I believe America is at a crossroads where generations of Americans have been socially engineered and manipulated through the government indoctrination centers (public schools) deliberately dumbing down generation after generation so America falls toward the bottom of the international list for academic achievement and Phil Reynolds I have that book you recommended in my library is excellent (The Deliberate Dumbing down of America) an ignorant population is easy to manipulate, the media and Hollywood have played their part in the psychological conditioning to reject the philosophy of individual freedom and liberty that our founders gave us in favor of a society who has forgotten how to do for themselves with the spirit of self-reliance and their community, but have become totally dependent on the government which is to say OPM (other People's Money). A prime example is Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, neighboring states were hit just as hard but their people got up off their back sides and helped each other to clean up and rebuild I believe they have at least three days to evacuate but didn't, fleets of buses were submerged under floodwaters that could have been used to evacuate people. The American people now find themselves in the place where they elected a president they knew absolutely nothing about other than a feel-good vote to dissuade their white guilt and his promise of "change," if they had taken the time to research his background they would've discovered he sought out associations with self proclaimed communist radicals i.e. Van Jones and blatantly anti-American and racist like Rev. Wright whose teaching he sat under for 20 years and Louis Farrakhan who Rev. Wright honored. I am seeing signs that people are waking up to this quantum leap into national Socialism and I think the 2010 elections will be bad year for incumbents, our country needs to get back under the limitations of the Constitution that's were most off our problems are created in the extraconstitutional crap that politicians do to buy votes with, that goes for both parties! I can't believe the guy from the UK lumped Benjamin Franklin in with murderers row how incongruous, still feeling a little bitter over losing the colonies?