2.5 stars. A pronounced, too-real problem exists within the framework of this otherwise easily acceptable notion. It manifests when the concept of self-defense is simplified, vastly overinflated, then used as primary justification for waging foreign war - the very thing the U.S. is largely about in the 21st Century.

(not worthy of any rating): As is increasingly the case, this quote seems more intent on provoking partisan conflict than having any direct bearing on 'liberty' itself, ostensibly this website's reason for existence. Regardless, the utter truth of Obama's words about Bush, and the openly lying hypocrisy his presidency inescapably represents in light of them, will hopefully serve a positive purpose. Maybe Obama's nakedly outrageous statement will catalyze in increasing numbers of minds the idea that partisan U.S. politics is mostly a TV game show, one played for the enormous stakes of holding the attentions and emotions of well-meaning suckers. Both Parties are equally responsible, quite intentionally I think, for our in-the-toilet and rapidly declining state of domestic affairs - including our "legally" eradicated rights of personal liberty/freedom from unreasonable government intrusion. We can wail about government all we want. The Federal Government still remains the international projection, tendered largely at gunpoint nowadays, of We the People, WE, who yet remain responsible for THEM. In light of reality, attacking or strictly adhering to one Party or the other, especially placing all of our faith and hopes in one or the other, is a fool's game.

What a bunch of unmitigated hooey! As if a public librarian, one who stores, classifies and organizes the accumulated knowledge of millenia, for the purpose of free access by ANYONE, even one so lowly as a soul unable to afford a purchase at Crown Books, may be so easily dismissed. The Cato Institute has its own very impressive collection of references/libraries and people responsible for them, completely belying this idiotic comparison. I truly wonder what the Doug Bandows of this country would do if they suddenly found themselves without the garbage collectors, road laborers, oilfield roughnecks, roofer-types keeping them dry and especially the farmers. I suspect they wouldn't last two weeks without the entire collection of faceless, continuously devalued and undervalued people doing the ACTUAL WORK of keeping them afloat. Is there a negative rating available?

Confucius nails precisely why so many people equate 'freedom' with their personal customs and standards of living ... instead of recognizing that genuine freedom arises only when people possess the right to be let alone.

Law is always selectively enforced, which is why independent juries are so important a part of maintaining genuine freedom. Samuel Butler summed up the potential for official corruption best. "Authority intoxicates, And makes mere sots of magistrates; The fumes of it invade the brain, and make men giddy, proud and vain." Fully informed juries are great deflaters of preening prosecutors, overstepping judges and trial lawyers without conscience - which is precisely why all 'sides' work so diligently together in keeping independently minded people OFF juries. Be proud to serve on one. It's one of the few times you'll have a chance of being the most important person in the room.

Any grand description of freedom arriving from any 'absolutist' should be viewed with great suspicion. This seems particularly true when said absolutist insists that people supplant their own 'god-given' faculties of reason and perception for religious mumbo jumbo - the source of one of history's most prolific killers and sire of those who would enslave.

Accurate enough, although "That no government" might be more appropriately stated: 'That no human being ...'

Good point Michael. In order to be vital and dynamic, "free thought" simply must have its roots in adequate, accurate perspective. That kind of perspective can't be found in any single religious, political or philosophical affiliation, however devout the underlying personal 'certainties' may be. This remains the case however loudly any given proponent may proselytize goodness and propagate fear. In the end they're always looking for control (power), donations and acolytes, in that order. "Freedom of thought?" People usually wind up believing what they're instructed to believe. Initially comes the instruction by parents or surrogates, then by sundry religious 'authorities' approved by parents/surrogates, then school. TV meanwhile, has flickered in the foreground and background of our conscious states, shepherding the lion's share of all political conceptualization for more than sixty years. However deeply I look, I can't find any guarantees regarding truly free thought in that, no positive ones anyway, not when I see the crud being endlessly propagated as truth and righteousness. Our very first consciously "free" thoughts aren't our own at all. They're always founded in somebody else's mere DESCRIPTION. Breaking free from the restraints of that description is the only avenue I know of to finding truly free thought. It's a laborious, unpopular avenue indeed.

Five stars. Especially when taken in fair measure with wisdom found in a quote by Mohandas Gandhi - a fairly successful politician and devout spiritual practitioner himself: "I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Giving Uncle Dave's opinion due respect, which it completely deserves, it doesn't really matter to me whether the 'unknown' author used a crystal ball or 20/20 hindsight as muse. This, simply because the expressed thoughts offer an honest reflection of the way things have actually transpired, with real freedoms being 'voluntarily' surrendered on behalf of our national pursuit of unending, globe spanning projection of war. The actual reality described in the quote is where the essential message is found - the message that needs absolutely needs to be conveyed to a critical majority.

Personal for Mr. Archer, NYC: Sir, you are in fact correct in your use and various applications of the term 'corporation.' Please be aware my previous use of the term was strictly limited to giant corporations that exist only in self-interest, for the exclusive purpose of pursuing profit and gain. I live in Michigan and have for decades "watch(ed) the jobs flow out of the country." Not only from out of the country but from all around me, for hundreds of miles in every direction, MILLIONS of them. My congressman, Fred Upton, is the grandson of Frederick Upton, who with his brother Louis founded what became the Whirlpool Corporation in St. Joseph, Michigan. Whirlpool is still headquartered there, still dominated by the Upton family and controlling 70% of its niche appliance market inside the US. But all the manufacturing jobs and research and engineering positions, thousands of them once in the St. Joseph-Benton Harbor area, have been sent abroad. Whirlpool's latest manufacturing facility closure is occurring right now, in Evansville, Indiana, where 1900 more jobs are shipping out to Mexico -- all subsidized by tax breaks approved in legislation voted for by guess who? And he was just reelected for his 11th or 12th consecutive term -- on a platform of bringing jobs back to Michigan. Whirlpool Corporation is exactly the kind of destructive, societally corrosive octopus I previously intended. One that resembles a royal satrap, complete with hereditary conveyance of power, more than anything else. These entities need to be regulated firmly and taxed at a minimum in proportion to WHATS LEVIED ON THE LEAST AMONG US. You say: "It is the money system that allows for the wholesale theft of all labor and property in this land." Again you're correct, but in the end you somehow seem to blame "lefties" instead of the capitalist bankers, righties to a person who absolutely control "the money system" and even the very currency itself. On another note altogether: You have a very colorful and presumptuous way of referring to those with whom you disagree. May I gently point out it's generally understood the more fanatically a position is defended and defined in absolutist terms, the larger the internal doubt within the defender is. For those you would presumably try to sway it also makes your argument much harder to grasp. Who would want to try?

"...start returning power to the states and the people..." Yes! But it absolutely must be done in a way so huge corporations are brought to heel, regulated and taxed. Anything less leaves us with an ever-worsening economic mess, with real wealth, property and accompanying Power flying to the top one-half of one percent. Jefferson was well aware of this potential when he spoke of "the selfish spirit of commerce (that) knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain." Multinational corporations 'personify' Jefferson's comment. I live in a nation that has spent roughly half of Planet Earth's total tab on military/security outlays, every year for at least the past 25 -- yet am told endlessly how much danger my country is in, and must submit to being irradiated or sexually groped in order to board an airplane. Every time I go to the store my cash money doesn't get the respect a piece of plastic does -- where the card issuer normally hacks 2% right off the top of every transaction. My cash doesn't get a 2% discount. I end up involuntarily subsidizing the banks, who don't allow their cards to be accepted at any location merchants offer a discount for cash. Just imagine how people commenting regularly in these spaces would (quite correctly) howl if a 2% national sales tax were instituted -- one that if specially earmarked would result in social security coffers overflowing abundantly in perpetuity. It mystifies me why Americans seem to be fine with such a transference of wealth to institutions that can never (TARP) get enough. I submit that this is not fine. I feel that central banks and huge multinational corporations more closely resemble royal satrapies than anything at all democratic -- and they rule utterly in America through their iron fisted control of politicians, hence their control, ownership really, of US currency and policy. And they've sold us on the lie that it's government that's the problem. Is it not apparent we're boxed into a cage we paid for, and the fruit of our labor is earmarked? They're the ones with all the numbers. We get to Pledge Allegiance at basketball games -- and call it freedom.

"Ultimately, after all, all regulations are observed and all taxes are paid at gunpoint." Is this not too much to be considered seriously -- as most superficially acceptable, all-encompassing arguments turn out to be? Gaber's observation fails miserably on merest examination. What about taxes that are democratically self-imposed, like school millages, rural provisions for volunteer fire department equipment and local library support? What about restaurant regulations that standardize hygiene minimums or the practical, universal observation of traffic control signals and regulations? Perhaps our compliant acceptance of these 'limitations' on freedom are in truth an evolution of understanding, and better yet, practice. An understanding that balance for the whole can indeed elevate the day-to-day condition of the sole. Is not chaos the alternative? What kind of intelligent choice is that?

Both men take questionable positions here, though Friedman's analysis is the more flawed of the two. Einstein's Theory of Relativity may have indeed been formulated without government direction. Regardless, the tangible results of Einstein's brainstorming, H-bombs and commercial nuclear power plants, are in fact the direct result of formal, central government intervention AND forced redirection of limited financial resources. Precisely the same thing can be said of Ford's horseless carriage. Without continuing government subsidies and tax breaks to oil producers and the DIRECT governmental subsidy to automakers in the manner of road building, automobiles as the personal transportation we enjoy today would not, could not have happened. Furthermore, NASA a 100% federal entity, has, through pure research aimed at circumventing the rigors of space, added countless essential products to our daily lives and an infinitude of actual wealth to the total economy. This is wealth measurable via geometric progression and is far beyond the total cost of the space program. These are at-hand facts free marketeers invariably fail to acknowledge. In this case/quote Friedman is no exception. Failing to acknowledge positive governmental contributions, especially going so far as to dismiss the possibility of them, strikes me as a fatal error. So does Friedman's blithe dismissal of virtue His argument would seem to place universal human fallibility into a singularly governmental arena.

Perhaps not. But if we're dealing with humans here. Even the heroic few filled to the absolute brim with 'can do' remain ridiculously easy to kill. Martin Luther King comes to mind. So does Pat Tillman.

Mr. Archer: I assume by 'sarcasm' you mean my allusion to 'TV's' tailpipe. Be aware there was no irony/sarcasm intended, merely a recounting of straight observations I endure daily. Granted, a fair portion of the (mostly meaningless) 1% is sometimes represented here -- though not nearly often enough, methinks. Frankly I consider gops and dems to be little but TV-painted 'oppositional' aspects of the one True Party in this nation: the corporate handout specialist, WAR PARTY. I've noted in these pages before that tyranny doesn't give a hoot as to which end of the political spectrum it emanates from. What this country, world really, needs is BALANCE. This, in my estimation, is the true holy grail -- and bloody hard to achieve because of all the personal and 'tribal' selfishness extant: on the latter read nationalism/patriotism. On a personal note, the only prejudice I'm aware of harboring is arrayed against willful ignorance and practiced stupidity. That much the world has in abundance. And it's accomplished without regard to race, nationality or religious belief, truly a 'pluralistic' endeavor.

Mr. Archer: Thanks for your considered response. I'm well aware of the differences between the Founders' intent and what we deal with today. I'm also well aware of the vast differences, in far too many arenas, where established 'law' directly contravenes the clear, unambiguous writing of the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights. Think Patriot Act. Think Military Commissions Act. Despite the Founders' intent to deny corporations and trusts the right to own land, this is ANYTHING but what we have today. Stone reactionaries on the Supreme Court through the decades have granted corporations the same rights as individuals, always under the 'equal protection' clause of the 14th Amendment -- literally granting corporations the legal status of "person." This happened first in 1886, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. This was strengthened by various cases until the Supremes heard Buckley v. Valeo in 1976. Their decision gave MONEY, political donations that is, the designation of "Free Speech." This was further ensconced just recently when the Court struck down limits on corporate contributions to political campaigns in a VERY controversial, still hotly debated decision. Constitutional rule? Freedom? Justice? Here in the US? Only in the minds of idiots with their heads stuck firmly in TV's tailpipe. Too bad that means fully 99% of all Americans -- including a large preponderance of those opinionators found here. Bildo-Riley Beck rules and independent thought remains illusory. So does freedom, despite all the commercials and 'patriotic' trappings.