Bad bidnesses go out of bidness. Good ones thrive. GM is going out of bidness, (unless 0baba bails them out) and Apple is thriving.

Governments can also fail, but it takes much longer. In the mean time, while they are failing, they can beggar and bankrupt all of us because, unlike businesses, they can print money and tax us to death and jail and kill us if we object.

So Norman, check it out. I know you're a retired leftist school teacher from New York now living in Daytona, and have no experience in business because government is all you've ever known.

Our country is great because our Founders limited our government. Our great freedom and wealth is ours not because our government has given it to us, but because we've done it on our own, by ourselves and for ourselves.

You sound like a very scared old man. The more government you demand and get, the worse it will be for all of us. Don't you remember true stories of people pushing wheel barrels full of money to the grocery store?

Is that what you want, Norman?

Cheekago has come to Washington DC.

"We'll say the right stuff, and we'll take care of da folks we need to take care of."

Dat's what dey say.

Sure, there are corrupt Republicans. Just look at La Hood, 0baba's new Secretary of Whatever from Illiniois. A guy named La Hood, (is this a good example of name and form?) Don't forget George Ryan - our now jailed ex governor. One of the unqualified truck drivers who bought a license straight into Ryan's slush fund, without really qualifying to drive a big truck, ended up killing several children,

Shouldn't the realities of scale and degree enter into the agrument? Stevens and Gingrich and De Lay are gone, right? Ryan is in jail. The Republicans drummed racist Pat Buchanon out of their party.

So, I hate to tell you, but, they all just ain't da same, as dey say in Cheekago.

The Democratic Party circles the wagons when any of their's gets caught up in their endemic corruption. Dey love their guys in their size 50 suits, and dey know how to protect them.

Do you think anything bad will be allowed to happen to Chris Dodd, Barney Frank or Charlie Rangel?

Corruption is the 800 pound gorilla in the room no leftoids are willing to notice.

If you want big government, corruption is part and parcel of what you want.

So, other than being the self appointed score keeper and referee here, are there any convictions you hold dear, dear?

Otherwise, it seems sophomoric: your always being so fair either is a ruse to mask your real convictions, or perhaps you are 19, not old enough to have any convictions quite yet?

In China, they may over value experience, here we seem to worship youth.

Have you lived long enough and done enough things and engaged enough real people (not simply virtual ciphers) in conversation, discussion and debate to find some real truths, some real conviction?

Are all cultures of equal value? Are all opinions?

Is there a bottom line? Can you separate truth from falsehood? Or, is there no such thing as truth, and no such thing as falsehood? Is everything just relative?

Some of us have come to understand why moral relativism is folly. There is a difference between good and evil. There is too much evil and not enough good in the world.

If everything were simply subject to endless, limitless argument, how could anyone ever act with any degree of conviction?

Much of what you post here seems like endless rhetorical masturbation. Just because you think something, does that make it true? Should it also stand the test of time and experience?

Nobel Laureate Friedrich von Hayek (Economics) wrote a seminal, life changing short book titled "The Road to Serfdom." In it, he warned of a 'fatal conceit.' Do you think you might want to familiarize yourself with his line of reasoning?

Humility is a good thing. Some people have a natural sense of humility. Others learn humility the hard way, when reality beats the crap out of them and they tire of making the same mistakes. Some never learn it at all. They possess a "fatal conceit," which can not only get them beat down and killed long before their time, it can also get the rest of us beat down and killed long before our time as well.