nonsense may turn out to be right.

Latin proverb: Concordia civium murus urbium (harmony of citizens is the wall of cities).

The body is the temple and is therefore the house of prayer. The believer is also told to pray without ceasing. That is as much a part of their religion as any other commandment. If an individual, student, teacher, anyone, is prevented from exercising their religion because they are in a public building, is the government violating their first amendment right? Government cannot organize a prayer. By the same first amendment argument, they also cannot prevent one.

Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler weren't right wing but they were murderers. They also believed in socialism and that the individual lives for the State, that individual wants and desires don't matter when compared to the wants and desires of society. Of course the despot gets to decide what's good for society and how the individual must conform for the so called common good. Progressives, if anyone, believe they have all the answers and are willing to shove them down your throat (for your own good of course). They might even shoot you if you choke on it.

It doesn't take much light to chase a lot of darkness from a room. It only takes the first brave soul to strike the match.

I suppose the only true discoverer is the creator.

Sometimes the truth just doesn't pay....enough.

Do not disdain the wisdom of your fathers. If you do you'll live to regret it. It is no accident that we are repeating many and will probably repeat many more of the mistakes that lead to the great depression after those who lived through it are all gone.

It becomes easy to identify the Truth when truth telling becomes a way of life. Waffler, I'd rather not crush anyone's speech, no matter how offensive, like a bug. I'd rather let the fools open their mouths and let everyone know who they are or even how dangerous they are. For example, Achmadinijad.

Sagan too often drank the Kool-Aid on PC science. Probably, as this quote suggests, because he really didn't understand what the scientific method is supposed to do. Science is skepticism. It requires experimental evidence that is repeatable by independent researchers. It is not openness to new ideas, it is the skeptics trying to prove an hypothesis wrong, without mercy or emotion. Science is not having individuals invest themselves in an idea to the point that they become religious believers in that idea. Creative ideas without evidence makes for great fiction but not great science.

No one can see all aspects of a situation or 'truth' at the same time. We simply do not have the capacity to be omniscient. I think it was Heinlein who described how a 'professional witness' would see a house. When shown a house and asked what color it was, the witness would say it is green on this side. When taken around the corner and asked what color the house is, the witness would again say it is green on this side. When asked what color is the wall you looked at first, the witness would say I don't know: it was green when I looked at it last.

This is the notion of the meme before the word meme was coined. Successful ideas spread almost in a Darwinian mode similar to the spread of successful genes, i.e. the survival of the fittest idea. It doesn't mean that any particular idea is necessarily the ultimate TRUTH, but that it is believed in by a large number of people. The most successful idea will have enthusiastic believers who want to spread that new truth.

What was once lies to those who were out of power will soon become truths once they regain power. Their past opposition will be put down the memory hole.

Political compromise can be used to negotiate the details but one must never compromise basic principles and plain, clear, indisputable fact. Those who do lose their soul. That is, of course, why a great many of our politicians are soulless, empty, despicable creatures.

People with good intentions are not necessarily good. People who want to control others' behavior (that does not legitimately cause harm to their neighbors) through force are not good. Persuasion is the only moral method to change an adult's individual behavior. Those who would use the force of government to control individual benign behavior are the least moral because they abuse the authority that we gave them.

Words: "I'm with the government and I'm here to help."

Tax something and you get less of it. Subsidize something and you get more of it. In the lefts "kindness" they tax the productive and subsidize laziness, ignorance, stupidity, and recklessness.

It used to be common knowledge that governments were of the people, by the people, and for the people. Now it is just a platitude spoken by people who both want to rule and want to be ruled. People looked for their fascist dictator and they have found him.

Every time the government encounters you expect a pounding.

I prefer that people be left with a legal alternative to cheating and lawbreaking. The rebellion "ended" but the illicit distilleries moved to areas of Kentucky and other western states that were beyond the reach of the militia. Thus the flow of untaxed liquor never stopped and the government finally gave up on what it could not do.