I'm always amazed at these sorts of arguments: the government sucks, therefore public healthcare sucks. So many unexamined assumptions in these sorts of positions. Where does one even start?

The fact is that the free market has dismally failed in this arena. Ohiopolitico apparently hasn't noticed, but insurance companies don't compete by providing better, cheaper products. They compete by doing their very, very best to never, ever pay benefits. They refuse to take on new customers who might get sick, they toss people off when they do get sick, they nitpick every tiny detail of your medical coverage. And they provide absolutely no benefit to anyone in the food chain except for themselves. As long as private insurers are part of the equation, we will continue to have some version of the insanely expensive, appallingly inefficient system we have now.

I lived in Japan for a while. My wife is Japanese. The Japanese socialized medicine system is fabulous. Cheap and efficient. It's almost enough to move back to Japan for.

Sorry, I'm an idiot. Here is the link: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2759

That is indeed a wrenching story, but apparently not pertinent. According to this analysis (http://letters.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/04/02/estate_tax/new/form.html), most farms and small businesses are already exempt. The proposed amendment would, apparently, save approximately 140 such entities from the fate you describe.

Even Fox News, the Pravda of the airwaves is willing to admit that: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,366249,00.html

I think every conservative letter in this forum has mentioned this little lie. Certainly makes one a little bit leery of all of their other claims, doesn't it?

Oooh! Dueling quotes. I love it. I got you some John Adams right here:

As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?

The frightful engines of ecclesiastical councils, of diabolical malice, and Calvinistical good-nature never failed to terrify me exceedingly whenever I thought of preaching.

When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it.

Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.

Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion? [He really didn't seem to like Catholicism very much]

Way to cherry pick. And don't even get me started on Thomas Jefferson.

"My bad, it was a MUSLIM God."

OK, that one is completely out of the blue. What the hell does that mean?

"That officially makes two things it's OK to hate - the president and Christians."

Where, in any of my posts have I said that I hated either the president or Christians? For the record, I don't.

"You can quote Jefferson all day. But those quotes aren't in our Declaration of Independence."

You cite a single phrase from the Declaration of Independence as evidence that the founding fathers intended to create a Christian nation. The Declaration was written by Thomas Jefferson. I think it should be clear from the quotes I have given that this was not the intended effect of that document.

That the founding fathers did not intend to establish a Christian country. Hey here's another Thomas Jefferson quote to help him along:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

It would be a nice first step, but probably not, huh?

Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effects of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.

Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law.

In the middle ages of Christianity opposition to the State opinions was hushed. The consequence was, Christianity became loaded with all the Romish follies. Nothing but free argument, raillery & even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion.