The names of the truly powerful are never known by the common folk. Well, sometimes they are: George Soros.

It's hard to tell who is bribing whom and which is blackmailing the other anymore. Government, corporations, non-governmental organizations, and wild-eyed ideologues of all kinds are an incestuous bunch, and they're all out to screw the rest of us.

A Catholic school, Jewish school, Islamic school can only be expected to teach their own religions. A government school should only be expected to teach the values of the religion of State. I will say that Communists know how to "care" for their young, just like ants care for their larvae. It's not a very human kind of care however.

Sometimes I think most laws were made to irritate rather than to maintain good order. Even if you kick a poor, old dog repeatedly and he never bites, someday he may just have had enough and chew your leg off. I think our politicians are slowly starting to hear the growl.

Wise "politicians" fettering the government? What politician would ever fetter himself? It is the people who do the fettering and we'll do as much fettering as we damn well please!

Who knows how "enlightened" people may be 200 years from now. I'm sure I'll be judged a troglodyte. Perhaps we should judge Catholicism based on the Inquisition, or Protestants for witch burning 500 years ago. Human beings are full of contradictions and hypocrisies and enlightenment is never finished. From what I have read he feared what would happen to slaves if they were freed, and probably with good reason considering society as it existed at the time. On balance Jefferson built more than he destroyed and his words were used by the Abolitionists to achieve their goal.

Warren, laws are not written (or should not be) to create a moral society, but a just society. Laws right the wrong that is done to you and the punishment that goes with it stands as a lesson to prevent the wrong in the future. A moral society can only be created by the individuals in society deciding to act morally themselves. For instance, prohibition attempted to legislate morality, but people still bought liquor and drank it. If anything society became more immoral and crass.

I'm going to report you all to the Obamunists at flag@whitehouse.gov. Wait, that one doesn't work anymore. I'll use the other email address that was given to us "loyal" citizens.

Conform! It's for the good of the State. And since when is fiction not a commentary on society as it really is, Anonymous, Richmond? No quote or passage "proves" anything. It's up to the reader to use common sense to see how close to reality the quote is. I would just say about this quote that we're not there...quite yet.

Gabe, he is talking about the concept of the scapegoat, not the scapegoat himself. If anyone has read about the French revolution you will recognize the truth immediately. The mob is worked into a frenzy, they pull a scapegoat out of the crowd and execute him. As soon as he's dead, another scapegoat is needed so another random person is pulled out of the crowd. The mob's blood lust is very hard to quench. It comes to the point when it is uncontrollable even by the architects of the revolution and the leader of the mob and they can easily become the target as well. There is a lesson there for all revolutionaries (and governments too).

A good observation by Tweedledee. Contrary to the opinion of some, a lie told often enough does not become the truth. A lie told often enough may be believed but it will never be the truth.

The people know instinctively not to trust a sycophantic, lap dog press. The people in the Soviet Union knew there was no truth in Pravda and no news in Isvestia as they joked. Americans know the same thing about the alphabet networks and the communist rags that pass for newspapers. That's why circulation and viewership has dropped so dramatically: people refuse to pay for lies when they can get them for free just about anywhere.

An "emergency" is always the excuse for censorship. If the censor is not allowed to censor some terrible, dire consequence will result. Of course it's not a dire consequence for the people but for the government. Censorship occurs when the government fears the people and has to control the sweating, uncouth hordes. Senate bill S. 773 which would give the President the authority to seize control of private internet infrastructure in an "emergency" is a result. An excerpt of the draft bill is here: http://www.politechbot.com/docs/rockefeller.revised.cybersecurity.draft.082709.pdf

When a lie is discovered the standard operating procedure is to tweak it just enough so that the proof of the lie no longer applies. The skeptic then must spend more time and effort to find additional evidence that will disprove that lie. It is simply a method of running out the clock or tiring out the skeptic, until finally there is no opposition left.

Sometimes the myth is more powerful and useful than the truth. Of course the myth is not necessarily a lie, but a "truth" well told.

I'm just cynical enough to see things like Archer. It is all by design. I don't know whose design it might be; most certainly not the faces we see on the election posters. As for Mencken's astute observation, there is an infinite number of ways to be wrong and only one way to be right. It must be by shear luck or divine providence that we've survived as long as we have.

It can be very dangerous to caricature a "god": just ask any Caesar (or Obama).

It must be possible somewhere, sometime that the good reason and the real reason have happened to be the same. I don't know of any with regard to politicians, but it must have happened just by shear chance.

There is a reason politicians tend to be sociopaths. The lack of conscience is a particular advantage to a professional liar.

Waffler must be one of the slave masters. You wouldn't be a congressman would you Waffler?

Sounds like you need to spend a little quality time reading the constitution, Juggs, especially the 10th Amendment. Health care is not delegated to the federal government and Obama and the Congress are attempting to usurp that authority as have so many other Presidents and Congresses before them.

The first step to controlling people is to control what they say through fear. Once that is accomplished controlling what the people think is the next step, accomplished with a repetitious media putting out the approved propaganda. When thought is controlled, behavior is controlled. It seems our "institutions" have been doing this instead of what Holmes envisioned.

All men are created equal. It takes government to make them unequal. Equality in the eyes of the law is the only path to justice. Justice must be blind to wealth, poverty, color, race, religion, or the lack thereof, otherwise we end up with one group a slave to another in one instance and in another instance will be master of another slave group. We will never come to the day when all men who are created equal will be treated equally as long as government creates the inequality (for their own benefit of course) that we all bemoan and wail about.

Our Constitution which gives our government its permission to exist tells us that Congress "shall make no law" abridging the right of free speech. It is not up to government to tolerate anything from the citizens. It is the citizens who tolerate government and allow it to be. Kennedy has never struck me as a deep thinker and has always been a mediocre legal mind.

A government that thinks itself secure is a danger to freedom of opinion and every other freedom. A secure government has no fear of consequences for its actions. The most "secure" government I can recall was Communist China's under Mao during the cultural revolution.