[somerfrost]

Another good thread....good points raised by most posters.
If we lived in Israel, we'd be giving up more of our rights than we are forced to do here just to survive...brings me back to Jack McCoy in front of the Supreme Court arguing for the ability to prosecute a foreign national for murdering folks..."in the end, we have only those rights that we can defend...only those rights!" There is a price to pay for freedom and if we as individuals become unwilling to pay that price, our children will never know what it was like to live in a free society! All that said...the current administration has trampled our rights to the point where any intelligent person must question their actions! I'm not prepared to say that Bush isn't doing these things out of a genuine belief that they are necessary to protect us, but government, by it's very nature, tends to expand it's power if left unchecked...the duty of every citizen is to question and demand honest answers...then, if we feel a wrong path has been chosen, we have the power to correct that at the ballot box! The problem in this nation can't be laid at the doorstep of one man, or one party...the problem is that the rich are too rich, the powerful too powerful, the influential too self-serving! One man, one vote has become a joke as the choices are clones of one another...Bush or Kerry? Would it have made the slightest difference? Bush or Gore? Same thing!
We need to open up the political system, eliminate lobbyists, eliminate "donations" from the rich, and return the focal point of political life to serving the people...ALL THE PEOPLE!! We need national health care, a real dedication to public education, redevelopment and jobs for poverty-stricken areas, and yes, Francis...a redistribution of wealth! This gets me branded as a socialist or worse but what does Bill Gates need with a hundred billion dollars? Work hard, get ahead, live well...I have no problem with that, but not at the expense of the rest of society! Redo the tax system, cap wealth and cut out the "pork" in legislation and everyone in this country can live a decent life! The role of government is to serve the people, not establish a caste system and insure that there are two Americas...there must be only one America! In the words of Duncan McCloud..."there can be only one!"