Ron Paul not looking like such a crackpot anymore.

I find it interesting that those who accept perpetually increasing debt and the expanding use of military force to secure the resources needed to maintain the American Empire of corporate globalism are considered "sane" and "practical", while those like Ron Paul, who promote the protection of civil liberties, money based on value rather than debt, and a foreign policy of international cooperation rather than intimidation, are presented as "crackpots" and "impractical".

As long as the media is in the hands of the globalist oligarchy we will continue to be subjected to this kind of "black is white" and "war is peace" propaganda.

Robert Pirsig's sequel to his classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is his less well known but better crafted and more significant Lila, an Inquiry into Values. He ably deals with the adaptive advantages of living in a society that values and protects freedom of thought and speech, that does not suppress unorthodox ideas. His argument is the social parallel of Darwin's Theory of Evolution by Means of Natural Selection. Just as a diversity of genotypes and consequent phenotypes in a population has a stabilizing effect in the face of a changing environment, so having a fund of unorthodox ideas allows a society to be ideologically preadapted to new conditions that may arise. Ideas that are marginal or "weird" may find unexpected application as circumstances change. Those who embrace the outre may be regarded as pioneers into an uncharted future, who may have already worked out approaches to problems not yet recognized as such by the mainstream.

We should examine new ideas critically, but at the same time celebrate the diversity of thought and opinion as contributing the the long-term health of our society.

Obama's votes for the FISA Amendment Act and for the Wall Street BAILOUT have pretty well blown his cover. He's not going to change the subservience of government to globalist corporate interests and doesn't give a second thought to promoting legislation that violates the United States Constitution. Barak Obama is a bought and paid for lackey of the corporate oligarchy, only slightly less toxic than John McCain. For a while I thought that as a long-time former Democrat and dedicated anti-neocon, I could possibly end up voting for him, but no longer. I'm sick of being continually presented by the major parties with a choice of between two Hamiltonians, when what I really want is a Jeffersonian.

Deficit spending of any kind, but especially massive deficit spending, is ethically wrong for the simple reason that it violates one of the principles on which the Revolution that gave birth to our Republic was based: No Taxation Without Representation! Deficit spending shifts the burden of taxation into the future, to a time at which the members of Congress who voted for borrowing the money and creating the deficit are out of office through retirement and death and therefore immune from the righteous wrath of those paying the taxes.

The "service" on the national debt, the number of federal dollars that must be expended as interest annually to maintain the debt, generally goes into the pockets of people that are potentially hostile to democratic government: foreign banks and investors in non-democratic countries and domestic banks and investors who we have seen over the past eight years have little interest in safeguarding the Constitution or policies that do not in some manner increase their wealth and power. The "service" on the debt is an expenditure that does not improve our infrastructure, security, or liberty.

Runaway deficit spending is just another way to assault the processes of Constitutional government, so badly damaged after the past 8 years. It empowers those who already wield an excess of power. As previous writers have already noted, deficit spending is the likely cause of the present economic difficulties, making it an unlikely remedy.

Chalk me up as another Hooverite for impeachment.

Would Congresswoman Bachmann consider a politician to be anti-American if he or she did any of the following?

Engaged American military forces in prolonged, bloody, and horrendously wasteful invasion and occupation on false pretenses?

Violated the Constitution by authorizing a program to spy on the private communications of American citizens and falsely denying its existence many times over several years?

Further flaunted the authority under which he or she holds office (the Constitution) by using "signing statements" to warp enforcement or non-enforcement of legislation according to his whim, thereby becoming a "unitary executive", exactly what the Founders wished to guard against in establishing Constitutional government?

Reduced the next and possibly following generation of Americans to a kind of tax slavery by authorizing tax breaks to the wealthy, thereby multiplying the national debt?

Compromised the sovereignty of the United States by supporting "Free Trade Agreements" with provisions harmful to the United States economy and creating a "Security and Prosperity" arrangement with Canada and Mexico to the further detriment of American workers?

If Michelle Bachmann has any real sense of what it means to be an American, any concept of why our Revolution was fought, and any notion of the advantages of Constitutional government over tyranny, then she would join the efforts of those who would remove such politicians from office and prosecute them for their many high crimes and misdemeanors.