... Can't you stick to your argument. Why demean yourself with insults like that? Why are you so angry at yourself that you resort to such childish communication? Gordon will not fall for that nonsense, and neither will I. Good night." -- Retired Military Patriot

This post brought several things to mind.

One thing was that childish insults are the norm here from what I have been reading over the past few months. Glenn does a great job of proper debate, and several of his regulars do likewise. It is always a pleasure to read them, even when I disagree with the point they are making. Perhaps I enjoy them more when I am disagreeing since an echo chamber is no real fun at all. However, the majority of posters who engage each other seemingly do so just to see their name "in lights" or something. We have poets, comedians, pissing-contest lovers, right-wing-bots, left-wing-bots, philosophers, gardeners, bartenders, agents provocateurs, and god-knows-what-all. No problems there, if they will remain civil and stay close to the sorts of political topics that Glenn covers.

I do know that Glenn encourages a certain amount of off-topic debate since it gives him some insights that he might otherwise miss out on, and he has stated that. I am paraphrasing and may not be perfectly accurate with that sentence, after all, this is off-the-cuff. However, I do not think that a bar-tending course makes UT look great to the casual reader; but I could be wrong. Full disclosure: I do not drink and that may color my thoughts on that subject. And no, I have not done drugs since the early 70s.

Adnoto had several good points hidden way down in his rant, but misses a big point I think. The big point is that the whole system is broken and will take a major overhaul. How and when you ask? Only after the fall of the evil empire may we address in a lasting, meaningful way our manifold problems. Until then, we just fight a holding action that may well be counterproductive.

Reagan was right about the "evil empire"; he just made a maths mistake: there were two at that time, not just one.

What to do? Try to inform the "common man" of whatever problems you see; and do not despair if he seems more concerned with meeting the monthly bills and keeping his family together than joining a march on D.C. to protest "something to do with cell phones".

... of believing that we are above any law, that the United States is the pinnacle of righteousness, superior to every other nation. Its possible that koolade has done permanent damage that can't be reversed." -- TrakkerToo

Yes, I buy that you are correct on that score. I would put the era we crossed that line to be somewhere in the first 5 presidential administrations. I am not sure which one precisely, and doubt it matters much.

We have a constitution that is not honored at all by this present administration, but large parts of the bill of rights have never been honored very much. Hell, modern "interpretation" allows the central government to regulate my life as much as Jefferson could his slaves on his plantation. (perhaps more, given modern technology)

The sad fact is, the "justice system" was broken generations ago and neither Democrats or Republicans gave a damn because it is the poor, powerless, working class, and other "trash" that is the main victim of the out of control injustice system. Since it is not my blog and there is a word limit, I'll leave it up to the reader to verify that our system is broken.

I read a lot of blogs by lawyers (mainly defense lawyers) who write about legal issues "in the trenches" and it ain't pretty down here. What to do? When you see the poor man victimized in your town; remember that is you. Morality demands not a bit less.

The "rule of law" is not all that impressive to a lot of citizens, given what we have witnessed the government do when it was following the law. Glenn, you can claim that any injustices that I see are violations of "the rule of law" all you want, but from here it looks like the American system has been a failure for a long, long time.

My local government took a huge portion of the black area in the downtown area via "eminent domain" (a nasty idea at best) and gave it, at a very attractive price, to developers simply because the old ownership had not developed it to the 'best use'. When in the course of time, decades ago, that families suffered under legalized theft of their property; no one came to help. Now, we have democracy at its raw nature --- every group at war with every other group to take whatever they can.

Good luck, and may the strongest group win.

:-(