The purpose of taxation is to control. Necessity of funds has very little to do with it. Ultimately governments will tax everything away to take complete control if they are allowed to do it. When they do, welcome to Karl Marx's utopia (or Joe Stalin's).

Without taxes there would be no helpless people hopelessly dependent on government whose only aim is to control their behavior. Without taxes you would protect yourself and band together with your neighbors voluntarily to protect each other. You would build roads, you would dig wells for water, and you would teach your own children or hire someone else to do it for you. Without taxes you would no longer be under the thumb of an increasingly oppressive system of government.

Capital punishment is when the state exacts the ultimate penalty for the ultimate crime in a few, swift moments. Taxation is slavery, where the state owns a portion of your life and slowly bleeds it away from you, but not too fast. No one wants to kill the cash cow (or hardworking slave).

Intimidation works. That's why it is used by organizations from government to the mob (but I repeat myself).

The government should not have the power to control your thoughts or dreams through PC group think, but I'm sure Jesse means the dream of a monthly check from the guvmint.

Freedom is the choice to make lemonade out of the lemons life gives you, or to whine about all of those sour lemons. We are the sum of our natural dispositions, talents, and events, and how we choose to use them.

So, here's the same, old, tired cultural equivalence idea again. We are taking away someone else's freedom and isolating them if we don't allow them to interpret reality through their own beliefs: for instance beat their wives, rape the un-burka'd woman, cut the throats of non-believers, send suicide bombers to kill infidels. Some cultures are better than others. Some ideas, interpretations, or thought patterns, are indeed evil.

But sometimes it is just so satisfying to bust the heads of some "radicals" with a nightstick. Radicals are really only to be feared if they can convince an angry mob to follow them.

It seems these quotes on freedom seem to be missing the element of responsibility that needs to accompany freedom. Freedom is the opportunity to choose to do the right thing, or face the consequences of your actions. Freedom is self-regulation.

This is why soft socialism is much more dangerous than communism ever was. If a government is careful not to push the majority of the people to discomfort, and in fact reward dependence, it will last perpetually (or at least until the last productive person gives up and produces no more).

Refuse to exercise responsible behavior with your freedom at your own peril. If you behave like a spoiled child, someone, probably government, will treat you like one.

Some are more "free" than others just like some are more "equal" than others.

Whenever a "liberal" declares a debate is over, that simply means they can't refute the facts. It also means it won't be long before they try to silence the opposition by any means necessary.

A garage ain't for keeping the car dry. It's for keeping your sanity.

Mike, everybody wants to act like God and create the world in their own image. That's why they just can't leave other people alone to live their own lives. It is pure sacrilegious arrogance, the same Lucifer himself indulged in.

Solitude is self-reliance. It's also peace and quiet.

I think complete and accurate surveillance as a means of control probably is now a practical possibility. Ferkiss must not have heard of Moore's law. There is now enough data and cheap computing power to control what we buy, where we go, what we do. All that is lacking is the implementation and the desire to completely control us.

Data mining anyone? When government starts deciding that junk food is as bad for you as smoking and links up with the grocery store database, it's going to get hard to buy a bag of potato chips. Link enough databases and every aspect of your life can be controlled.

I'm already so many numbers I can hardly keep track of them all. I'm sure someone is though.

It is interesting that Voltaire got away with saying what he did because he had powerful friends that protected him from government retribution.

I wonder if that means they would be allowed to leave, killed, or "re-educated"?

Another FDR policy that's led us down a merry road to utopia. I do have to wonder, however, what the alternative might have looked like.

Should we care whether Africans are killing each other with war, disease, and starvation? Is it any of our business? Should we care if our neighbor is beating his wife or abusing his children? Is that any of our business either? Maybe it's just cultural differences, after all, and we all know all cultures are equal. Each of the soldiers in those cemeteries decided for himself whether he was willing to pay the price. You or I may believe the price was too high, but it was ultimately their decision.

Whether the price of a war is too high or not is up to the individual participants. If the price is too high, surrender. If the price of surrendering is too high, don't.

I know several Filipinos. Most realize that their society is better than it would have been under Spanish colonial rule or if they had been left to fight it out amongst themselves. Most are appreciative for our efforts in WWII and beyond. On the other hand, like all people, they did not like having their lives controlled by foreigners. It has long been a love/hate relationship, but on balance they seem to prefer Americans to anyone else in the world. I will give this a couple of stars for the pragmatic truth in the statement that came from having to choose between two bad choices.