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The "private property" angle is no more than a backdoor for tyranny.

Private property leads to improvements and democracy not tyranny. When government controls all property then you have tyranny.

In the modern world, corporations have equivalent or greater power than government, and should be held to the same constitutional standards as government.

Thomas Jefferson foresaw this when he warned about the Corporate Aristocracy: "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country." The fact is is corporations were originally granted their Corporate Charter to improve the common, or public, good. The first corporation to be granted a charter was the Dutch East India Company and the second, two years later, the Honourable East India Company. Both were shipping companies trading goods between Europe and the Indian subcontinent. Shipping was a risky business, pirates could attack ships stealing the cargo and killing the crew or bad weather could cause ships to sink. When one of these happened the owner of the ship was held liable for the loss of cargo and lives. Even someone rich could loose everything they owned, so there weren't many people willing to take the risks. So the Dutch East India Company was granted a corporate charter to limit liability. The only thing someone who invested in East India could lose was the amount of money they invested. This enabled people to invest more in ships which increased trade, which was a common good. The problem, as Jefferson saw, was that corporations became too powerful and are no longer held accountable for improving the public good. If corporations faced the possibility of having their Corporate Charters revoked then they could be held responsible again.

Falcon

"The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
Ayn Rand

Quoted from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/ayn_rand.html

Dude. if we had had the tools then, the towers would still be there.

HAHA!!! The Bush admen knew something was going to happen but didn't prevent it. Heck the Justice department even prevented FBI agent Coleen Rowley from investigating a potential hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui. Personally though I agree with that decision. As Benjamin Franklin said " Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

However, to reduce anything like this to gender differences is almost nonsensical.

Someone's been reading too much Rumsfeld:

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

ah, wasted due 2 getting wasted...i think that's what edison meant;-)

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomasaed109928.html

What the hell are you talking to me like it's my new idea for? There have been safety inspectors acting as a barrier to keep dangerous goods off the market since before I was born. Go ask them about how much of a barrier they impose.

Okay, I agree that unsafe products should be controlled, that's not the point I'm trying to make.

I don't propose anyone should get patents.

So what mechanism do you propose to replace the patent system? We have to get from here and now to a better location in spacetime, and it's got to be done in increments.

I would say, reveal your process, or you are flat out not allowed to sell anything to anyone. If you're caught, your property is seized and you go to jail, the same as if you sold cars or drugs or food without passing safety inspections right now.

Then what's to stop the big guys with most of the resources from stealing the little guys' ideas and laughing all the way to the bank?

To quote from The Simpsons: "Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts." How much did it cost the car companies after all those vehicles caught fire? I don't know, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were still before the courts. Is/Are the car compan{y|ies} now out of business? I think not.

To quote Jesse Ventura "You can't legislate morality." I know that the 'moral majority' mostly disagree, but I've looked at a whole bunch of quotes from Ventura, at

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jesseventu169372.html

and I agree with the vast majority of them. I've skimmed his Wikipedia page as well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Ventura

One serious dude, even if you're not into wrestling. (I'm not.)

Just assuming you can't legislate morality for a while, how does it apply here? Well it has to do with mechanism design - the game theory type:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_design

Basically, the bureaucracy - in this case the patent office - is set up in accordance with, and to carry out the functions of a particular piece of legislation - probably called something like The Patent Act (whatever year) as amended to the current date. It's all a big game to big business who are supposed to maximise shareholder value. They interact with the bureaucracy, and the judiciary and lobby the legislature in order to get the rules of the game to work in their favour.

At the moment, the criterion for 'obviousness', in particular, is being almost ignored, and AFAICT, this is causing a lot of bad patents to be issued. The criterion, I think, reads that an invention must not be obvious to someone 'skilled in the art', or at least that's what I've read in the Oz patent docs; the US should be similar. In my opinion we need a better definition of 'skilled in the art'.

What we need is a change to the effective rules of the game, in order to bring about a better outcome. A fairer outcome.

You can view it as a multidimensional optimisation problem (getting the greatest good for the greatest number, for example) but I won't go into the details of that aspect here and now.

You can change the rules of the game with a change in the law - either explicitly through legislation or implicitly as a result of the outcome of a case that goes before the courts and sets a precedent. I've read here thet the tax office over there tried to stem the tide of bad patents but got overturned in the courts.

The mechanism cannot legislate for non-greedy (moral) behaviour on the part of corporations, it can only place restrictions on how they are permitted to play the game without legal penalties and the associated bad publicity.

So what do you want to happen?
More importantly, how do we tweak the system so that we get a better outcome?
How do we get

"Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital."

"Look, I understand your point, but you should reevaluate the copying = stealing line."

I don't think so - not because you didn't raise a point - you raised a couple of good ones. The problem is that there are people who would use that as a justification for feeling entitled to rip off whatever they want, regardless of if they are putting somebody into bankruptcy in the process, and the counterpoint needs to be made.

1) FBI or some other agency suspects someone of something, and documents the suspicion, then files for a warrent.

That has existed from the founding of the USA, ever read the 4th Amendment? Law enforcement is required to get a court issued warrant.

3) if deemed a "dire emergency" they can enter the property, arrest citezens, or collect physical evidence, consistent with the scope of any warrent filed, wether approved yet or not.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act set up the FISA court which "rubber stamps" admin requests for search warrants. Heck the FBI can file for a warrant 48 hours after the FBI puts a wiretap in place or conducts a search.

They need to be able to snoop.

Are there needs to be a system of checks and balances, And there is, just get a court issued warrant. But the Bush admin fills no need to follow the Constitution of the USA.

If you are doing something illegal, it matters not how you are discovered, only that you are.

Ah, an advocate of torture.

Knowing who I call and how often is no more private information than who I send postal mail to.

They may know who you send mail to but they don't know who I send it to. I don't put my return address on my mail and I always drop it in a mail box on the street or at the post office. And no it's not because I'm paranoid, those I write to already have my address and if I drop an envelope in a public mailbox I know it will arrive at the post office. I've lost mail when I left it for the mailman to pick up.

I also approve of scanning of random e-mail messages sent in and out of the country, and also all e-mail sent to/from known terorist associated addresses (names added to a list with a judges approval).

Who gets to decide who's a terrorist? Many innocent people are still on the Do Not Fly list and have no way getting their name off it.

People who are paranoid about the FBI reading their secret love letters to their boyfriend and then the FBI telling their husband should have no fear. We'll make it illegal for the FBI to collect and store any information noo associated with known criminals or terrorists, and make it illegal for them to collect and store information about non-violent or minor crimes unless a warrent was issued and approved for local law enforcement.

And how will a victim know?

Reading your post you sound like you trust government, but many others don't. Fact is is government have killed way more people or violated their rights than have all of the terrorist in history. your chance of being killed by a terrorist is minuscule. As Benjamin Franklin said "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Or as Thomas Jefferson said "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."

Speaking of quotes not being entirely correct...

"In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king"
- Desiderius Erasmus

"The problem is the voters."

I disagree. The problem is neither campaign contributions nor the voters. The problem is that the federal government has:

1) Too much power, and
2) Too much of our money

The ability of the federal government to dole our large sums of money, power, and other favors is really the root cause of the issue. The campaign contributions are merely a symptom of the problem and no amount of "patching" is going to resolve the underlying problem. What exactly do you imagine the campaign contributions are supposed to be buying? Money, power, and favors.

Alexis de Tocqueville had it exactly right:

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alexisdeto390854.html

The solution is a federal government with vastly smaller powers and correspondingly smaller amounts of money, power, and favors to sell.

Absent that, or better in addition, the next best solution is to remove the (unconstitutional, in my opinion) spending limits but require full disclosure so we can see exactly who owns who and how much it will cost to buy the outcome we desire. That may seem crass and undemocratic but it is at least fair and transparent.

How you set a record deficit every year your in office then claim to be on track for a balanced budget, I'm not sure.

Besides that that's a speech, he doesn't provide any real data to support his assertion.

On another note he says in the next paragraph "The people's trust in their government is undermined by congressional earmarks". I don't trust government period but since he's been president I distrust it even more. What Thomas Jefferson said, "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty" I fear is especially applicable today.

<Speculation>

If not, if the difference is the same as time or length in a dimension that we aren't able to consciously manipulate or see, then it is possible that we all are floating in roughly the same direction, but since the differences are very small it's impossible to recognize if we are in the same sector as when we started our lives.

All this since there are in theory dimensions that we can't see. Why they are invisible is a different question. It may be that we all are mentally and physically unable to "see" the dimensions or that they are "curled up" or "flattened" in a way that makes them immeasurable. This is just about the same question as if you are on a board (like our universe) on a completely friction-less surface where there is no perception of wind and no reference points. You have every perception of everything on the board, but you can't tell if the board is still or if it's actually drifting at the speed of sound with the wind. If you can't even "see" outside the borders of the board (the universe) you can't really tell if there are other universes out there.

And it's not even possible to say if the laws of physics are general or specific for a universe. It may well be that the laws of physics are the same in any given universe, and that we just are inside a bead of glass. (watch the end sequence of Men in Black to catch this idea...). Just "infinity" is hard to catch up, but it's like living on the surface of a globe - where is the end of the world? And if you walk a straight distance on the surface of a globe large enough - will you ever come home again or will you even recognize that as home?

I think that there is no straight answer, and that Keith Laumer in the "WORLDS OF THE IMPERIUM" may have one approach, and Robert Anson Heinlein had another in "Number of the Beast" (among others), but I think that Douglas Adams got really to the point in the statement "There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.". At least his statement will explain a lot.

But this is still in the area of speculation, and I think that it's hard for the human race to get outside the universe. But I don't say that it's impossible - there may be a discovery around the corner waiting to happen!

</Speculation>

What is most important is that we try to keep our minds open - there may be a grain of truth in every theory that at first sight may appear ridiculous. Notice that the continental drift was considered completely outrageous by many until the end of the 1950's. The continental drift is now a widely accepted fact (but there may still be those that doesn't accept it).

Gandhi once said "Nearly everything you do is of no importance, but it is important that you do it.", and this still applies. If you do nothing nothing will be accomplished, and you will be sure that you are unimportant, but if you do something you may have the force to provide a stepping stone for something that will prevail for generations to come.

The End.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/d/douglasada109730.html

Speaking of Carl Sagan and his book Cosmos here is what he concluded about the Tunguska Cosmic Body (TCB): "The key point of the Tunguska Event is that there was a tremendous explosion, a great shock wave, an enormous forest fire, and yet no impact crater at the site". Someone in a post in this same thread mentioned conventional theory. Everyone seems to believe that because there is no crater or no immediate evidence of a body they assume that the TCB must have been destroyed in the enormous explosion. The question no one has asked is: Obvious question 1: What if the reason there is no crater might be becasue the TCB was not destroyed in the blast? Some people might now think that question is unconventional or unscientific and perhaps is the reason why no one asks it. Others may not and so lets continue with the next obvious (to some) question: Obvious question 2: If the TCB was not destroyed then might it still be in the vicinity of the earth? Which leads to the next obvious (to some) question. Obvious question 3: Does that mean that some people might have seen the TCB since the initial blast? and the next: Obvious question 4: If they saw the TCB would they know what they were looking at? Finally an answer from the Russian Newspaper Sibir in the town of Irkutsk printed the week of the blast: 'in the village of Nizhne-Karelinsk in the northwest high above the horizon, the peasants saw a body shining very brightly -(too bright for the naked eye) with a bluish white light. It moved vertically down-wards for about ten minutes. The body was in the form of a 'pipe' (i.e. cylindrical). The sky was cloudless, except that low down on the horizon in the direction in which this glowing body was observed; a small dark cloud was noticed. It was hot and dry and when the shining body approached the ground it seemed to be pulverized and in its place a huge cloud of black smoke was formed and a loud crash, not like thunder, but as if from the fall of large stones, or from gunfire, was heard. All the buildings shook and at the same time, a forked tongue of flame broke through the cloud. The old women wept, everyone thought that the end of the world was approaching." which leads to the next obvious question: Obvious question 5: Has anyone seen a cosmic body like this since 1908? Check out this web site and look at the last video number 5: http://www.hbccufo.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1345 Amazing eh! If you are the unconventional sort who is brave enough to find answers to those more obvious (to some) questions then perhaps you might read this: http://ablebodiedman.blogspot.com/ I think Carl Sagan was right when he said: "Somewhere something incredible is waiting to be known." http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/carlsagan101620.html Which leads to the next obious question: Obvious question 5: Am I unconventional or is everyone else? best regards ablebodiedman

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/napoleonbo384775.html Napoleon predated Robert A. Heinlein. 'nough said.

If it was meant as an announcement and not a press conference then call it an announcement and don't fake it.

The person(s) behind this stunt should be thrown out the window head first as soon as possible. The current behavior is what you expect from a non-democratic country, so it's easy to assume that this is something that sticks a long way up to the top. How far may it go? President? This isn't the only case where strange or out-of-the ordinary actions have occurred. Too many incidents have been seen, some of them related to the USA PATRIOT Act

This at least calls from an infamous quote: You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.

And while you are at it - complete the poll for the anachronistic Amendment 2

"Ceased" is perfectly acceptable, as is "cessation". The word is being used correctly.

More examples

I understand your point, but I think you misunderstand mine. I am not redefining Christianity. I am simply using Christ's definition rather than the world's (society's) definition. And it's not that they do not act like I say they should. It's that they do not act as Christ says they should.

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
-Mohandas Gandhi

My source is this obnoxiously-named domain.

Either way the quote contains the adjectives — to qualify for the dire prediction, the liberty needs to be essential and the expected gain in security (or safety — interestingly, in Ukrainian and Russian these words are the same. I suspect, in Franklin's times there was little distinction between them in English too) — only temporary...

Agriculture is probably humanity's most powerful invention, and why hasn't it turned on us to kill us? Because we control it? Or is it simply because it helps us and that is what it's primary purpose is?

Unfortunately, it seems to have partially backfired in the last century both in dietary and land use terms.

No sooner would your spreadsheet application spontaneously become a 3D game engine than an intelligence designed for help spontaneously become a harmful entity.

"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." -- Louis D. Brandeis

Intelligence is not wisdom. Perhaps an exponentially higher intelligence might consistently find wisdom, but for now the two seem to be orthogonal.

Perhaps the best argument for the singularity is that we're apparently screwed without it, so better to jump into the unknown than stay on our apparently screwage-bound course.

The Pope has a military...

The GP was referring to a quote attributed to Josef Stalin. I can't believe no one picked up on it.

I'm sorry that we have to have a Washington presence. We thrived during our first 16 years without any of this. I never made a political visit to Washington and we had no people here. It wasn't on our radar screen. We were just making great software.
Bill Gates

Never hire a humble developer:

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/larrywa ll141510.html

How could you paint our esteemed leader in such a dim light? You might as well call the man a big fat liar!

George W. Bush is a "uniter, not a divider". How could you not know this? It was at the heart of the compassionate conservative's campaign. You make it sound like he's been polarizing the electorate with phrases like "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

The President has exhibited no end to his trustworthiness. You should grant him the respect he deserves.

There are some similarities between President Bush and Sarkozy, however. For example, the President has displayed his in-depth understanding of the French saying, "The thing that's wrong with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur."

They did not vote for a candidate but against someone else.

50 million U.S. citizens rallied behind George W. Bush in the 2000 election. Just recently he said, "The best way to defeat the totalitarian of hate is with an ideology of hope -- an ideology of hate -- excuse me --with an ideology of hope."

From the President's own mouth, he is a man who inspires an ideology of hope. Now how could anyone like that inspire people to vote against his opponent?

Too bad Washington is just a small department inside Microsoft.

Obama though did vote FOR the Patriot act. Also, coming out against the war in 2004 isn't exactly ahead of the curve. The war was already going badly at that point. (Obama Voting Record)

Compare this to Ron Paul, who has been against the war from day 1. He also voted against the Patriot act from Day 1. ( Ron Paul Voting record)

Obama on the other hand has said "I don't oppose all wars." He would even has said that he would consider a missile strike on Iran.

Obama is young and charismatic, and he may seem like a breath of fresh air. But, in the end he's just another poitician. He changes his positions based on whatever suits his needs at the time. For a real change, Ron Paul is your man.

Why do you think talk abut a militia covers personal usage? It does not. It never did. That interpretation has always been made in error.

The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
James Madison

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

How can you say that?! They have beer AND an airline, and a football team...well, kinda.

Most likely, Like Microsoft back during the Clinton era, Intel forgot to pay their DNC bribe money.

My question for the people that dont like this idea is, WHAT are you downloading or looking up that is so bad that the FBI will look at your case and not the person they are mainly looking for?

In the interest of full disclosure, Clare Boothe Luce said that. :)

Children nowadays are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food and tyrannise their teachers.

-Socrates

Interesting. So, in the past 5 years, what has changed at the NYT?

I find it odd that an organization the size of the Times would go from one extreme to another in just 5 years.

Maybe my tinfoil hat is a little tight, but I think something smells a little fishy here.

Voltaire said that first. He also said it wasn't an empire, either. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/v/voltair e140970.html

"Nothing except the mint can make money without advertising. " (Check out the link, some quotes there are so timely it's scary).

I'll quote him for the karma.. :-D

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
James Madison

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
James Madison

It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.
James Madison

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jamesma dis169357.html

I would prefer that we not involve ourselves in other countries civil wars that are none of our damn business in the first place. I believe Thomas Jefferson got it exactly right when he said:

"Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none"

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomasj eff157206.html

U.S. marines ought to defend the nations borders from attacks from other nations militaries, period, end of story. Situations like you describe at most ought to be handled by U.N. peace keeping forces and even that OFTEN does more harm than good as is happening in Haiti currently where U.N. troops are raping and murdering innocent civilians and supporting the government that came to power through a coup.

And yes I do walk the talk I protested Clinton's destructive NATO bombing of Serbia in the same way I protest Bush's destructive and pointless attack on Iraq. Time for Americans to focus on American problems from crumbling infrastructure to 46 million people who lack access to basic health care. let the rest of the world take of itself they are big boys and girls. Whatever happened to American self reliance? Hint the 300 billion plus Bush spent on the disastrous destabilizing war on Iraq would have better spent almost anywhere including drawing down the debt or tax refunds. We just WASTED 2600 young American lives, 50,000 Iraqi lives, and 300 billion dollars THAT is what meddling in other peoples affairs gets you.

Further to get back on topic foreign interventionism leads to domestic unrest when people get tired of paying and dying for foreign wars which then gives the government "excuses" to test experimental weapons on it's own citizens. Screw that police state jazz.

What part of small constitutional republic not an empire don't you understand?

US Marines supporting democratic leaders? Not that usual, you know.

Try "our son of a bitch" kind of dictators or stuff like that...

If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.

Cardinal Richelieu

Yes invading countries and killing their leaders without asking the people of the country involved if that's what they wanted sure is doing sooo much "good" in the world thank for enlightening me as to your imperialist philosophy. I'm sure for example that the Iranians were very pleased when we overthrew their elected leader in the early 60s and installed the Shaw and his Savac secret police. What they weren't grateful, they hate our guts to this day? How could that be? Ditto for Guatemala, Nicaragua, Chile, etc.

I know you'll have no actual logical response for this so just go ahead and say I "hate America" or some such twaddle and go back to watching Fox. For the rest of you reading who aren't clueless like the parent poster here is a clue from Mark Twain:

"Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it."

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mark_t wain.html

If you really understand this quote then you are far ahead of the parent poster who is a stooge for the government "right or wrong" at least activists and Libertarians can agree that's bad, right?

If Kennedy was the only thing keeping the Democrats from KO'ing the moonshot/space program, then how come NASA's Houston command post is called Johnson Space Center?

And listen, mac. Maybe you don't want him to be one, but that still doesn't change the fact that JFK was a Democrat. Not a single history book I've ever read attempts to claim otherwise. If you judged a President's party affiliation by how in sync he was with the rest of the gang, then this country hasn't had a Democratic President since Andy Jackson. That party has just never worked that way; remember what Will Rogers said?

And I found a history article here that sez:

Dealing with the origins of the Apollo program, Kay points to the lack of any direct, proven relationship between the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and Kennedy's decision to go to the Moon. He does, however, note that in early 1961 the new administration suffered one blow after another, including Gagarin's first manned flight. The author also explains how, for once, the White House and Congressional leadership were in agreement. This gave the Moon program powerful political momentum that allowed it to survive the inevitable crises and loss of Congressional and public enthusiasm.

So if Congressional favor for the space program eventually waned, it was more a reflection of growing voter cynicism in general than a knee-jerk Democratic Party hatred of all things space-related. Such an attitude clearly wasn't there at the beginning; and with a full five years of post-Kennedy full Democratic control of the government, you'd think they would have gotten around to shutting the program down sometime, if they'd really wanted to.

In fact, the (Democratic Party nominated) Kennedy-Johnson ticket campaigned on a pro-space platform, and against the Eisenhauer-Nixon Administration's (unjustifiably) perceived ineptitude at it -- if only as a sideshow to the "Missile Gap" Big Dog issue of the 1960 elections.

Why isn't it about what he's trying to accomplish by protecting the American people from another terrorist act? Since this is his claim, and it's a reasonable claim, why are you so suspicious to think the President is lying about it?

...why are you so suspicious to think the President is lying about it? Do you think he implemented such a program for other reasons? Or do you accept his explaination and question his methods? If the former, then you're more concerned with bashing him than actually getting answers. If the latter, then you can not say he's hiding anything, but simply trying to protect the information that gives sensitive details about a program used to protect Americans (and probably others in the world).

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'
Isaac Asimov

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/benjami nfr110199.html

That would be Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, the gent on the USD100 bill, AKA Poor Richard.

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

Of course my favorite is that "beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

Many more here http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/benjam in_franklin.html

...you're not the only one. Take a look: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12729893/

My political principles, if this were the 90s, would be a mix of Democrat and Republican and I would feel fairly comfortable labelling myself a liberterian and not sweating it. However, the things I liked about the Republicans, like fiscal responsibility, a strong military, and fierce protection of privacy, have all been thrown to the winds. Believe me, funneling billions of dollars into fat cat contractors and wearing down our servicemembers in conflict after conflict does not make a strong military. Eisenhower warned against the military-industrial complex, saying "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

Eisenhower said a lot of smart stuff, check it out: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/dwight _d_eisenhower.html/
"Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America."
"When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war."
"Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose."
"The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without."
"Only Americans can hurt America."
And a personal favorite,
"Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."

Wish I'd been around for him.