Hell, Isreal is a religious state more than a secular one and has as much, if not more, influence over things as the Vatican.

I am not fan of Catholics or Jews or Protestants or Buddhists or Muslims or even Whoseits, but the fact that the Catholic church continues to be stain on humanity is not a big shock to me.

I wonder why the Vatican is so much more of a corrupt influence now than the Dark Ages or the Crusades or the Inquisition or any number of dark times in human history that can be traced to a specific religion.

Any institution - be it religious or political or civic or corporate - can become corrupted by a feeling of unaccountable power.

Until then, your thesis that the government is the natural repository for anything without so much as a moment's thought to the matter is facetious at best. Government is only as good as the citizens charged with watching it. We have been long absent from that part of Constitutional Compact.

Not sure what it is you are arguing. Trust your Uncle Sammy in all things related to the military, health care and education? That is clearly the advice of a fool or at least advice only a fool would follow.

By the way, the quotes you supplied were critiques of the governments we have allowed to develop at all levels, not a condemnation of government as an instution. Functional government is a blessing, but one that is impossible to achieve without wide-spread citizen involvement.

Thomas Paine said it best before we even had a government:

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.

I agree that we have long abdicated our personal responsibility as citizens in the hopes that government would miraculously provide without our input and involvement. Society as a whole for that matter.

It really is a Chicken-and-Egg dilemma.

The US government refuses to adapt to our needs on SSI and a host of other issues. Largely because of cheerleaders such as yourself who can't seem to muster an ounce of criticism if their guys are the ones in charge.

Once again, the only bluster and swagger enters by way of you hitting the "submit" button to deliver on non sequiturs of your own. Poor seniors with 401(k) investments after a lifetime of barely making ends meet.

Nice ivory tower, Howard. Wait. Make that a platinum tower for your highness.

What I think is tragic is the notion that those thousands of deaths will be solved by half-baked solutions that won't take affect for years. Creating new programs rather fixing existing ones to meet our needs take much more time and will lead to many more unneccesary deaths.

I am sick of stupid government, wasteful and wonton government, and that is the only kind America has had during my 40 years on this Earth.

I think it really gets at the heart of my thesis, which is a better understanding of the civic pact and where certain problems should naturally be addressed.

I would hope that nothing I have offered here would raise those bushy eyebrows, except perhaps in amusement.

Otherwise, someone clearly insane and suffering from PTSD wouldn't have been put to death recently in Virginia. No matter how horrific the crime, only a sadistic nation kills innocents as the price of punishing the guilty.

Our corporate power structures have devolved in like fashion and in a suicide embrace with government as the whole system seems headed toward collapse.

I am not quite ready to believe that the government can solve all these problems alone given its historic difficulty at living up to its obligations to its most vulnerable citizens.

The public option, as currently envisioned, is far from a slam dunk in every state in the union. You really do love yourself some dictatorial powers, huh?

Meet the new boss, same as the old.

They were always supposed to be locally-controlled by the states, only to be called up at a time of war as declared by Congress. They certainly weren't supposed to be the tip of the spear of American hegemony on a world grown weary of our depredations.

In a related note, is it entirely necessary to call me an idiot before making a comment?

Our problems are too complex to simply pound down the health insurance screw with a new public option without twisting the others tight at the same time, including our worsening health as a nation, our existing public health systems and health care delivery as well.

I am not so certain we can completely throw out what we have in favor of something totally new given the character of America as a whole. We aren't all that revolutionary these days, despite the founding charter.

Howard is disembling again because he can't possibly stand to be in agreement with anything I write, even those things that any self-respecting "liberal" should be in complete agreement.

So, screw all you old bastards if you didn't plan properly, because SSI was never meant to be a retirement plan. It says so right in the legislative record from 1935.