I distrust government quite a bit... However, I don't ask questions about the Bilderburgers, or the Masons or the Priory of Scion or Bohemian Grove.

Or Obama's secret Muslim/Kenyan birth... or 9/11 being a secret government conspiracy.

I find MSNBC to be as unwatchable as Fox, personally. However, FOX is far more directly involved in political gaming than MSNBC.

FTR - I tend to be a rational anarchist in the sense used by Heinlein.

There lies a large difference between his personal political philosophy, which he did not compromise and his actions as a publicly elected figure.

That is, he might have campaigned heavily against Nationalized Healthcare... but once the people voted a pro-healthcare administration and congress in... he would have worked to find a compromise, giving what he felt he had to, and taking where he thought he could. A half a loaf of bread is better than no bread at all.

Jefferson's view of government was from the people. As he once said, the Revolution had happened in the minds of the people long before it was a reality. The same for his party and election... it came from the people. His statement that the tree of liberty had to be watered with blood was directed to the People rising up if the government ignored the People.

Consider though now and here. President Obama campaigned heavily on health care. The democrats campaigned heavily on health care. Almost every poll shows that the Majority WANT some kind of health care reform. The Will of the People beats the philosophy of the politician... if you learn nothing else from Jefferson you should learn that. I have little doubt that while he would have disliked the concept, he would have worked hard to find some kind of compromise, rather than simply stand in opposition and defy the electorate. He would have found a half a loaf of bread in that bill, rather than standing there with empty hands.

Compared to the current crop of politicians... well none of them deserve to sit in the same building as many of the historical figures that once worked there. :(

Yeah, I saw some of that... then I saw one of his bits on national healthcare.

In the former, he seemed mildly upset. In the latter, he seemed about ready to explode. To me, that seems like some seriously confused priorities.

Either that, or he just plays to his audience and doesn't give a shit either way, as long as he makes money...

Or, at least, thats how it appears to me.

I am not saying that we should do nothing. Let me clarify what I am saying. The people/groups I listed are creating extreme hyperbole because they are interested in POWER not in Freedom. There is NO legitimate way to support the statement by Rep Bohner that the healthcare bill is the :"greatest threat" to our freedom that he has ever seen. That is Bullshit.

There is NO EXCUSE for the extreme exaggerations that fill the Tea Parties (and I am speaking as someone who showed up to the first three in my area because, I mistakenly thought they were sorta Libertarian, instead of just crazy). Health Care is like Nazi Death Camps. There will be Death Panels. Obama is from Bangkok (or wherever they want to claim this week). Obama is a secret commie/muslim/black panther who wants to enslave the white man.

No... you don't get to claim thats patriotism. Not after those same assholes still get teary eyed when someone says W... not when they sat on their asses while the PATRIOT ACT passed. It's taking a piss on the Americans that died for real freedom, rather than the manufactured bullshit that these jerks are using to pretend righteous indignation.

IF the tea party or Glen Beck made substantive claims... if they were focused on actual issues rather than bullshit fluff like Acorn... if they spoke about the reality of nationalized healthcare instead of imaginary eugenics and the nonsense that somehow healthcare will destroy democracy... then I would be right beside you defending them.

But they don't. They don't make good arguments. They don't focus on real issues. They don't care about America, they care about getting the Dems out of office (much like the dems from the past 8 years... and they were full of shit too).

It is absolutely relevant, especially if we're talking about the "direction" of the western world. The "direction" necessarily includes the past as well as the present.

Corrupt? If Bush had done a tenth of the things Obama has??

Are you on the same planet? Are you actually alive and breathing? Do you have working synapses?

Shall we compare corruption, shall we compare restrictions of freedom? Do YOU really want to take a real look at the past 8 years?

Or do you want to watch Fox News and pretend to have righteous indignation?

I am not a liberal, but I am NOT part of any political philosophy that could possibly condone the Bush administration. Obama is acting like a liberal, Bush acted like a King.

I think there's a huge difference between smart people doing dumb things and where this conversation started. ALL PEOPLE do dumb things... having more education generally just means that you're likely to have more information on some topics than a person that was not educated in that particular area. It neither increaes nor decreases the likelihood of a person doing something dumb.

Like dropping a frog into boiling water (LOL)

I think you might need to step back and seriously consider your perceptions. If you believe that he is honestly trying... GO look again... go stick your head in a different mindset for just awhile and think critically.

Beck has charisma and makes a good stage show, but in the end, its an empty performance.

And the entire concept of "parroting talking points" isn't also parroting talking points?

I mean, do people actually think about politics anymore, or just find their favorite group to hate?

I see them lean left on some topics but Fox News is solidly red and that is a problem. Generally, news stations/reporters reflect their own personal bias, while trying to report something objectively. FOX reflects their own personal bias and doesn't bother to aim for objective at all... therein lies the difference.

So you're upset by Healthcare, but you weren't worried when the government got permission to do wiretaps without a FISA order?

You're angered by bank bailouts, but not by citizens being held without trial, or US entities breaching treaties and conventions that we signed as a nation (like the Convention Against Torture)?

You are more concerned about TAXES then protesters being put in 'Free Speech Zones" that amounted to little more than cages?

Jefferson would make his hand strong and pimp slap you for invoking his name with that sort of logic.

It doesn't strike me as that odd... I have never seen a "major news organization" that has been as blatantly partisan and as blatantly biased as Fox News.

I think you're confusing causation and correlation. Being educated has nothing to do with being a Cosmic Schmuck.

The search for certitude - like the pretense of moral righteousness - appears to me as a medieval habit that should have vanished long ago. None of us knows enough to be certain about anything, usually, and none of us are nearly as 'moral' as we feel obliged to pretend we are in order to be acceptable to 'Decent' Society.

If we are not totally stupid and blindly selfish on all possible occasions, we are about as bright and ethical as anyone in history has ever been. The greatest batters in the history of baseball all had batting averages well below 0.500, which means they missed more than half the time they swung. Medieval morality and theology have left us with the hypocritical habit of pretending batting averages close to 0.999 in both knowledge and ethics. (The Absolutists go around talking and acting as if their averages were actually 1.000 or sheer perfection.) On average, I think I score under Babe Ruth and I suspect you do, too.

There thus appears to be a great deal of conceit and self - deception in the habitual poses of intellectual certitude and ethical perfection among the educated classes. It would appear more in keeping with honesty, I think, to recognize, as analogous to Murphy's Law, the unscientific but useful generalization I call the Cosmic Schmuck Principle.

The Cosmic Schmuck Principle holds that if you don't wake up, once a month at least, and realize that you have been acting like a Cosmic Schmuck again then you will probably go on acting like a cosmic schmuck forever; but if you do, occasionally, recognize your Cosmic Schmuckiness, then you might begin to become a little less Schmucky that the general human average at this primitive stage of terrestrial evolution.

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Natural Law
or Don't Put A Rubber On Your Willy PDF
by Robert Anton Wilson