The major media can destroy anyone they want at will with few if any consequences. A well placed innuendo, a well chosen word with a particular connotation, or an unflattering photo are all tricks of the trade. Most newspapers don't even try to be subtle anymore, however. It is outright hostility and blatant lies that are common today. Die, McClatchy, die (not speaking German here either). You too, Herst.

The reason why news media are going out of business is that they don't sell the news but propaganda, and nobody has to pay to get propaganda. It is "freely" crammed down your throat. I'm just waiting for the next Obamunist bailout of newspapers that are too big to fail (or at least too important to their government sponsors). Speaking of empty slogans, has anyone seen any hope and change lately?

I vote Waffler, even though it is a sham. My side, freedom, never wins though. Even if does happen to be close here in the Soviet of Washington state, there will be some bags of magical ballots that appear behind a cabinet in some strategic precinct. Of course these voters all seem to have curiously learned their handwriting in the same classroom. The zombie vote (D)-WA is always helpful in a close election too. I write my representatives and senators as well, always respectful and as cogent and well reasoned as I can make it. The canned responses I receive in return (if I get one at all) just tell me in short to mind my own business and leave the governing to my betters. If you still believe in the Kabuki theater called government, I wish you well.

The easiest way to enslave yourself is to abuse your freedom. That's why it's such a temptation.

You have to act like an adult to deserve freedom: that is, be responsible for you own actions and your own life, not depending on mother government to spoon feed you your whole life. Whining, mewling children suckling at the government teat not only don't deserve to be free, they in fact cannot be free until they grow up.

That's a good one, Waffler. I got a good laugh out of that one. So, you really think your vote means something? You really think those letters to your representative are actually read, or what you think actually matters to them (that's right, THEM). Remember, this administration no longer governs us, they "rule us" as was said by some administration hack. This just happens to be the first administration that actually admitted it. We've been ruled by the alphabet agencies for at least a generation, telling us where we can go, what we can do, what we say. Now they are about to regulate the gas we exhale and which doctor we'll be allowed to see, and how often. How long before they tell us what groceries we can buy? How long before they set your thermostat in your house for you? How long before you are only allowed to wipe with two sheets of toilet paper?

Alexis de Toqueville on soft tyranny: "The will of a man is not shattered, but softened, bent, guided: men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained by it from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies the people..." The same can be said for slavery to pleasure.

Miserable people tend to pursue pleasure instead of happiness because they've lost sight of what they want and need. Society in the last half century has become characterized by a softened will, intelligence, and spirit because people have bought the lie of happiness through consumption that is pedaled to us in commercials and media propaganda.

When a man does what he likes instead of what is right, he deserves what he gets. Everyone else's worst difficulties begin when he compels THEM to do what he likes.

Self is the only absolute? That sound very narcissistic. My natural rights are absolute. Justice is absolute. The only way to get either of these is the absolute freedom to choose between good and evil. Just because you have many opportunities to choose between good and evil, or that you commit to one or the other at some point does not mean you have to do so the next time. Absolute freedom is living with the consequences.

Capone...Stalin...Obama...same thing. Behold our new friends the Russians for whom we're going to disarm.

I'm sure the gun confiscators would prefer to have me walking around the mall with an MP-5 slung under my arm. By the way, why does a police officer need a hand gun?

Only the dishonest politicians suppress freedom in the name of law and order. The honest crook suppresses freedom in the name of personal profit.

Initiative .308 is always an option (7.62 will do too).

Serial killers are unorthodox and challenge an existing institution or way of life.

Juries can in fact judge both fact and law. That has been clearly the case for hundreds of years and is supported by numerous case law examples. Yet, judges will lie to the jury and tell them that their only job is to judge fact. He will tell them that if the law is not just they should petition the legislature and he will imply that is the only recourse. Most jurors are either ignorant that is their duty to judge both fact and law, or they simply don't care. It is too often the last line of defense is a very poor and unreliable one.

I suppose a right like free speech would be included, yet it seems like the current administration has a problem with criticism of the porkulus program. Apparently Norm Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, thinks that any one who disagrees must be shut up. "...we will expand the restriction on oral communications to cover all persons, not just federally registered lobbyists. For the first time, we will reach contacts not only by registered lobbyists but also by unregistered ones, as well as anyone else exerting influence on the process. We concluded this was necessary under the unique circumstances of the stimulus program." Free speech for me, but not for thee. There's your hope and change. Yes, we can't.

Stop signs are not arbitrary, Waffler. Everyone is required to stop at them. Are some people in England exempted from having to drive on the left side of the road? It is when a government gives you special treatment that it does not give me that power becomes arbitrary. Special interests and lobbyists who bribe to get regulations that favor them over the competition is lawlessness. Politicians who enable and profit from them are lawbreakers. Speaking of lawlessness, it has been observed that the dealerships that have been slated to close were overwhelmingly Republican or Clinton donors in the last election, while those who are to remain open happened to be Obama donors. I'm sure it's just a coincidence though.

The answer to Justice Field is that the course of usurpation will never cease. He like so many others understood and understand that the eventual outcome of lawlessness is utter tyranny. It is understood because we have so many examples of it and any good student of history knows the eventual outcome. The progressives' modus operandi is rule by any means; if not by consent, then by conquest. And Robert, I agree that war and open revolt is dreadfully becoming more likely the further we progress to the lawlessness of the fascisti. It is no accident that enough arms and ammunition have been sold to private citizens in the US in the last year to supply the Indian and Chinese armies. The people will not be victims of freeloading looters and moochers.

The mystery is solved: now I know why I hold government in such contempt. Very good, Carlton. Very good. Criminals always have a reason to justify their criminality and to them the crime is in the victim resisting their robbery.

Profoundly correct; and yes, Progressive socialism is a disease that needs to be excised, or maybe exorcised, from both parties.

The government seizure of banks, insurance companies, auto companies, and the inevitable seizure of the health industry is the newest fascism and it still offers the same promise of security. This time it is the security from economic terror. This time it is not the criminals rights that are being taken away, it is the property owners rights, the stockholders and bondholders. Do they deserve to have their rights taken away like the criminal? Of course to a progressive socialist a property owner is a criminal.

"Military mucka mucks and the rich, powerful people" curse the government because they have something to lose. Thieves and beggars love government because government is a convenient tool used to steal from the "mucka mucks" and "rich and powerful." Given the opportunity government will steal the object and practice of liberty not just from the rich and powerful, but from everyone.

The fruit has rotted on the vine.

Our political "owners" certainly give lip service to the natural rights of the peasants, lovers of liberty that they are, but cross them and you'll have every alphabet agency from IRS to BATF to DHS sifting through your life for political reasons. When push comes to shove, the veneer of a lawful society is stripped away to show the banana republic we have become.