What good old Waffler and RBE propose is that we all become enablers of people who engage in self destructive behavior. Making the capable into dependents is like giving an alcoholic another drink. Treat people like they are children and helpless and they will behave that way. It is the cruelest slavery imaginable. Socialism came about because open slavery was just too distasteful in the modern world. The slave masters had to disguise it so they could smile at each other at their dinner parties.

Unfortunately, most people never realize that "their" men never were theirs. They are like fans of professional sports who who live a fantasy and believe their favorite players is just one of the boys, just like them. Politics, just like sports, is just so much bread a circuses. Actually politics is most like professional wrestling come to think of it.

I almost forgot to mention the education industry, specifically the university industry. Why has the cost of a degree gone up so much faster than the general rate of inflation? It is because of the subsidy of education provided by government drives ever higher the price that the market will bear. It distorts the true cost, and provides inflated incomes to those in the university system. Why does government provide these subsidies? Benevolence? Maybe they think that more marginal students (who would not be there but for the subsidy) graduating from womyn's studies programs and the like will lead to great profit and benefit to society. More likely politicians know that the subsidy, leading to higher incomes for the education industry, will gain their support and will ensure leftist propaganda will be taught to impressionable and naive students. Subsidies will certainly get the support of marginal students who would otherwise have to work for a living.

It's the same as it's ever been: the malevolent gravitate to positions of power so that they may exercise it to their advantage. Why should we only go back ten years to see cleptocrats? All you have to do to see the beginning, when it really took off, is look at 1913 when the Federal Reserve was created by merging government with the private banking system. Then look at 1916 when the income tax was enabled by amending the constitution. The income tax give the private banking system, not the government, a guaranteed revenue stream. Go on to the 1930's and FDR's new deal. FDR's administration picked the winners and losers among private business. To stay in business all you had to do was support the administration. How simple. "Beware the military/industrial complex" from the 1950's. Military contractors are kept alive by government and their being private is just a facade for the actual corporatism that exists. In return, military contractor, financial, automobile corporations (and so on) give former politicians lucrative lobbying jobs. And lets not forget the lucrative and corrupt unions who do the very same thing. They lobby politicians to provide contracts that require union labor. They fill their coffers and pockets with government contracts as well. Corruption is everywhere and it is all enabled by all powerful government that has the power to confiscate what does not belong to them.

Perfectly sums up my feeling for our current arrogant, overbearing government: they think we are drooling idiots who don't have the ability to live our own lives. They must act as the parent to the idiot child, and of course they must do so by any means necessary. If that means lying, cheating, stealing, or I'm sure eventually even killing us for our own good, then that will be just fine with that; because in the end it is not about their caring for the idiot children, it is about the power and wealth they can gather to themselves.

Liberty is a right to be claimed and taken if it is not freely given. It is not so much a habit as it is a state of mind. This statement illustrates one of the differences between being a citizen and a subject.

Why do socialist societies always default to more regulation and more government control over the lives of individuals? For every regulation imposed someone has to pay a price. Costs mean very little to socialists since someone else is always paying the price, at least until they run out of sheep to fleece. One day they wake up and they are the sheep. Only then do they care that the cost of their favorite program is their liberty.

The government is ten feet from my cave. They want to take it, and I aim to keep it.

We should all blame Robert's greed.

The only remedy to the abuse of power is power. A kind word, a gentle plea, and a petition will not be effective against an arrogant abuser of power.

The only people the political order aims to save is themselves. Anyone who can't see the government is the corporation and the corporation is the government is willfully blind (and a sheep waiting to be sheared).

The king will always believe in the divine right of kings.

Socialism works great in Greece.

Early in his life, Mussolini was a communist or international socialist. At some point he began to believe there were too many divisions between different ethnic groups for international socialism to ever work. So, instead, he turned his focus to national socialism and fascism. That is the sole difference between communism and national socialism/fascism: scope. The far left would apply its warped nonsense internationally and the slightly less left would only inflict it on their fellow countrymen.

This is the philosophy of the narcissist who always has to be right to maintain his self esteem. Such is the philosophy of global warming. It is the philosophy of economic stimulus. It is the current philosophy of our government and it is blatantly obvious to everyone.

Moral relativism is the ultimate immorality. Whether people admit it to themselves or not, there exists in this world good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice, and it doesn't depend on your viewpoint or interpretation. Some people are just flat out wrong and you shouldn't be shy in telling them so. I think that this doctrine, as Bierce calls it, is neither hereditary nor contagious, but is certainly a sign of self loathing and lack of critical thinking.

This is why you have to think long and hard about any revolution, and know your philosophy front to back; and anybody pushing revolution that doesn't let you know up front what that philosophy is, is dangerous. If you don't know the principles, nine times out of ten you'll end up with a Robespierre instead of a Washington.

It is obviously NOT, Waffler. Sit down and rest a while. You must be dizzy with all of that spinning.

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

Waffler enjoys leashes; probably ball gags too.

No one left? Now that would be an environmentalist's dream.

Q. Why are we in Afghanistan and Iraq? A. Iran.

Freedom is certainly a "possessed thing." That is why it can be taken from you by criminals and government (but I repeat myself). He is correct, however, that freedom is for the individual. A herd cannot be free because they are slaves to their own hardwired instinct.

People who think like RBESRQ are indeed very dangerous to us all. He would have us believe that the Soviets really did have the right to fill the gulags with refusniks. Government hands out the right to think and speak freely after all. He would have us believe that the Soviets were well within their rights to institutionalize the "insane" who happened to disagree with the government. It seems that since the government hands out our rights, it was perfectly acceptable for the Soviets to shoot the dissenters. That is the dream for Statists like RBE and Waffler. It happens to be a nightmare for the sane.

This is not about individual property ownership, Waffler. It is about the so called "divine right of Kings" to tell others what they must do with their property.