Sick or not, intellectually he's spot on. Reread his concerns about US and war and taxes.

Then pretend you're a large scale fraudster with control over (literally) trillions of dollars, and key control points peppered throughout US government. Then consider how YOU would design and run a large scale fraud (Commons Fraud). Then consider how YOU would use your government control points to fleece unwitting tax payers out of billions and trillions of dollars per year.

Perhaps you see Brandon Raub's concerns. If not, you're an example of when, why, and how democracy fails. In theory, every patriotic citizen should be deathly concerned that democracy has been turned on its head to use as a vehicle for overwhelming fraud.

Brandon Raub is concerned, but you're not. Really? Who's nuts?

Also kudos to Brandon Raub for his psychological fortitude. Soldiers, military families, and military friends are all very susceptible to the state of denial about war corruption because they are likely to have lost close ones to such crime. That's a heavy and for some insurmountable emotional and psychological burden to overcome with intellect. Since these frauds typically involve going to war unnecessarily, Brandon Raub has already transcended the typical emotional, patriotic, psychological trap of war veteran victims (and their families and friends).

Ditto the war veteran actors and consultants on movies like "The Green Zone" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Zone_(film)].

Casualties to fraudster wars are horribly tragic victims of terribly predatory faceless fraud run abusing overwhelming government power. So, the fact that a military veteran (Brandon) has transcended this psychological trap speaks to his intellectual stamina. Is he crazy? His friends don't think so. Even the ones who are military veterans, but you do?

About 911, Raub points out that a building fell down all on its own. Until you (or someone) could explain that glaring incongruity definitively, don't say he's nuts for calling 911 an inside job. 911 adds up far more likely as an inside job courtesy a US intelligence agent (Osama bin Laden as anti-Russian agent repurposed as scape goat). Recall 911 launched several meaningless and misguided wars with HUGE impact on USA debt --- a basic money laundering / extortion / embezzlement scheme from American taxpayer wallets to stracketeer bank accounts. That's all Brandon Raub is pointing out... and he's not alone.

So, next time you hear that the 911 wars were a farce, and that 911 was more than likely an inside job, think twice.
When you recall that the Bush family is at the heart of several election rigging schemes, think twice.
When you consider that BushLeague family and associates installed Supreme Court Justices who are central to the most ludicrous SCOTUS opinions in the nation's history (including GWBush reelection as President), think twice.
When you consider GWBush started a war (in retrospect) on total pretense (e.g., see movie "The Green Zone" with Matt Damon for docufiction of what must have happened regarding WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction farce) on the ground in Iraq), think twice.
And in case you didn't know that the Bush family has been linked to the similar behavior and motive for WWII (financing Nazi Germany war machine), i.e., across multiple generations, think twice.

Once you consider all that, it makes perfect sense that the Bush family would have an out of country (somewhere in South America) family compound for when all the proverbial shit hits the fan. Because when you put 2+2 together, some superficially crazy shit starts to make perfect sense. Which is probably why Brandon Raub says we're headed for a revolution.

You see, when democracy (or any government) breaks down --- a growing number of citizens realize their government is a vehicle for fraud and there's NOTHING we can do about it --- it's just a matter of time until a critical mass of knowledge spreads and ignites. History repeats itself, and our "democracy" has barely lasted 200 years. The BushLeague fraudsters have ruined it for us. No, GWBush may not be smart enough to pull off a scam at this scale, but he's just a puppet... in a long chain of puppets (like Reagan before him) --- a political instrument for massive fraud. And anyone is smart enough to act that part, because our "democracy" has no accountability feedback loop (no jailtime for going to false war, allows reelection by BushLeague installed SCOTUS judges, SCOTUS judges who never get jailed or even censured, etc.) so GWBush just played political stooge --- and our "democracy" just goes along with it like nothing's wrong.

So think twice (thrice, etc.) before calling someone crazy for questioning Modern American Democracy (MAD). Brandon Raub is a war veteran, a patriot, a courageous citizen, and may just know (at least the germ of) the truth of it all. He's pleading for democracy to work --- and gets jailed for his trouble.

Maybe Raub really _is_ crazy then... to believe MADemocracy could ever recover from this political corruption and fraud spiral, but he's voiced his concerns loud and clear. If he's convinced even one more person that something is amiss with MADemocracy, then he's done his country proud. IMO, our country could use more "crazy" patriots like Brandon Raub who voice _real_ national concerns for the rest of us to learn.

[
P.S., if we had enough "crazies" like Raub, we might even be able to avert revolution and retake our country via peaceful political means, but do you think that's even possible in a MADemocracy world? IMO, that's the umpteen trillion dollar "democracy" question: Can MADemocracy recover from massive internal corruption and control fraud?
]

Government in bed with... military industrial complex (Cheney) Afghanistan/Iran/Iraq Hoax Wars and highway robbery of our youth.
Government in bed with... Wall St. financial collapse + Wall St.'s "Mortgage Bailout" and highway robbery of the tax dollar.
Government in bed with... Journalism government "tuned" journalism and highway robbery of any journalistic independence.
Dilution of Common Rights & Principles more Plutonomics (See Michael Moore's film, "Capitalism: A Love Story").
-- Bottom Line --
US Democracy US Peasantocracy (no rights, no power, no money: See "The Matrix"; yes, "The Matrix" but with a plutonomics view).

The regulator is not naive. He knows he's rubberstamping, and giving a lame excuse.

If I were debugging a program and I said:

'I think this is a trustful design change we are making. There can't be a design fault because it is the final result of a long debugging session between the application and me.'

You would probably think I was crocked in the head. Long sessions usually indicate deep faults, not easy design fixes. Long negotiations don't suddenly become "trustful" just because the two parties couldn't get close enough for amicable agreement. This negotiator knows that. He's part of a scam.

In other words, he's not naive, but we would be naive to believe that this agreement is anything but a hoax, or that he's innocent of this hoax.

This agreement is not the usual rubberstamp you are looking for. Move along.

Software Patents are no more than Business Land Mines in the form of Monopolies. The whole idea of monopolizing an idea is ludicrous. The idea of choosing what's innovative and what's not is absurd. If necessity is the mother of all invention (and it usually is), then one man's "innovation" is another's necessity.

Business-wise, they are nothing more than government granted monopolies, and hidden land mines. They are totally ludicrous from a social perspective because they hurt everyone.

I lied.

They don't hurt *everyone*. Patents feed IP (Intellectual Property) lawyers and subsidize the legal industry. Think of them as a legalized tax to subsidize IP lawyers and law firms (while clogging the courts, impeding software engineers, and increasing software business risk and expense).

Which brings me to a first-hand observation: When software developers fought the patenting of software at the USPTO hearings, one side of the room was lawyers, and the other side was software engineers. One side was in favor of institutionalizing s/w patents, the other against. (Guess which side was which.) Aside from the merit of anyone's arguments, the sides were well represented since the room was crowded on both sides of the aisle (how did people know which side they belonged on!?).

I lied again.

The front table... you know... the one making the final decision... was ALL LAWYERS. So much for balanced representation and due process.

Yup. Foregone conclusion. The all lawyer council hosted the hearings, presented the issues like it was being debated, and then rubberstamped it into existence. We're still suffering, without a fix in sight.

You don't believe me? Just ask Bruce Lehmann. He ran the USPTO, railroaded software patents into existence using his position. Oh, I'm sure he'll lie and tell you he did no such thing, but he did. (Oh, and see WTO and DMCA for follow-ups by same guy. He's not a brainjob by my reckoning, just a puppet.) I believe the legal industry pulled a fast one on Joe Public with software patents, and is still raking in the big bucks while innovation, good business, good government, and consumer product development suffer.