-=> Quoting Mike Angwin to David Hartung <=-
 MA> As for my current sense of oppression and the
 MA> constraints placed upon my liberties by the federalist system, I do not
 MA> consider a member of a free society.  In fact, I consider the United
 MA> States one of the least free nations in the world today.
 Would you please tell which nations are freer, and why?
 MA> We are, in
 MA> many ways, a relatively free people, but in others, especially relative
 MA> to personal freedoms, we are a quite unfree people.
 MA> If you wish to consider the state of liberty in the United
 MA> States consider the plight of it's population.  We have the dubious
 MA> distinction of not only having the largest percentage of our
 MA> population in prison of any nation on Earth, we even have more people
 MA> in prison than any other nation, including communist China whose
 MA> population is ten times our own.  When you also consider that almost
 MA> 80% of those languishing in American prisons are there not for violent
 MA> crimes against others or their property, but for having violated
 MA> someone else's preferences of how they choose to live thier lives, I
 MA> believe the question of the state of American liberty becomes a quite
 MA> valid one.
 I would have to see some sort of proof of this.
 MA> As for your suggestion that I leave if I am dissatisfied with
 MA> this government, I have no intention of leaving my native soil.  I
 MA> may, given the opportunity, work to effect a political separation
 MA> between  the United States and Texas in accordance with the lawful
 MA> means to do so defined by the Supreme Court (Par. 6, White vs. Texas,
 MA> 1868), or, as I am doing now, I may work lawfully within the system to
 MA> coorect the injustices and abuses of federalism, but I will not abandon
 MA> the soil my forefathers sacrificed their blood to free from tyrrany no
 MA> more than I will accept willingly or in silence the continued
 MA> destruction of my liberty.
 MA> As for my currently having greater liberty now than I would
 MA> have in any other nation, I disagree.  It may be that I may be able to
 MA> speak as openly as in any nation and express my political views,
 MA> though these too can be suppressed and my privacy invaded for views
 MA> that do not toe to the federalist line, but my personal liberties, most
 MA> certianly, are far more restricted here than in many nations I have
 MA> visited.  If you truely believe you have more personal liberty in this
 MA> nation than in any other, as most seem to believe, you are seriously,
 MA> and potentially dangerously misguided.
 
 Again, which nations of the world have greater liberty, and why?
 david.hartung@mcione.com
 Ilks of Metropolitan Walls/LENS
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