The notion that it's a good idea or even possible for one set of people to force its will on another is what leads to war, and it's one we might do well to change.

A functioning society forces people to limit the extent to which they force their will on others.

If you believe it's not possible for one set of people to force its will on another, try not paying your taxes.

The world is a dangerous place, "sheepdog" security theater isn't going to save them

I think you're misunderstanding part of the analogy. "Sheepdogs" include ordinary citizens who go around armed, who many of the "sheep" believe should be disarmed. Allowing "sheepdogs" to keep their guns is the opposite of security theater because in most places firearms must be carried concealed, and because no politician can claim credit for the presence of an armed bystander.

Terrorism is an irregular attack, against civilians, with a political goal.

Then you're better then the UN because so far they couldn't agree on a proper definition.

We're all better than the U.N. The only thing they agree on is diplomatic immunity for parking tickets. This is the organization that made Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the keynote speaker at its racism conference. :)

I can't remember any genocide that was not conducted in conjunction with some kind of war or war-like conflict

Germany started oppressing Jews in the 30s before it started invading its neighbors (though the actual death camps weren't formed until later). Many ethnic cleansings started or were primarily performed by "irregular" government-backed forces (East Timur, Darfur, and the former Yugoslavia are some of the most recent). The USSR's centrally-planned famines in the 1930s occurred after the civil war was over.

Unfortunately, there doesn't exist exist a generally accepted definition of what terrorism really is. More often that not one sides freedom fighter is the others sides terrorist.

I disagree on both counts. Terrorism is an irregular attack, against civilians, with a political goal. If it's kids making bombs and blowing up nightclubs for fun, it's not terrorism (no political goal); if it's insurgents ambushing an American convoy in Iraq it's not terrorism (not against civilians); if it's the London Blitz it's not terrorism (performed by uniformed military, not irregular). Being a terrorist or a freedom fighter is not an either-or condition; someone can be both or neither.

War's bad, but some things are worse.

Such as?

Genocide and other large-scale one-sided killing: in war, at least you have two sides shooting at each other, whereas in this scenario one side does all the killing and the other side does all the dying. (Usually preceded by or done in conjunction with war, but not necessarily.)

Terrorism: in war, militaries attempt to force policy goals by destroying their opponents' ability to resist. Terrorism by contrast tries to force a policy goal by targeting innocent bystanders. Whatever overlap exists is optional for war (a military doesn't have to target civilians) and accidental for terrorism (which primarily targets civilians).

Hell: real or not, as popularly described ("lake of fire; eternal torment") it's worse than war.

Borderline are small-scale but high-impact crimes against innocent people, like a serial killer who tortures 50 people. It's pretty bad for those people, and for all their friends and family, but probably not the entire country... unless it's a small country, which there are lots of.

when we're dealing with the worst of all things, war.

War's bad, but some things are worse.

Progressive taxation isn't just about redistribution of wealth, it is about a fair tax system that tries to match the value of the tax taken and the benefits an individual receives to the amount they pay.

It used to be. Now, though, governments at all levels are spending so much so quickly that the rich can't pay for it all (even if you taxed them at 100%), so they'll have to increase taxes on the middle class and the poor, taxing them more than they benefit from society.

And call it "football" when it's almost completely played with one's hands.

They call it "football" because it's (descended from a game that was) not played on horseback.

No, the fishy part is that the Bush admin apparently blackmailed her into supporting the warrantless program.

No, the fishy part is that the Bush administration blocked the prosecution of one of their allies. Her comment to the foreign agent, "this conversation never happened," was fishy too.

Using illegally gathered information to effectively blackmail politicians?

According to the article (I know, I'm new here compared to you) the information wasn't gathered illegally (it was a court-approved wiretap of a foreign agent) and there was no blackmail (Rep. Harman was already on the record as supporting the Bush Administration's position).

(Remember, businesses aren't going to do any of this work. They're in this to make money, and you make the most money by doing the least work to produce something new. Businesses don't want major discoveries. Major discoveries are expensive, hurt profits and give rivals a chance to leap-frog past. Nor do businesses want competition to be cheap, for the same reason, which means their natural enemy is public infrastructure.)

Businesses aren't a monoculture. Big businesses often behave as you describe, but little ones want major discoveries that let them leap past their slow-to-react competitors. Unfortunately big businesses have the resources to pay politicians to make the rules favor big businesses.

Big businesses can get away with minimal R&D now because governments will pay to have it done. If governments didn't do that (not that I necessarily endorse cutting science funding) the businesses that did do research would win. Maybe they'd wait until it cost $5 million instead of $5 billion to build a supercollider, but somebody would do it eventually.

Massive simplification is a great idea, but it's largely orthogonal to the actual tax rate. You could have it be flat or not and still have all those other good things like quarterly payments, no deductions and no employer withholding.

I just don't think it's fair to tax people who barely make enough money to buy food, clothes, shelter, medicine.

I think it's essential to tax those people too. It doesn't have to be a lot, but it shouldn't be zero and it shouldn't be negative because otherwise they won't have any incentive not to vote themselves more services at the cost of others. In general, whenever the government increases expenditures everybody's taxes should go up, and whenever it decreases expenditures (in theory it could) everybody's taxes should go down. (Reality is more complicated because the economy affects revenue, but you get the idea.)

A Constitutional convention. New amendments, passed from the ground up, not the top down, are the way to implement sweeping changes that might enable a system that is more mathematically friendly towards other parties.

I used to think that way, but you know who would make up the delegates to a new constitutional convention? Members of the political class.

A new constitutional convention would not create an elegant set of rules or lay the groundwork for utopia. Instead it would more closely resemble the stimulus bill that just got passed. (We'd be lucky if anybody read it before voting.)

Unfortunately our hopes were squelched effectively when the mainstream media made a point to shoot Ron Paul's election bid in the face before it had a chance to be recognized.

Fortunately the mainstream media is hemorrhaging customers and market share like a three legged whorehouse made of bricks. Er, something like that.