The point actually is to give you a history lesson vis-a-vis Western Europe. In point of fact, there has not been labor and social progress there for the last 150 years. The progress was only made in the last 60 years or so - since the end of WWII, in fact. And it's the real history that scares the shit out of me. What really happened was:

Prior to WWI Europe was class conscious and labor repressive. However, WWI wiped out most of the scions of old wealth and power but the old man was still alive and trying to maintain his traditional privileges. That's why the unrest of the '30s arose. And why it failed. WWII destroyed Europe physically in a way that WWI did not. Suddenly, the unwashed masses were essential in a way that they had never been before. As a result, they got the social and economic justice that they deserved.

Are we going to have to go through that kind of destruction and slaughter to be able to implement social and economic justice? I hope not but I also have a bad feeling about this.

What you say is true and it applies not only to the executive branch but also to the legislative and judicial.

Our Declaration of Independence complains about laws being imposed by the monarchy over the objections of the people. Yet what happens today? Legislatures all over the country pass laws that are widely violated. Does this behavior cause legislatures to ask if these laws are like those "imposed by the monarchy over the objections of the people"? No. It results in demands for harsher law enforcement. Laws are supposed to define unacceptable public behavior and sanctions associated therewith. Today we have laws that attempt to control private behavior and "prevent" a variety of things. One of the casualties of this is the concept from English Common Law of criminal intent.

Activist jurists of both the liberal and conservative flavors routinely carve out exceptions to some of these core principles for "practical considerations".

I wish you well in your quest for a return to principles. I have concluded that such a quest is probably quixotic.

At the end of the day, the homeowner was arrested in his own home even though he had committed no crime. Yes, homeowners are arrested in their own homes every day but the cops have a piece of paper called an arrest warrant to do so. This cop didn't have one of those. The whole possible break-in call had become moot by the time he was arrested because he had provided proof of identity. Here's a hint for both you, the cop, and Gates' lawyer: It is not illegal to break into your own home; breaking and entering statutes require that you be entering somebody else's property.

In my opinion, this whole episode tells you more about the arrogance and aggressiveness of cops than it does about race relations. Unfortunately, we have a number of laws that encourage cops to try to push into people's private space looking for "crimes" that can't be seen from public space. It's one thing to enter people's private lives when their public behavior indicates criminal activity. It's another to just barge in looking for criminal activity.

Under Federal law Obama could have been born in Kenya and would still be a US citizen from birth because his mother was a US citizen who had resided in the US for more than 10 years, 5 of which were after the age of 14. To be considered a US citizen, he would not have had to reside in the US at all. Those are the federal requirements for citizenship for children born outside the US when only one parent was a US citizen between the end of 1952 and the end of 1986, which would encompass his birth date.

I understand that he was born in Hawaii and the idiots who are demanding the "long form" (whatever the hell that is) should be complaining to the Hawaiian department of records and not the national media. When you ask a state for a copy of your birth certificate, you get whatever the state has determined the birth certificate should look like. My point is that arguments about where he was born are moot. The requirements to have US citizenship conferred to you by your parents (the definition of natural born US citizen) if you were born outside the US (as John McCain was) are as stated above (for his birth date. The rules vary only very slightly if you were born before or after those dates). He meets those requirements as well.

So what's with all this crap, anyway?