Heavens–such passion!  I shall try to answer as best I can–I am no longer as good as i once was.1.Insert QuoteHow about letting those people that work decide where there money is spent?  What is wrong with that?Does that exclude people who no longer work--like me?  Does it exclude the wealthy who do not work?Are you advocating a direct democracy rather than a Republic?  I cannot see how such a thing wouldwork as the various factions would vote their particular interests (money) and there would be no waythat the national interests could prevail.2.  I take a minimalist view of government.  Government?s role is to protect the nation from external threats and provide safety and security for its citizens.  That safety and security does not include a house, food, or spending money, that is what jobs are for.This is an old chestnut and I wearily take up the club to bash it.  The Government's role is whatever thepeople say it is at a certain point in time.  The Constitution was, as you well know, written in broadterms so as to permit revision or alternative interpretation from time to time.  Let us take part of your comment--safety and security for the people.  Who inspects the meat?  Who guards the borders andalters the rules there to fit the needs of the day?  Who steps in when disaster strikes and provides free food, shelter, clothing, money and even housing for the unfortunate victims of nature's fury?  Why dowe wear seat belts?  Because the insurance lobby got to Congress and despite the 10th amendment thestates like hungry hogs took the federal dollars to pass mandatory legislation so that local blue clad Hitler youth types could enhance local revenue by stopping granny because her seat belt is undoneI understand that you are in the military as I was.  I recall that so long as I obeyed orders, did myjob and kept out of trouble, all my needs were met.  I would never lack for medical care, food, shelteror money and at the end, had i stayed in, there was a wonderful pension and opportunity to work in the private sector if I chose utilizing those skills I learned in the military at their free school.  Is it stillthe same?You are also stationed in Germany and speak German?  You must then know that many Germans wouldnot trade their system for ours.  Have you contemplated the reasons for this?  You must have to some extent as your condemnation of our schools was apropos.Jobs are wonderful things--as soon as I got out of the military I got one--in a steel plant in Lackawanna New York--it was horrible--dark satanic mills!3.Is it not curious that the government got by just fine for over 130 years without a universal income tax?  Want to control federal spending?  Take away the income tax and make the government get back to basics and quit trying to take of people from cradle to grave.  It is no wonder so many do not work when the government will essentially pay you not to.No--it is not curious at all--Excise taxes, sale of government land and Customs duties funded the government needs for all those years except for the Civil War when the income tax was instituted and then found to be unconstitutional.  Government basics today are quite complex.  The people demandservices and these must be paid for.  Now I agree that politicians of all stripes play to the crowd, donthe strumpet's shift and troll for votes.  Once elected they pass legislation that costs money.  Now thiscan only be raised by taxes.  You may say that we should cut programs--sounds good--very hard to do.Do you know that we have 11 Carrier groups and have a Navy larger than than most of the worldcombined?  Would you, knowing this, and being a fiscal conservative, suggest we cut back to 9 carrier groups?  Of course not--you are a politician, not a fool!  Much easier to rail against those who are seento feed at the public trough.  Remember in high school that the lad of virtue was he who took on the big bully, the tough job, the hard tasks.  Blaming the poor for being poor is so 19th Century.4.I will not go so far as to call them useless eaters, but the temptation is certainly there.  Yes there should be some sort of safety net.  I am not advocating letting people starve, but where now is the incentive to get off of social assistance.  I still remember the whining when welfare reform was passed in the mid 90?s from people that realized they might actually have to work for a living.Excellent--there should be a safety net--you have become enlightened.  Bismarck said this in the 19thCentury and he also said that it was part of the government's duty to ensure the welfare of the people.Now you can be cynical and he wanted healthy sheep to sheer and bodies to throw against Danish,Austrian and French cannon, but I take a different view.  He was no Socialist, but he did recognize thatthey were all in the boat together and a healthy body politic content, happy, tractable and willing tolive prosperous lives under a government that was only partially democratic--smart fella!I cannot respond to the number of people on what now passes for welfare--lets call it the vast mass ofnon-working poor.  You were most generous saying you would not let them starve.  How about clothing,heat, medical attention, dental work, shelter and recreation?  There must be millions of halt, lame, blind, crippled, mentally unstable, children, retarded people, burned out, old and decrepit individuals in the country.  Who is to care for them and who is to set the standard of care and concern and who is to pay for all this?Unless you own property in the US--you pay no real estate taxes.  In my county in New York--every dollar collected on real estate goes to fund Medicaid--every dollar.  That means that local governmenthas zero dollars for anything else--zero dollars.  Income taxes, sales taxes, fees and other devilish devices have been introduced to try to plug the gap--all to no avail.  New York, like many other states is broke--we are for all practical purposes in a Depression and you are insulated.  There are many people who want to work--there are few jobs. Private enterprise bought the regulators and politicians and thenfouled the nest.  That's ok--we and our children's children will pay for the greed that stalked wall street.5.That part of the Constitution about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness does not imply the right to live off the government dole, it implies the provision of circumstances for the average citizen to conduct business to their full potential unstifled by burdensome regulation.No it does not and it the implication you cite is merely that, an implication.  Are you not on thin ice?Who is to say what burdensome regulation is--the Constitution does not place any such limitationon Congress--it states--Article 1, section 8, clause 18--"Make all laws necessary and proper..."Check it out.6.I also can?t find where health care is a right in the Constitution, perhaps you could enlighten me?Posted on: Yesterday at 11:42:19 PM Posted by: willyDNow you are not playing by sandbox rules.  You know I cannot, but I too will violate the sandbox rulesand I trust that you will be suitable enraged--check out Preamble to Constitution--focus your eyes onthese words...We the People....promote the general welfare...implication circuit engaged!WILLYDuntil Der Tag

The burning of books evokes a feeling of fear and terror within me.  I imagine it is based upon the subliminal fear that the Barbarians have won and are coming to eradicate us.If I agreed that Liberal professors at the Universities selected certain texts and not others for their classesit would not be censorship as much as a selection of (in their opinion) the most appropriate book.  Non-selection might be construed as elimination, but not destruction.  Hopefully, if the students are beingeducated and not merely trained or schooled to take their place in the host of corporate cubicles that awaitmany of them, they will question authority, challenge orthodoxy and seek a better truth that awaitstheir choice.The professors who know what an impi is or can define micturation without resort to a book shall be sparedthe indignity.  Thucidides has a wonderful passage where he talks about the Athenian prisoners takenin the ill-advised Syracuse expedition.  If I recall correctly, the prisoners who could recite lines from theplay The Trojan Woman by Euripides were set  free as the play was written as an anti-war statement,an apologia for the horror of Melos and the fate of those innocents that we today call collateraldamage.  I wonder if Hitler had the play banned?

Yes–The Church picks saints for various purposes–mainly political I should think.  Fanaticism need not be a roadblock–remember Barry Goldwater's immortal quote!The burning of books is a horrid act although I agree it is a form of crude censorship.  As far as I know it has never happened in this country since 1789 although libraries have been known to use alternate methods.  Every time I think of book burning I remember pictures of the SA in Germany or the Ray Bradbury short story  Fahrenheit 451--anathema!I would suggest we practice censorship every day--just by choosing.  I do not watch Fox news.

I am sure you have heard this gem.  Chou en Lai was asked what he thought about the French Revolution–He replied “Too soon to tell” or words that that effect.WillyDP.S.  You can also make an argument that it was the fault of the nobility--harder to do, but it can be done.

He wrote wellWillyD