Exactly Terry, and it seems stranger and stranger to me that the quotes on this site and their supporters seem to spend 100% of their time attacking the extreme left and none attacking the extreme right, when it is the extreme right that is the far greater threat to the USA - there no longer being a far or even middle left in the USA. You Libertarians - I think you are hypocrites and I don't think you have a workable vision of society, your way may have worked in a frontier town of a few hundred people in the mid 19th century. I think your philosophy is another way to justify greed and selfishness, I am going to unsubscribe from this "service", good night and good luck!

Well Joe, one can always quibble about statistics but this link shows 2.5% were on welfare in 1999: http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/news/stats/6090_ch2.htm Are you saying the number of people on welfare has increased 500% in 7 years? If so, then this would be due to George Bush's free market policies would it? Or the soclialist Bill Clinton I suppose, no, must be due to 9/11...

My big problem with these quotes is that they are irrelevant to the current political struggle going on in the USA (and bound to slip over the border into Canada.) Very few people are advocating Socialism or Communism. I personally am advocating a slightly left of center position that I call liberalism. None of these quotes offers any criticism of the lies, cheating, character assassination and foul deeds being commited by the current fairly right wing US government - and the refusal of any of the major press to even cover the numerous scandals currently occuring, not the least of which is the ongoing war for lies and oil going on in Iraq. Am I to assume that this absence of criticism is approval?

Well, I've been doing some reading on libertarians, no wonder there are misunderstandings - you come off as right wingers at first glance. I see now that there is a great deal of overlap between libertarians and liberals, not surprising considering both words as well as "liberty" have their roots in the French work "libre" or "free". I shall endeavour not to call you fascists too much in future but to rather point out where you are wrong and show you the way back to the liberal fold. : ) Meanwhile, you might find this interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian and this entertaining: http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html see where you lie on the Nolan chart. Ciao.

Jesus! Another day, another flood of Lbiertarian quotes setting up and knocking down the same straw man! Those who want to do nothing but be looked after are very few and far between. Those who wish to happily and willingly support the above are even fewer. Perhaps I don't understand what you libertarians want. IF you are anti-Bush neo-cons and anti-communist/socialist then thats something we have in common. Maybe you could point me to a time and a place that came closest to your vision of how society should be?

I do not have a queen to look after me, she is a figure head only. If I decided I didn't want to work and I showed up at the local welfare office I would be shown the door unless there was some reason why I was unable to work. If I qualified for welfare, as a single guy it would be $450 a month, I don't know how I would survive on that. No one is looking after me and I don't want anyone to look after me, I have supported myself all my life, so what are you talking about? Perhaps I do make assumptions about those who suppor these quotes because I see these type of quotes as nothing more than empty slogans chanted by the likes of George Bush and his supporters to replace real though, I especially have problems with the words liberty and patriot as they seem to be most often used by the worst scoundrels and least interested in freedom of the lot. This quote is typical - who is going to read it and say "yes, I'm one of those who wants to be controlled", yet most who do read it think they are superior to the great mass of people out there that they believe fit that description.

So all government is bad or only government that are a little bit to the left of center are bad? I think we are way off topic now. Hey, I live in a little cabin in the woods, don't have a tv, ride my bike in to town every day for supplies, do a little bit of internet programming for an income, grow my own food for fun, I have no use for most of what passes for civiliztion at all personally, but its nice to have a government that isn't only interested in enriching the rich at the expense of everyone else. And it leaves me alone when I desire it.

I don't quiet understand your banking points but the Canadian economy did not collapse. The Canadian dollar did drop to 62 cents US at one point, this was considered good for exports, we didn't have a depression here. We didn't even have the recession that you had in 2000 - 2002. Our gas prices are high at the pump for the same reason that Europes are even higher - we tax gas more heavily than you do. Canada's national debt is much lower than the US as a percent of GDP or any other way you want to look at it, and we are paying it down every year. And right now, which is more important, the Canadian dollar, if it matters so much, is at a 14 year high, almost 90 cents, and seen as one of the strongest currencies in the world. However you want to look at it, Canada is performing better than the US, so perhaps you need to examine your greed based system a little more closely.

We Canadians have liberty, we don't need to iconize and capitalize the word and build statues of it and sing songs to it. You Americans seem all to eager to throw your liberty away in exchange for security from the imaginary fears that your government is threatening you with. Far more important though is that your government has no problem destroying liberty in other countries in the world, setting up represive governments, undermining democratic ones, all in the name of profits for US corporations. You only seek liberty for yourselves. As individuals we probably want the same things for ourselves, but to me you seem to be blind to what your government really stands for and what it does to you and to the world and you seem to confuse liberty with greed.

I presume you mean Cuba? Again, what does socialist/communist Cuba have to do with politics in the USA or the western democracies? Where am I wrong? Are you telling me that liberals and democrats love Castro's Cuba and with to emulate it??? Then you are totally beyond reason!

Mike - If by "socialist governments" you are referring to Canada and Western Europe then you need to check your figures. The country that is losing the "fiscally sound battle" is the USA - you are bankrupt, you have no industrial or technological base, just service industries, your dollar is going to drop like a rock when the rest of the world pulls the plug on you bringing on a recession that will make you long for the 1930s. And you can blame it all on your so called "free market" that is merely a license for greed.

David - to say that the far left is more wrong than the far right is completely irrelevant to any political discussion I have heard since about 1989. There is no far left "left" in the western world! And good riddance. There is a However an extremely nasty and dangerous far right currently in power in the USA and it likes to confuse people by claiming that the moderate middle is in fact socialist and/or communist. John Kerry a Socialist! Al Gore a Communist! Hillary Clinton a Red! How utterly absurd, these people are actually moderate CONSERVATIVES, I would put all of these to the Right of the centre, but very close to it. This deception is one of the great lies of our times, a huge number of people seem to think that the only choice is between the George Bush's neo-fascism and Socialism/Communism. You will see it every time a right winger is challenged. Liberals and Democrats are being called socialists and communists all the time.

um..the preposterous position is the quote that is the subject of this discussion. (Gives me another chance to thumbs down on this one)

Terry - this comment is a typical rant against having any kind of social programs, given 5 stars by right wing Bush supporters. They would typically only blame liberal politicians for this, yes I agree with you, and that is my point, that the very worst offenders here are the right wingers these people support.

I think the people who are parroting the party line are the ones who consistently give 5 stars to every single right wing quote. In Canada, our tax freedom day is June 1st, so we get to keep a bit more than half, that includes all provincial and federal taxes and point of purchase taxes, everything, and my monthly payment for my health care. When did the Canadian economy "crash terribly"? That is news to me, I must have missed it. We have had a budget surplus every year for 8 years running. Same with a trade surplus, mostly with the USA. Our social security system is intact. I agree that a social system is very much like insurance. Everyone pays in, some people take out more than they pay in over their lifetimes, some people take out less, just like your house insurance and your car insurance, which are also compulsory! (House insurance is compulsory if you have a mortgage, which most people do.) Most people will pay 10s of thousands of dollars in compulsory car and house insurance over their lifetimes and never see a penny in return. Once in a while though disaster might strike and rather than lose millions you will be covered. Why can't you see health insurance and Social Security in the same way?

So, the whole right wing system of endless war, bankrupting of the state, welfare for the already rich, destruction of the middle class, pollution of the environment, stripping away of the constitution and bill of rights, enforcement of religion, crushing and silencing of dissent is all justified because somewhere, someone is abusing the welfare system????

I see, we just accuse a few groups of people of supporting a preposterous position and all the right wingers can cheer and be happy. Please show me one of these, bureaucrats politicians and social workers who believes such a thing. Those who openly support such a position tend top come from the extremes of the political spectrum, not the liberal middle. The current extreme right Republican government acts in the best interests of about 5% of the poplulation yet had the support of 50% until recently and they like it just find that way, thank you very much. Do you think George Bush and his neo-cons want you to think for yourself and act in your own interest? If you did, they would be lynched and there would never be another Republican elected again.

It isn't the welfare system that is bankrupting and destroying the USA it is the military industrial complex, bought politicians and welfare for the wealthy combined with tax breaks for the wealthy that are bankrupting america. Got to throw in the massive ignorance of its people, a third of whom don't care because they are awaiting the return of Jesus and another third who think its good thing and everything is going well because that is what the government tells them.

Lets not forget the third group without whom the first one can't exist - those who want to conrol. From them come the lies and the imaginary threats and the false fears that create people who think they need to be controlled!

You know I spent half an hour with google trying to find the difference between a Democracy and a Republic and I still can't state it in a couple of simple sentences. There only seems to be a difference to those who are trying to find a difference and what that purpose is I don' t know. So what is the real difference between the USA and Canada? We both have elected provincial/state governments, 2 houses of federal government and a supreme court and a head of state. The only difference is in the details - our head of state is merely a figurehead with no real power, your head of state is a fascist dictator who claims all powers for himself, including scrapping your constitution : ) Is a Republic supposed to be more free or have more guarantees for freedom than a democracy? Then that isn't working out very well now is it? The People's REPUBLIC of China would claim to be a republic I assume. This quibbling about the meaning of words is meaningless. What really counts is tha tin the end a society best serves all of its people, and I think at the moment Canada and the European social democracies are doing a pretty fair job of this while maintaining personal liberties and freedoms while the USA seems in a huge hurry to chuck all of this away and become the worlds newest empire with wealth for a few and a few crumbs for the rest. so call is what you like.

Joe - how absolutely predictable of you. The issue here is not about welfare checks or socialism or communism. It is about having a government that works in the best interest of the majority of its citizens. This is what we have had in the western world to varying degreess for the last 100 years, this is what created our middle class, this is what made us great. The alternative to the current extreme right wing is not socialism or communism, it is a return to the middle of the politcal spectrum called liberalism. And if I hear one more of you idiots say "we are a republic not a democracy" I'll scream! As if you know the definition of either. Republic just means "not a monarchy". Democracy these days means a country where the government is periodically elected by the people. Or is the implication that Republic = Republican and Democracy = Democrat? Is that the kind of Orwell speak you are trying to propagate? There is no extreme left in the USA, there are some moderates who are opposed to the creeping fascism that the Republican party has come to represent. If you want to support these people go ahead but know that you are the extremist who is going against the flow of human progress and civilization, not those of us in the middle of the polical spectrum. Do you think there are more than a handful of people in the USA who actually want socialism of communism? You need to start seeing a few shades of grey and not just black and white. And if you think that my opinion makes me a leftist, that is only because you are so far to the right that the middle looks like the left.

"Wealth produced by others"? Arguments like this set up straw men - the impression is that anyone who is not a right winger wants to take rich peoples money and give it to the lazy and the layabouts. NO! All we liberals want to do is to make sure that those who do "produce the wealth" - that is those of us who work for a living, get our fair share of the products of our labours. We just think that the government should be on the side of the majority of the population and not there to only make the wealthy even wealthier. I would be willing to bet that the 3 visitors above who like this comment are either the products of government inervention through progressive taxation and have been brain washed into voting against there own best interests, or they are part of the tiny elite who have written the laws to work in their favour and against the interests of everyone else?

Notice how this is from an essay "State Education: A Help or Hindrance", and I'll assume the writer was opposed to state education too. Just what is it that people like this and todays "conservatives" want to see in society? Something like the world that Charles Dickens wrote about where there are a very few wealthy people and everyone else is dirt poor, working 14 hours a day, 7 days a week in unhealthy and dangerous conditions, where children don't go to school but work instead, where health care is only for those who can afford it and the rest stay sick and die? Where the commons - the nations land, air and water are lierally owned and despoi8led for profit by the tiny wealthy elite? Please, one of you, point to the time and place in history that you think most closely resembles your perfect world! It has been government intervention and redistribution of wealth through a progressive taxation system that has given us our modern world where most people are middle class, most people can get as much education and health care as they desire and need, most people can do more with there lives than work constantly...this is what you are trying to destroy. Why???

...and they are not happy just stealing from the current generation of americans but they have put your country so deeply in debt it will be your children, grand children and great grandchildren who will have to pay it back, assuming civilization lasts that long.

Whoa logan! I was only addressing the issue of governments being able to deliver social services to the underclass that was the main point of your previous statements - it can be done. There are many great things about the US system including its ability to generate great wealth and create great scientific innovations but this is could be done with or without having a decent social safety net. Having the one does not depend on not having the other. And please don't confuse "Socialism" with "Liberalism" or "Socail Democracy". Conservatives seem to think that the only alternative to rank greed and the magic hand of the free market is some watered down version of Stalinism. I abhor that as much as you do. We in Canada and the western european nations do not think of ourselves as Socialists. I just beleive the USA would do very well to take the free market out of certain things - like the health care system - thereby freeing up trillions of dollars that currently enrich the already rich to give basic health care to everyone. There is the whole other argument too that for all its great wealth and innovation, the USA and its lifestyle are only hastening the end of life on this planet. Again it comes down to greed. If the motivation of a society was to look after the planet and the least of its members I believe even more can be achieved. People are not naturally lazy and seeking to be looked after by their governments.