I have tried reading this a couple times

In that debate, John McCain stood out as a bizarre exception, as the soft principled moderate, all because he opposes torture (even though he negotiated and voted for The Millitary Commissions Act), which cheers loudly for proclamations in support of it.

What cheers loudly? Torture itself, the MCA?

Keep up the *great* work, by the way.

You reasonably say:

"When I hear about removing controls, I think about Enron and the exploitation of illegal immigrants. I think about not testing beef for mad cow. I think about the heads in the sand philosophy of people who drive gas guzzlers then complain about high gas prices."

But what you don't realize is that although there are government agencies whose job it is to prevent things like Enron and exploitation of illegal immigrants, and tained food, they don't DO their job.

But you still pay for it.

You're getting a false sense of security. Did you know that the FDA is responsible for inspecting all food coming into the country? Yet, hundreds, maybe thousands of animals were poisoned by the tainted meat shipped into the country. Remember that?

Enron was BRIBING the government. Ken Lay wasn't only the largest campaign donor to George W. Bush's gubernatorial campaign, but he also sleept at the Lincoln bedroom under Clinton. It took YEARS before the SEC even brought a case to prosecute these criminals. Fannie Mae, a company that controls about 1 TRILLION dollars of mortgage debt, hasn't reported actual earnings for 3 years now to the SEC and Franklin Raines, the man responsible for the "funny" books still hasn't been prosecuted, although they've finally announced "plans" to do so.

FEMA completely shirked their responsibility during Katrina. They even turned away a WALMART truck that was bringing in water to the victims. What was that about?

Government agencies are GREAT - as long as they do their job, and it's blindly obviously they simply don't. They just cost a lot of money, give you a false sense of security, and are nothing more than glorified welfare for a bunch of people who laughingly call themselves government employees.

When a government agency doesn't do it's job, they get more money to supposedly do their job. When a company doesn't perform, they go out of business. I'm not so naive to think that corporations are paragons of virtue, but I know that people can stop using them and therefore bankrupt them. You're naive to think that the government is a paragon of virture, and you cannot bankrupt the government no matter how bad they get without bankrupting yourself.

There's nothing wishy washy or silly about what Paul is saying. It's simple - you can't trust a government any more than you can trust a company but you can stop using a company's services.

You might argue you can just vote people out. Not really. The media just promotes a bunch of clones that are equivalent in every significant way and just differ in the details. Every "front runner" is willing to attack Iran, which is insane.

Did you know that the government has been STEALING from the Social Security trust fund for 40 years? It really is bankrupt, but not because US citizens have been drawing too much from it, it's because the federal government has been STEALING from it. They have stolen over 50 TRILLION dollars from it. Social Security is over, even though you paid for it. The benefits will end during my lifetime, easily - probably within 10 years, 20 at the most.

You can't trust a corporation, but you sure as hell can't trust your government. Read the constitution, and it will become VERY clear that the people who wrote it, were well aware of it.

Ron Paul is aware of it too. Please, become aware of it as well. Libertarianism isn't a fun solution, it's just a realistic one.

If you want a government that takes care of you, provides some sort of Social Security, look to your STATE governemnt to do it. Have an FDA for your state if you demand it. That's fine. If your state gets sufficiently bad institutions, you can always move. Just try moving to another nation, it's real hard, and very expensive. I have nothing against Liberal ideals, but they shouldn't be implemented at the Federal Level. Implement them in your state.

What's right for you in say in Indiana may not be right for a Calfornian, like me. Let use have competing systems, and the states with the better systems will do better, and other states will adopt ideas from that system. We'll have continuous improvement that way. Don't let the Federal government put us all under a single system, because there is no competition, and hence, no improvement.

Can't these clinics offer some sort of delayed payment plan? I mean, you can buy just about everything else in America on credit, why not an abortion?

I used air conditioning in my apartment in June of 1995 for one night when I moved into my apartment and even the walls were hot from the place being shut up before I moved in. I've owned three cars since 1988 and I'm not even sure if the AC worked in them or not, never tried them. This included being in the southern Arizona deserts in June & even more extreme in 122F in Australia.

Yes it's hot some days. Yes I'm slender and shed heat well (weight gain is a choice in 99% of the cases). But I learn to live with the environment as much as I can.

Learning to live with the environment is something that, as time goes on, we are going to be forced to do so more and more in the future as we impact the environment more and more. Best to get used to it now.