Ron Paul and his fellow traveler Pat Buchannan may rate far on the libertarian scale until and unless you ask them about why Mexicans shouldn't be allowed free passage back and forth into the USA and you'll suddenly see a real mean authoritarian streak come into play.

It's quite obvious that you are not in the construction trades.

Literally millions of Americans have lost decent paying jobs to illegal immigrants, primarily Mexicans.

Personally I'm sympathetic to those illegals who come here out of desperation but I'm also sympathetic to those American construction workers who have been forced out of jobs paying forty thousand a year or more into working at the convenience store or fast food for twelve thousand or even less.

And construction is only the tip of the iceberg, illegals are taking jobs everywhere and in most fields that do not require advanced education.

I have no desire to punish the illegals who come here from desperation, I do have a strong desire to punish those employers who knowingly hire them very harshly. I'm talking prison sentences.

Paul is more of a fringe right wing candidate than he is an anti-authoritarian.

If you didn't expect the nature of my reply to you then you are not as smart as you might seem.

Ron Paul is opposed to the drug war, the single most freedom destroying program in the USA today.

To be fair, so is Kucinich and possibly Gravel.

My wife lost her job not too long ago for refusing, on principle, to take a drug test.

Do you have to piss in a bottle to prove that you are not an apostate of the state religion?

But they have a rather narrow focus. I happen to agree with both but may disagree with them on the level of importance they apply to their personal pet issues just a bit.

LOL, you didn't answer my question so I shall ask it again..

Do you have to piss in a bottle to prove that you are not an apostate of the state religion?

A simple yes or no will suffice..

If you do not answer then I shall let the lurkers draw their own conclusions.

I try to keep my posts as simple, succinct and to the point as possible.

I also try to keep my questions as simple, succinct and to my point as possible.

That virtually no one ever responds directly to either my statements or my questions leads me to think that I make many of you very uncomfortable.

Anyone who doesn't think the "The Land of the Free" having the highest incarceration rate on the planet is a fact of dire importance is deluding themselves.

Sometimes a lack of reaction is the most revealing reaction of all.

I think you may be treading dangerously close to calling the rule of law the state religion.

Silenced made the point on another Salon forum that the drug war has become the state religion.

The reason he/she said that is that, almost to a man, the politicians in the US vociferously support the drug war despite the total lack of evidence that said war is effective in anything other than filling our prisons to the bursting point.

In fact, there is much evidence that the drug war is counterproductive.

Faith is belief in the face of a lack of evidence.

Therefore the belief of US politicians in the drug war is a matter of faith.

You still did not answer my very simple question.

I, and most of those reading this, know why.

It really depends on the job. I'd prefer my brain surgeon wasn't too high when opened my skull with a bone saw. I don't mind if he tokes up on the weekend.

What the f*ck does that have to do with what I'm posting?

Would you care if your brain surgeon were drunk when he opened your skull?

If the anti-choice forces really and truly believed their rhetoric about human life beginning at conception then they would be calling for everyone involved in any abortion to be facing first degree murder or accessory to murder charges.

This specifically includes the woman who is seeking the abortion in the first place. Just because you hire a hit man does not absolve you of the responsibility for a killing.

Genesis 38:8 Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.

9And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.

10And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also.

The argument that the anti-choicers make is that all forms of birth control are "spilling seed" and that there is a Biblical injunction against that act.

The anti-choicers are against the taking of innocent life, not life in general.

Apparently once you pass through the birth canal you are no longer innocent.

That is why Obama appeals so much to me.

Keep in mind that Obama the candidate would imprison Obama the teenager/young adult.

Seems just a touch hypocritical to me..

Do you disagree with Obama’s position on incarceration and post-incarceratuion from the issue section of his website.

What does that have to do with Obama the candidate imprisoning the Obama the teenager/young adult/

I understand that a military lifer would have swallowed the war on drugs propaganda hook, line and sinker but that does not make it any less false.