I always wonder whether big business buys politicians or is extorted by them. Maybe both. As for myself, I fear 100,000 IRS agents much more than I fear 100,000 Bank of America employees. Bank of America employees don't come to my house with guns when I fail to make a deposit. The first step to getting out from under the thumb of usurpers is to stop behaving like thieves ourselves. Stop voting for the congressman who brings home the most pork. That probably will not happen though. Everyone loves their bacon (or more specifically, someone else's bacon). I believe it will eventually take some cataclysmic event to make enough people realize it is time to hit the reset button on government.

Bruce, since you're from Alabama I thought you might find this interesting: http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=081307B It is by Roy Spencer, Principal Research Scientist, University of Alabama.

People can affect the environment on a local scale by such things as clear cutting forests, draining wetlands (what we used to call swamps), paving over large surfaces, etc. Sometimes it is for the better, sometimes for the worse. I see no convincing evidence that anthropogenic causes can affect glaciation, ocean current patterns, and other global processes. The global warming proposal would have you believe that a very small amount of systemic noise produced by humans can overwhelm the orders of magnitude larger signal produced by nature itself. No other system behaves that way. Why should climate? As for motives, you have some cynical scientists who live to produce inconclusive evidence in a study to justify the next grant for the next study. You have some who have so convinced themselves of the great work they are doing that they simply cannot give it up because their perceived self-worth is so invested in the idea. Every foible of humanity can be found in scientists. By the way, do you know how many scientists there are in the world? 2500 is not that large of a crowd. You will also notice there do not seem to be a very large number of geomorphologists and glaciologists in the 2500, perhaps because they are the true experts in large scale global climate change and they know better than to risk their reputations. Now, when I trade my property for another service or good, it is of my own free will. No one forces me to to so. Voluntary exchanges in acquiring and disposing of property is what property rights are all about. I use public roads, sewers, water systems and such properties that are held in common and I have no problem with paying for what I use. Those properties do not belong to the "authorities" however. They belong to the people and the "authorities" are the agents of the people who administer them for the owners.

If you don't think the Indians owned property, just try to steal one's horse.

As a scientist (yes, a government scientist), let me say I am skeptical of global warming or as it has recently been relabeled, anthropogenic climate change. Of course my livelihood does not depend on a research grant to study "climate change". Follow the money. As for the quote, property is the physical representation of your labor, that is, a part of your life spent doing work for others. If you do not have a right to your property then you also do not have a right to your life.

I have no use for any law that does not protect life, liberty, and property, and neither does any other honest person.

Well said, Eric. I work daily with bright, young sailors who want to be where they are and want to do their jobs well. I've been doing that since the Reagan administration. They are truly America's finest. The only people I've heard advocating a draft or denigrating those young men and women by implying they're mentally deficient are Democrats.

To govern is to control. How can power hungry politicians exercise complete control over our lives and compel our actions if we are free? Therefore, in the Fabian socialists minds, individual freedom simply cannot be allowed.

Republican (not the party) representation works well when you have responsible politicians who respond to the will of the people. For those times that responsible politicians are few and far between in both major parties, I am grateful that my state as well as many others have an initiative/referendum process where the people can use the hammer of direct democracy on unresponsive, irresponsible politicians. That process should be used rarely, however.

In August 1998, the U.S. Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, said Osama bin Laden, the reputed mastermind of truck-bomb attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa, had "declared war on the United States and struck first."

"Others can believe whatever they wish" If only that were true. Too many atheists behave as if their non-belief itself is a religion and try to proselytize those who don't conform to their ideals. It always makes me wonder why so many atheists are such ardent non-believers that they would try to convert others. It would seem that it shouldn't matter to them what someone else's "superstitions" were (unless they weren't really all that sure of themselves).

No one gives people their rights. It is up to every individual to claim and defend their own inalienable rights against those who would take them away. It is however our duty to defend others' rights as if they were our own.

What a novel concept: to be left alone in your thoughts, emotions, and sensations. Yet we are now on the verge of thought crimes in America, conveniently couched in hate crimes legislation.

"We are going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."---Hillary Clinton. The common good is, of course, what the State says it is. I guess we all know what side of the argument she comes down on. As for Huxley's quote, I do not intend to be "developed" by anyone but myself.

...unless it is to believe in global warming or the value of diversity, two modern day religions with no basis in observable fact.

It seems or legislators have "decreed" so many acts to be crimes that one cannot live without being a criminal.

Alfred the Great was once asked, "What is justice?" He answered, "I know it when I see it." Everyone knows by their own conscience what is right, wrong, moral, immoral, just, or unjust. It is all a matter of whether one chooses to lie to themselves about it or not.

It requires more than respect of law and Constitution to secure a Republic, it takes a vigilant citizenry to make sure the political "elites" respect it too.

When everyone behaves morally out of personal responsibility there is no need for law and everyone has perfect freedom. That is the Utopian ideal that we are unlikely to achieve, but the more personal responsibly people choose to act, the more free they are.

This is a thought I read some time ago. Consider, you work for a day and receive a coin in payment that has Caesar's image stamped on it. Who's coin is it? It is your's, of course, because you earned it. If someone paints their name on your car, is it not still your car, vandalized though it may be? The pharisees were trying to trick Jesus into saying that people should break the law and not pay taxes to Caesar, but he gave an answer that seemed not to advocate breaking the law, and thus kept himself and his disciples out of prison.

I'll have to agree with Dawn. The government taxes us then uses the money to socially engineer our behavior to some bureaucrat's liking. That is not happens to free people.

Are we at war with Islamonazis or not? Were they just 19 misguided youth or were they part of an organized attack on the United States? Whine all you want about civil liberties. They'll do you little good after the bomb belt has gone off and you're splattered against a wall.

The root of the problem is this willful disregard of the clear, written word of the Constitution. Professor and student alike both know that this is the case. One group purposely wants to pervert government for their own ideological purposes, another group goes along to get along (and make a buck).

Speaking strictly of experiments, they never fail if they are properly designed. They may either show positive or negative results but there is always something to be learned from them.

I have always thought Madison's words "general welfare" was a terribly vague flaw in the Constitution because, as Madison himself recognized, it is so open to abuse. Of course those words appear only in the preamble and, as such, are only an introductory explanation of the Constitution which follows. There are no governmental requirements in the preamble. The body of the Constitution as written is how we are going to achieve the general welfare, not some collection of unconstitutional laws based on a stretched and deformed interpretation of interstate commerce.