I don't understand the love for Ron Paul at all. Seriously. There is no reason to vote for him. He will make us "free!!11one" Yeah, but what the hell does that mean? It means he will take away, as other letter writers have mentioned, all of the safety nets that modern society has constructed for its people. A society run by Ron Paul is like 15th century Europe except that it doesn't even distinguish between the worthy and unworthy poor... it lets them all die just the same. Hell, the middle class people will all die just the same. I had $350,000 life-saving surgery for a congenital heart condition when I was 15 months old. Think my middle class parents could have afforded that without my dad's military insurance?

There are many things that need to be fixed about our government. But the answer is clearly not to abolish the whole thing and pray that major corporations hold themselves to a moral standard anywhere near the current ethical requirements for government workers.

Besides, even if Paul got elected, what the hell would he do with Congress? Ron Paul's idea of "reform" scares the shit out of me, because it would likely mean the collapse of this nation, but realistically he would be completely ineffective as a president.

who just really doesn't give a shit about this quote or its alleged significance.

"'The books, brilliant and joyously, depict His overthrow and the establishment of the Republic of Heaven.'

Really????

A "REPUBLIC of Heaven"?

This tanks any desire I may have had to read the books. Talk about pie in the sky!! As if humanity hasn't screwed up enough republics in its history, now someone wants to unleash them on heaven?

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!"

I was thinking the same thing. I think the same thing about the Da Vinci Code. The suggestion that God or the belief in God is that makes humanity miserable and screwed up, and that therefore getting rid of the church or God's own self is going to "free" us, is utterly laughable. Anyone who thinks that humanity isn't the primary intrument in human suffering is naive and pathetic. I don't know too much about Heaven but for people who have long lived under human oppression, I know for sure it's the one place we can dream of where humanity won't be in charge, and thank God for that!

As someone who grew up in what might be considered a twisted version of this "rootless" paradigm... I can tell you that all I've ever wanted in my life is a sense of staying still, of having a home base, of getting somewhere and then not having to worry about leaving. By the time I was 6 years old my family had lived in 6 places, courtesy of the military. I had no friends to speak of and summer, for me, was just the time we packed up to move again.

So I don't care what the Economist thinks about moving around. I can tell you from experience that it sucks. Both my parents thought it sucked, too, and my dad was glad to retire the military so we could "put down roots" in a good community. Now both my parents are land-owners and productive members of society. Some people work in jobs where it is more beneficial to stay somewhere for a long time... my mom is an attorney and my dad is a contractor, and both of those professions depend on experience and reputation within your community. And yeah, we own a home and a cabin. And we own them both outright. My dad owns 100 acres in North Dakota too. Clearly the failing economy is our fault.

I don't know what kind of crap places the rest of these "boring" homeowners must be living in, but we've got mountains and grizzlies and world-class ski resorts and operas and lakes and parks and national forests and restaurants and family and friends in my proverbal backyard. So I'd hardly say we sit around going nowhere and doing nothing.

Plus there's that newfangled contraption called the airport where you can take a ride to go and see just about anyplace in the world if you think that sitting and staring at a wall at home will somehow be a far less enlightening experience than sitting and staring at a wall in Timbuktu.