“O liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name! [Fr., O liberte! que de crimes on commet dans ton nom!]”

O Liberté! que de crimes on commet en ton nom!

now, more than not

Oh yes..... And, how many war mongers and self-proclaimed patriots scream this word.

I am sure but who defines crime. Voltaire said in French "Crush the infamous thing.!" meaning The Church (Catholic)? In the fight for freedom from racism and sexism, for example, many a white male has been hurt, discrinated agaisnt or passed over. The overriding greater good in my view is for a world free of racism and sexism so I and other withe males may have suffered for it. Unfortunately we live in an imperfect world of ying and yang.

In Voltaire's day the church was the government and the government was the church. Kings derived their divine right to dictate from the church who crowned the king. In that light the church was an infamous thing because it collaborated in crushing the individual. Beware of anyone who advocates for the greater good. It's not the greater good of the individual they want, it's the greater good of the ruling class. The greater good always involves keeping the peasants under control, distracted with envy and infighting. The surest way to guarantee a world of strife, envy, racism, and sexism is for government to subsidize it, encourage it, and continue it; all the while ensuring their own power.

I am so glad I pulled your chain Ken and it is so nice to hear you are still ruminating. The Bible says that the sins or crimes of the fathers shall be visited about the sons under the fourth generation (I think it was the forth). The fact remains that sin, crime, wrong doing, you what goes around comes around is true.

Voltaire was not speaking about the chruch involvement in goverment only. The Chruch owned 10% of all French property etcetera. It was a dictatorship outside of "government".

Liberty is often confused with Power. Using immense power over another -- nation or individual -- is an abuse of another's liberty and an abuse of one's own power. Bombing middle eastern nations into submission is NOT furthering Liberty -- and the one's being bombed know it! Those doing the bombing are just following orders. How can bombing Afghanistan be defending the Constitution from foreign enemies when they won't defend it domestically? "They hate us for our Freedom," we are told. BS! They hate us for blowing up their homes and their families!! O Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name...

I don't have any chains, Waffler. I happen to remain free for now. As far as the sins of my fathers, I think that those poor, hill folk of the Appalachians never owned any slaves. In fact there is an old family story that they headed for the hills to avoid the war between the Democrats and the Republicans (as they called them). They just didn't have a dog in that fight. Of course the armies in blue and the armies in gray still came to their farms, stole their food, and mistreated their women. As for Voltaire, that was my point: the church and government were one, and equally corrupt in their collusion.

High seas segregation -The Navy is listing dangerously in politically correct water (The Washington Times). http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/30/high-seas-segregation/

Ken,Allyn WA-------------A great message with your two posts. I salute you.

Good Archer

Good counter point Ken. As far as the hill people it wasn't that they did not want to have slaves or that they were more morally pure they just had not had the opportunity to exploit that aveneue of economic success. Read "Absalom, Absalom" by Faulkner to learn of a hard scrabble mountain man who made good with slavery by moving from the "worthless" Piedmont to the fertile bottom land of the Tidewater. As far as corruption we need to keep pointing it out, it will always be with us. But first let us never to forget to find the corruption in our own lives be it in correct tax filing. to trash pollution, law avoidance etecera. When we all do this rather than trying to get away with something we will have the country and society we wish.

Too much, Waffler. ;-) All you are saying is that as far as corruption goes, obey government (even if corrupt) because the real corruption is with yourself. This is typical BS designed to justify the corruptions of government agencies because people are inherently bad and thus must be controlled by government. Your term "law avoidance" is classic jargon to disguise the abuse of agencies who make rules that are forced upon us without Constitutional authority. How do you fight corruption by obeying corruption? You can't. We must not obey rules simply because the agency makes threats against you if you don't comply. Compelled compliance, victimless crimes, and unlawful taxation are corruptions not to be 'avoided' but ignored altogether -- an unconstitutional statute is void and of no effect, requiring none to obey. O liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name. Waffler, do you not see the hypocrisy and complicity with corruption in your statement? Listen here, tax man, beat it before you are tarred and feathered and run out on a rail.