People meet in small groups and make plans and agendas and then try to gain adherents to their plans and schemes whether it be corporate boards starting something and looking for new investors or politicians and "diplomats" who then look for broader support from legislators etcetera. Things are not covert just because you or I don't know about them. I suggest that the more things one sees as covert the less educated and ignorant of things one is. To a child or someone who does not read the news everything is covert or unknown to them.

I don't necessarily disagree with you Jim but the view that it is covert is born of paranoia which is born of ignorance or lack of education. Just because I or you don't know something that is being planned anywhere in this country or world by a government or corporation does not mean that it is a covert operation. Thinking so signifies to me that such a person sees themselves as the center of the universe and anything that goes on that they don't know about is covert. The quote may be consistent with the liberals, which agenda you seem to know full well, Mr. Kilpatrick. Therefore you prove my point that it is not covert. The use of the word covert is just cannon fodder for the right wing paranoid radicals.

Freedom is a big word and one should define what they are referring too. Life in a planned community is different than life on your own ranch. Of course one is free to adopt the planned community life or not but once you opt for the comfort and security of one and socialize with the community you give up the freedom of action of the other. Mr. Belloc's quote is to short to fully understand his meaning.

Thanks Editor. I saw some of Mr. Dodd's interview. I believe what he says is hearsay and opinion of an 82 year old man and is used by popagandists for their own covert purposes. You can get quotes from anyone and everyone. While they may generate discussion they may not have any real truth value in and of themselves. In my opinion a belief that we as a people, nation, or economy can be taken over by a covert operation is born of paranoia born of lack of education and experience. Not to say however that money and power and fraud does not have a large impact on things. Look at this Countrywide thing and Enron etcetera. We need to be ever vigilant so that we are never paranoid.

I disagree with you Mike. Paraquay can have and probalby pay for a satellite and the US would launch it. Paraquay like most small countries have not the financing or infrastructure of education, science, and technology to do what the Russians and Americans did starting in the late '50's. Unity, union brings strength, infrastructure, economy of scale and tax base.

Logan you are correct that the UN is not founded on democratic principles but on political or historic reality in 1946. How else can you explain that Norway and Paraquay each get one vote in the General Assembly just like the US, China, and Russia do? The idea of the UN is simply that the world like our towns, states, and nation has somethings in common and upon the notion that secret agreements among various nations lead to conflicts etcetera. The Greek philosophes were men of leisure who lived off a slave economy. They had nothing better to do than sit around and debate philosophy. I to enjoy the "joy of philosophy" but with a purpose towards real or actual life and events.

I question the authenticity of this quote. A covert act requires the action of one or a conspiracy of a very few individuals. Who are these master minds who were covertly bringing this about? Any student of economics or capitalism knows that jobs move to the lowest cost labor market. We brought cheap labor to America, shipped jobs from New England to the South and then to Asia. There was nothing covert about this only good old fashioned economics and capitalist greed. I think what Rowan is calling a covert operation is simply Adam Smiths invisible hand. That the action of these industrialists, bankers, and capitalists, and governments tend to bring labor around the world into a more common standard of living I have no doubt. Some I am sure would prefer to continue a world of have's and have nots or to increase the disparity between rich and poor even in this our own country. Some (the paranoid) consider anything to be covert if it is something the whole world knows about but they don't due to their own personal like of education and awareness.

I like that Robert about profits privatized and losses socialized, good point! Secuirity and freedom from want, elements, storm and tribulation has always been had at the expense of individual liberty. Life inside the city walls has historically been more comfortable and less "free" than life outside the city walls. This is not a left/right or socialist/libertarian issue but a fact of life and civilization.

Simplistic. Why has not a "unity" such as Paraquay for example gone to the moon?Why hasn't a European country done marvelous space exploration like the Russians and Americans. Now that Europe is united as the European Union they have a space agency. Unity brings strength and money (a large economy and tax base). I have not heard so much disunion talk since I watched Civil War movies. If folks cannot not organize, UNITE and rally either by "government" or business enterprize then nothing of a large scale gets done,

Logan if you condemn the UN for its non-democratic structure why do you praise your mythical or mystical "republic" for its non-democratic structure. I am no more Mr. Democracy than you are, I and you have agreed that we are both Mr. Majority Rule. Why not leave it at that and have a real discussion about real things.

Bush proved that we have a right to defend ourselves regardless of what the UN thinks. And we did just that when we attacked our enemies in Afghanistan

Hitler and Osama thought America was a myth or crowd without a backbone etcetera. They both found out different. I have earlier disparaged Spooner and he has done nothing to change my mind here.

Congressional laws are second only to the words of our current president in being totally without literary merit. However the sense of Congress and thus the American people is what is important here. If the Republican Congress had done the same thing in supporting Wilson's League of Nations we would not have had the Second World War. Archer you don't listen and obviously you don't read. Numerous commnetors here have stated the benefits of the United Nations. Your failure to read and listen is no ones fault but your own.

I called no one disillusioned. If the shoe fits wear it I only pointed out that Thoreau was disilusioned in a much younger, innocent and simpler America, an America when we were a pure Republic or were much closer to true and correct "Republic" that so many on this site seem to long for. What does the fact that he was disilusioned about "the great mass of men" then have to say about y'all's longing for those pure days of "Republican glory". I repeat that it is not the relative strength of the two sides of the republic vs democracy debate that is making men disillusioned then or now but something much deeper. Logan you and I have agreed on that majority rule is what American government is about. You need say no more to me about it for that is what I mean. I ask you to point out to me a majority ruled society that has authorized rape or genocide by majority rule. Not to ignore that some of the actions of America against native americans were close to genocide but was there a referendum or vote of Congress that authorized massacres. I don't think so. PS: If this pure utopian "republic" did not exist in Thoreau's time circa 1830 when pray tell did it exist and how long did it last? I respectfully suggest its existence is a figment of y'all's imagination just like Logan's democratic rape and genocide society is a figment of his imagination.

Enforcement of the bill of rights includes stopping private citizens or any government or organization from interfering with peoples or groups rights to freedome. This does not get done without some folks coming together and saying enough is enough. Everyone existing alone and not associating with ohters is a strange social order and as history shows some few will try to interfere with others rights and freedoms, thus an enforcer is needed.

The amazing thing is that Thoreau was disallusioned in 1830-1840. The fact that many even on this web site are disillusioned today is not surprising. On the other hand it points out the fact that some men have been disillusioned throughout history. Thus disillusionment is not caused by current events but an attitudinal problem in some class of men. Logan you are wrong about democracy. Democracy is the reality of public opinion. Public opinion can be wrong as in the substantial number of folks (the great unwashed in my opinion) who think global warming is a lie. The positive thinkers, the believers in ultimate good, the undisillusioned keep fighting for the rock bottom of truth on this issue and have faith in the ultimate intelligence of the human species.

A paradox. No law is any good if it is not enforced. To be enforced there must be an enforcer, a sheriff if you will. While the Bill of Rights is about being left alone we must come together to enforce it. The Bill of Rights applies not only to the Federal Government but to state and local government as well.

Are not statesmen those who know how to nuance a discussion and get every one into agreement? To be elected President of the US one must do exactly that. Several quotes here seem to show Disraeli to be disparageing of democracy. What can you expect from a twice Prime Minister in a monocracy? In another place however he does stress the need for government to be of, by and for the people.

I think Marx would prefer America with large scale ownership of business by people in all walks of life via capital stock. Economics is about the production and distributrion of goods and services. The American economy has done it better than any in the world im my opinion. And it is not done through centralization..

Good stuff Logan. Thanx.

The fact that these cases are news is proof that most of the news is good and boring. I come from a financial auditing background. Can things get screwed up yes, do things have a way of being discovered yes. Are most of our politicians elected honestly yes. If a man wins by 70% and all surveys say he was only liked by 30% well he is going to be caught. Ken I lived in Tacoma, Wash until I was seven. I alwasy heard it referred to as the land of good government. Wha happened?

Archer threre have been a lot of wealthy members of the Democratic party in our nation. Are you saying perchance that members of the Demorcatic party are poor and Republicans are rich. You have of course heard of the Roosevelts, Kennedys, Kerry, Jay Rockefeller, Warren Buffet etcetera, democrats all. Your simplistic statement above is just that simplistic. You may agree with me that the policies advanced by these people and the democratic party in general throughout its history dating at lest from Andrew Jackson and maybe from Thomas Jefferson was more in favor of the people, the little man as opposed to the wealthier faction of society. The Clinton admistration proved that when the little guy does well we all do well.

Great quote! This is why democracy is so great. Now Hitler could not tolerate such a state of "no progress" or net zero and could not tolerate all of the European ethnicites. He had a grand solution to move society off of "net zero" into a great and grand plan for the future and he had to be a dictator to do it. The failure of democracy in Germany was a tragedy. Let us vow to protect it here. Freedom and democracy means my plans end at your nose and vice a versa. PS: Looks like the Fed is doing its fine job as usual in protecting our republic and its democratic institutions. I refer to the New York Governor expose of course. As I said earlier this is part of the "guarantee of a republican (democratic) state government" required by the Constitution.

Logan if you believe that Soviet communism was democratic you have been asleep for a long time. The Russians loved it when the evil empire fell and for the first time in their lives they had free democratic elections and free enterprise. Thus your comparison of democracy to totalitarian communism is sick. Literature and history are full of stories about little towns virtually owned and operated by one person who controls all business and politics by the use of his money, threats, payoffs etcetera. When DEMOCRACY comes the town and business experience a breath of fresh air. I suggest there may be little difference in this kind of town and the former Soviet Union.

Some profound truth here and we must temper it with Winston Churchill's "Democracy is the worst goverment on earth except for all of the others." Would we prefer to be bludegon ourselves or have some King, Duke, Earl, serf or slave overlord or immoral industrialist bludgeon us. At least in democracy we have some say about the matter. Logan communism and socialism are economic systems. Democracy and totalitarianism are politcal systems. Socialisms as we have in this country such as public roads, sewers, schools, social security, medicare grew out of needs that the people wanted taken care of by united effort and were done in a democratic fashion.