Hi Warren glad you are staying tuned and still have a whimsical edge!

Anon my Christmas card which I ordered yesterday says Merry Christmas on the front of it. I have no problem and enjoy saying Merry Christmas to others. Other individuals and businesse are free to say anything they wish. I personal feel some folk of a less active religious bent prefer to say Happy Holidays. Some folk get choked on the word Christ mas and Christ. That is their religious freedom to be secular if they desire to be. I agree with J that murder is not allowed. Our country is being tested on the issue of Freedom of Religon, I agree 100% but if we win the wars by violating our fundamental beliefs that all persons are to be treated equal witout regard to religon, what have we gained. I also agree with Jim from Austin that persons of Muslim persuasion are sometimes conflicted and can be dangerous. But as one guy told the Major who flipped, "Muslims are fighting Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan and who knows where else so what is wrong with Americans helping Muslims to fight Muslims". It is radical Muslims we need to worry about not all Muslims. This is deep and heavy stuff and we have to be careful here.

Anon if you said that "perhaps your neighbor is a communist" do you think people would be more critical of your neighfor or of you. I for one would be critical of you. Mark Clark may have just been ruminating or thinking out loud, but we should hush our mouth rather than fomenting uncalled for hatred and paranoia. This is McCarthyism pure and simple. I repeat they are the words of scoundrels.

What society is he talking about? Panamaian or some other! To the gentleman from India are your comments addressed to a particular national society or to the modern world society at large? We certainly are not dying of ignorance, population growth and life expectancy keeping growing, health care is becoming more widely distributed. If he is referring to over population and evironmental degradation I agree with 100%, the ignorant thumb their noses at the educated ones like Al Gore.

Is this guy actually complaining about this being a free country, if that is what most people are doing then I would assume that is what they freely choose to do. I watch C-Span for both entertainment and information. No commercials either. I give a two for probably some truth but withhold three for this guys blatant attack on the freedom to choose of his fellow Americans. He really probably has no idea what most people are doing and he is just a judgemental looking down his nose at others SOB.

BS. Everyone writes history. It is just the shallow and sycophants that choose to read only that written by winners. Do you remember for example who was last or second to last in NFC or AFC last year? You can read the writings and interviews of Geronimo. J Carlton has apparently never read or heard of the documentary book titled "The Ugly American" about the errors of American diplomats and diplomacy. There are numerous alternaive books, views, and opinions. You guys need to dig deeper. This quote sounds good or cute and at first glance seems to have a ring of truth to it but for lack of a better word at the moment it is pure droppings from the bull yard.

Only accurate and certified financial statements can give society the information it needs to make rational decisions about lending, investing, etcetera. If financial statements are worthless then all hell brakes loose.

Jim where did you get this definition of "statist theocracy" I never heard anyone but Mike use it. Do you and he communicate outside of this site and share these things. I have never heard the prhase outside of this site. Interesting very interesting indeed. The Federal Reserve is no different than central banking that is practiced all over the world. I know of no one who has been disarmed. On the contrary concealed and open carry laws are proliferating, even to the chagrine of many people who like our ancestors in the old west would just as soon see less guns being flashed around than more. It would appear that governent and law is on the side of guns rather than opposed as you say.

Wonder what guys that wrote this stuff in 1962 think now. I guess this guy thinks that the fall of the Berlin wall was a planned tactical or strategic manuever of the Politburo and that the Politburo now has us all right where they want us. I always feel so sad when I see folk lost into schizophrenia and paranoia. Jim K you so openly show your lack of understanding of the country I am sure you do actually love. We have a thing here Jim called "FREEDOM OF RELIGION". Your statement about a Muslim in the Army is an outrageous attack on a basic fundamental American freedom. Do you actually realize that you are on a site dedicated to Liberty? Pretty soon you will propose a religious test for public office which is also unconstitutional. You may agree with these quotes, that our enemies are within our own country, but examine your views to be sure that you are not among them.

The expression of scoundrels and frauds; here Clark inflames the unthinking by using words like PERHAPS. Well how about "perhaps not" General Clark. You guys love a witch hunt. I know what side you all would have been on in Salem, Mass. Hang 'em all would have been your cry. You have no discernment whatsoever!

You can go further, have more friends, be more influential and correct the things that outrage you by being nice. So be nice.

Your side is without a voice Mike. I know nothing of what you believe about health care, taxes, or deficits and debt.

I wish you guys could tell me what you are smoking cause it must be some very good S^&* to keep y'all so utterly removed from what is actually going on. The economic reports are up the market is up, health care is the first step in reducing costs, insurance will come down when it gets good competition and taxes will go up and the debt will come down in a year or two. While the Repub crowd fiddled for 8 years the nation got screwed.

A quote from 1797 has nothing to say about present day America. But philosophically I think he is saying that chilvary is throwing caution to the wind, being gutsy, swaggering like etcetera while by sophistry, economist and calculator he means being careful, analytical and circumspect. Yesterday I read an analysis of President Bush's style versus Obama. Buish was the caution to the wind guy and Obama is the analytical guy. Bush and Cheney (or was it Cheney and Bush) made their plans secretly while Obama anayses openly and honestly to way the proper course of action. I suggest both approaches spring from a view of the self, of what kind of person a person is. While chivalry may appear as Cal and Mike suggest as being respect for others, it may actually be a misguied view of self - Don Quiote like. To take on the world as if every thing is ones own problem, to fix single handed, is a bit narcissistic and megolomaniacal, while to be anaylitcal and considerate of all of the facts and points of view may be considered dithering. To have the proper balance that is the thing. Sometimes chilvary is equated with being a fool and calculation is equated with being a heel. The chilvarous guy gives a $10 tip for a $5 dollar meal while the calculator guy computes 10 or 20 percent and winds up leaving a quarter.

Bookkeepers and especially cost accountants are the backbone of the nation and the economy. Only thieves and purely self centered individuals would disdain an accurate accounting of transactions between people and within society.

Mike your poetry is great but what do you actually me by the phrases that you use, such as "satist theocracy", "creeping cancer" etc. Hitler also used such sweeping unclear terms in describing ethinc cleansing forever changing his definitions to go after who ever he wanted to. What actually do your terms mean. Happy Thanksgiving to you all. PS: Are your phrases code words for some secret agenda that only you, Carlton, and Jim K are aware of because they seem to get your drift without ever really explaining yourself.

Good Warren real good, do you also recall just a few years ago when the Repub. may have had a Senate majority and the Dems were able to make them go slow. It goes both ways young man it goes both ways. My diatribe about the truth still stands, our society of freedom is predicated on majority rule under law. If the majority (even if through their representatives) say that the highway will go this way and not that way that is the way it will go. These guys have to go over and at least use to this simple fact. That there are innumerable things that a majority cannot do under our constitution, of course. If freemen cannot gather together and do something then they are not free at all, but all are then simply hamstrung by the one.

Right on Ken! I think you and I are saying the same thing, for once.

Obvioulsy Mr. Fisher wrote this before the last great financial debacle. What that debacle proved is that we need more and more accountants and bookkeeprs not less. When the supermarkets dispense with cashiers and let their customers tally up their own grocery order (without the aid of electronic scanners) and pay what they determine to be correct, then we will have arrived at the nirvana or utopia J.B. is dreaming of. Until then more bookkeepers I say, more bookkeepers!

.Great! But it is a measure of the health of a society that it can tolerate its' profoundly sick and maladusted members. The diversity of opinion in America is a sign of our greatness.

Carlton the other day said that he prefers politics and isms without emotion (that is sentiment). Socialism he says is based on emotion. I suggest that robot like human beings are without emotion, I would prefer the socialist emoting to the fascist robot most days.

RBESRQ is on to something. There are beggars and thiefs (which is worse I guess) at all levels of society. Nietzsche is a great example of Aurelius' quote the other day about being in the majority or being insane. He went insane, but his writings while a bit voluminous did have some pithy and good advice

If we arrested and jailed them they would get free food and lodging at our expense, maybe throwing them an occasional nicket is cheaper.

The people are the state and the proportion of the total wealth allocated or in the hands of individuals versus the state is the function of the needs and purposes of all of the people. WWII was the best example of an exteme reallocation of wealth to military success. Money is only good for spending, if the wealth is in the hands of a few private individuals who decicde to spend it in ways detrimental to the people then the people from whom the wealth originally flowed have a right to correct the misallocation. In a capitalist society the wealth flows from the poorest and every one in between up to the capitalist, without the people consuming his goods the capitalist would be without a market.

The concept of majority rule pervades this society and its' institutions every where. From board rooms, club gatherings, to to city council meetings, tribal meetings, county meetings, state and federal legislative meetinga, and votes the idea of majority rule is rampant. To deny this fundamental truth is to be truly ignorant or just a base liar. Now that some organizations abide by a more strenous rule in some situaltions such as the super majority 60 percent rule in some mattes coming before the US Senate in effect gives a 41 percent minority the right to rule and dictate is unfortunate or at least a violation of the majority rule. But that org has apparently felt the need to maintain the status quo or to put breaks on change or to provide a legeislative go slow procedure. Still majority led government is the basic law of the land. To say other wise or to wish otherwise is anathema to the idea of American freedom.