Interestingly enough I first heard about this at CATO: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/09/1 7/a-chance-to-fix-the-patriot-act/

The authors argument seems to be addressed by Feingold.

Section 301 - FISA Roving Wiretaps
The bill would reauthorize roving FISA wiretaps, but eliminate the possibility of "John Doe" roving wiretaps that identify neither the person nor the phone to be wiretapped.  It would require agents to ascertain the presence of the target of a roving wiretap before beginning surveillance.  

You are lost if you think the libertarians have not been against the Patriot Act and FISA.  In fact they where the only ones.

A simple search on reason.com and you can find hundreds of articles against infringement of our liberties from these bills that where passed by the democrats and republicans.

http://www.reason.com/search/results/?cx =000107342346889757597%3Ascm_knrboh8& ;cof=FORID%3A11&q=patriot+act#915

Last point: People who use the terms tea bagger and tenther are just tools.  Disagree with their ideas, but calling people names is weak.

This statement stuck out: "Because, Hell, the only Affirmative Action they needed was the existing system."

Affirmative action could be viewed as on oppressed people overcoming the oppression only to turn it on their prior oppressors.  I am not interested in dividing people by race and feel laws should be applied equally to all.

You know I am not against taxation at all, that is a misconception.  I am sure we can agree at some point taxes can be oppressive though.  

Why would population density demand change of our axiom from individual liberty to centralized control?

Anyway - I missed scraping it up with you :)  

PS:  I don't think I could ever call Bill Maher a libertarian, but people can call themselves what they want.  Take care.

Don't you think you have to understand one before you can judge one?

Is it not constitutional limits on government, the protection of individual liberties, and the belief in the free market(or free people in general)?

Let's not pretend that liberalism doesn't have its roots in Liberty and continue to focus on meaningless political labels.

She certainly sounds authentic.  Is there something she has done as governor that would you lead you to believe she is not a liberal in the classical sense of the word?  

Thanks for posting the entire speech it was an interesting read.  I think this signals we will be hearing more from her, rather than less.  

She seems to be be one of these Ron Paul type of Libertarians, not like the pretend ones often elected in the Republican party.  

Freedom loving individuals tend to understand the following quote:

"Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage."

Her choice of the word apathy is an interesting one.  You can see where apathy is in the progression.  If a nut is someone who believes this stuff she certainly seems authentic.  She certainly has selected the "red pill".

What does a "wind-nut" believe?

See you are backwards.  Law must be blind.  If laws remove people's right to free speech for example based upon color than that law is unconsititual and therefore the federal government can step in and protect the individual from their state government.  

Discrimination in all in not illegal or wrong!  We all discriminate.  We pick Taco Bell over Taco Johns.  When dicrimination is based race and embedded in a law, then the law is bad.  If I read your argument correctly I would assume that free choice is the problem.  I won't accept a government which takes free choice away from me and my family.

I laugh at you calling my points GOP talking points.  Hell if they truly followed what I was saying I would be in full support of them.  They wish to use the law to control our lives just as much as thier partners in the democratic party do!

Read up on Classical Liberalism, it is about ensuring freedom and fits perfectly with my point.  Modern Liberalism has lost its way, not me.  Remember when it used to be about the little guy?

While I love that the creation of fast food jobs is goal of yours, there is so much more out there.  These jobs are great for obtaining work experience and introducing people int the the job market, but the real change in our economy is from the Internet.

It has never been easier to make a living doing what you love.  People can write, build bird houses, etc and easily market them.  

The big dogs are hurting because it is imposible to hold market share.  Small businesses are sprouting up all over and people are again living a full life.

Enjoy your cup of coffee on your way to work or start your own coffee shop and market it on Facebook.  You can saturate the local market as better than the big box chains.

The American Dream continues today.  Bad economies are apart of a free society.  They expose the corrupt.  And just as a fire leaves fertile soil news businesses will flourish.

Good luck and Good day.

I thought it was an interesting video.  I tend to think Anarchy is only a transistional state which leads to Tyranny which the video suggests as well.  

It is simplified, but Greece was at least at times a pretty true democracy and lacked a basic set of rules which protected the people from the laws they create.

We have a Republic, if we can keep it.

I just disagree with your premise that America and its Constitution is inheritly racist.  Can you point to something that is?

See somehow in our "racist" society we managed to elect a black man to president.  I think you are further from reality than I am.  

Is it the premise of freedom that scares you or leaves you thinking I am racist and "benefiting" from the system?

Rather than throwing around loose name calling.  Why don't you ask how someone who believes in the constitution can justify how slavery continued under the consistution?  

Freedom does not equal racism.  We will all be slaves if this thoguht process continues.

Thanks.

I disagree.  Racism is racism in my book.  And picking someone because of their lineage goes against everything I stand for(no matter what color is benefiting).  The law needs to treat all people equally.

The debate about Sotomayor's ethnicity is the red herring dropped for the idiots on both sides to chew on.  

Let's get real, the choice for supreme court is about mob rule versus rule of law.  Are we a Democracy or a Republic?

My axiom is that the Government is there to protect our freedoms.  If assuring our freedom is the prime responsibility of government than protecting the document that defines what the government can not do to us is a priority.  

Some may argue that our Constitution is full of errors and needs to be amended frequently to keep up with the times.  If that is the case you want a Justice which feels empathy for the people involved in the cases and will interpret the law accordingly and/or make adjustments to the law.  The Constitution is a living document.

I believe the Constitution sets timeless principles about how to govern a free people.  It is a lot harder than you think to maintain that fine balance of protecting people from their government and each other.  These changes require strict standards outlined in Article 5 of the Constitution.

Forget the color of her skin, judge people from what they do not who their parents were.  Is Sotomoyer a constitutionalist or a judicial activist?

Maybe I am just a naive "northerner", but it just seems to me you are opening old wounds.  Maybe there are some racists who salute the new Georgia flag like the Nazi, but to me it seems like you are being a little extreme.  

I am not blind to racism, but there must be a better way to bridge the racial divide than complaining about a flag which any idiot skin head wouldn't even recognize.  

Read what you want from a flag that has parts of every one of Georgia's flags except the confederate battle flag.  

You could be right about the flag and I have struggled with the fact that the argument for states rights was used to defend slavery, but I still think that stronger states rights provide more freedom to the people.  I believe that the constitution never allowed for slavery it was obvious government was withholding liberty from some of its people.  

I don't know the solution to racism, but calling people racists all the time can't help.

If you believe anything that hearken's back to before the civil war is inherently wrong, you will have a hard time understanding how our country was founded.  They where wrong about slavery(the world was).  Our country corrected it.  

Let's not throw away all of the greatness or our country's founding.  The US Flag is a flag of treason too (I wouldn't connect any of these flags with the swastika though).

The heritage is with not just those states but the independent spirit our country was founded on and the structure provided to us by the constitution.  States should control the majority of taxing and spending and have strong independence.  That is how we will insure our freedom.

States should not create laws that infringe upon our rights(such as slavery).  Do you really think people are advocating for slavery again?  They are not advocating forced government volunteerism in the south are they?

Tone down the hate. :)

You are as bad as the politicians of the past that use racism to excite the non-thinkers of our society.  

Of course with poll African American's choose Atlanta 38% of the time as a metropolitan area they would choose to live in.  Look at this list of areas with the best QOL for African Americans and how they came to it: http://www.blackvoices.com/blogs/2008/01 /11/10-best-cities-for-african-americans /

What would it take to separate the slavery issue from state's rights?  Anyone using the states' rights angle to defend slavery was wrong.  The Federal Constitution protects the people from laws states and local municipalities vote in which infringe our rights.    

It is not a crazy idea to believe that the Federal Government has no business half of the issues they are trying to get involved in.  Education is a prime example.  We are closer to our politicians at home and it is more democratic at the local level.    The Federal Government will spend somewhere between a quarter and a third of all the money earned in this country.   That money should be spent a lot closer to where it was collected and most spending runs contradiction to the 10th Amendment.   Allowing a top down structure of governance is by definition not a democracy.  

It is unfortunate that our system is set up in a way where those with a healthy fear of government have to be elected to promote change.  Once elected, these officials no longer fear government because they have become it.  

History is not about Googling for quotes which fit your argument.  No one is advocating for slavery.  These flags have become symbols of how this country was founded.   There is no reason to believe our founders did not know the documents they created run against slavery.   The flag are seen as a symbol of independence to an awful lot of people.

Of course my first introduction to General Lee was in the form of a Dodge Charger.   :)
I don't think you have to be so sensitive.  The heritage of our country is not based on hate.

I would agree that the bond between big business and big government needs to be broken.  I believe that the more that we require of richest among us the more that bond will be tightened.  It is against human nature not to think people are involved in their investments.  The more people pay in taxes the more involved they are and the more government needs them.  The more businesses pay and the more rules that govern them the more power politicians will have over industry which leads to corruption.

Corporations are faceless entities which can always hide behind their share holders.  I support small business where the employee can look into the eyes of the owner of the company.  I also support responsible investing, not just focusing on the bottom line, but on how a company does its business, treats its employees and serves the community.  

I believe that public financing does limit 1st amendment rights though in an area which we developed the freedom of speech for.  We all have to become more involved in governing.

We need a strong dollar and the corrections the market provides to expose the corruption.