Poor J, willing to see a religion behind any power figure, so wanting to worship others, so explainitory of his world views... and so illustrative of this quote.

The speaker shows himself to be nothing more than a barbarian, as are those who support this sentiment... especially any who claim to be Christian and would so advocate ignoring the commandment to not kill. I am perplexed that a Canadian site seems so absolutely fixated upon quotes about guns in America with the many days that this topic has been central to the quotes of the day... have they forgotten that Canada's gun laws (as they are in most civilized nations) are much more restrictive than those in America...

And note that the statement here is that the end purpose is for the "rearing up and qualifiyihg a well regulated militia", not such that your drunk neighbor can carry her snub nose pearl handled pea shooter and acidentially shoot your child who is walking your dog...

What is failed to be said here is that if you don't and they do you pay... for deciding what is and is no unconstitutional is not always so clear even to the courts, say nothing of the lay person.

And in this case the rich white man is most likely to be the arm of society which performs this task, as the one kept down represents potential future competition to them...

... or, alternately, they are not truly terrible things at all but rather the correction of a more terrible condition...

The rich are not materially affected by this as the truly rich are so insulated and have so many resources as to not even notice the drain on their resources... whereas the poor are literially living hand to mouth.

And at times it is that new generation that is driving the change in society that preserves it as our society... making the older generation's needs the ones that lose out.

A line of BS pure & simple...

The object of life is not to avoid the ranks of the insane, but rather to find and aid the ranks of the clear thinking... perhaps a subtle but none the less importance difference. Yes Anon, it is insane that we are getting such a compromise health care bill when the right answer is so clearly to eliminate all age limits from Medicare to bring us a single payer system and eliminate the middleman that adds no value but extracts its price. No jim, you oppose Obama either because you are a fool or because he has actually not gone far enough in his middle of the road path.

When oh when will those fools from Texas just leave these united states... they forget that Johnson brought a time of great social progress... and that he inherited the mess in Vietnam... the parallels with Obama are indeed great (though King George W left more of a mess than any before him). So, jim has it right, we (meaning he & his) scoffed at Gore & elected Bush.

'gads, another "birther" surfaces from their hole in the ground... amazing how King George W the deserter gets elected by gross voter fraud and that is wonderful... but when a middle of the road black man actually gets elected the lunies come out to cry foul...

Amazing to me how the lunies can have such cold hearts, turning simple human compassion into "death panels" and the like...

Not surprising that a communist wants to down play the importance of voting... nor surprising that there is no mention that it is just as important that the votes are actually counted, for failure to do so leads to such travesties as 8 years of King George W, who did more to destabilize the world than anyone in many decades... thankfully many did vote in 2008, and those votes were counted, returning us to a sane path.

Not even close to a reflection of any general reality at any time in our history... remember, he was in the humor business, not a journalist or historian.

The only explaination as to why an incompetant such as GHWBush would/could get elected by a supposedly well educated electorate... pandering!

Just another complaint in the form of pseudo-humor (both the quote and the above pseudo-comments)...

J has it right (though he then votes against the quality of the quote which is verbally supporting the accuracy of, strange & inconsistent)... and the content of that court has been determined by the GOP congress and/or the GOP president during this time frame... Thank-you King George W & Czar Neut.

and if the rate was a "flat 10%" then there would be those who oppose that... a slippery slope to anarchy...

And yet, word meaning does change over time, so what was written over 200 years ago (to say nothing of what was written 2000 years ago and has undergone numerous by hand transcriptions and translations!) needs to be understood in the light of the time it was written in, not today's light... and that does require interpretation, as none of us today were alive then... which is, of course, all the more reason for the original writing to be in clear, open, concise and precise text.

As the US became a police state under King George W the state ignored our constitution and bill of rights, subjecting us to numerous abuses. No, Calvino has it exactly backwards... in a police state the written word (laws) mean nothing, all rights are lost to the whim of the state.

LOL, good to know that the above parties seem to be of the opinion that the founding fathers of the United States were (by inference) NOT well-disposed, industrious and decent men and that they (by inference) created a state that was evil from its very beginnings... I think it is pretty clear here that the above parties are pretty much uniformly opposed to America and American values...

There is no context for this quote (short of going out and reading the source work)... what state is being described? Is this his belief/claim, or is he just reporting on his interpretation of some event in the past... it is a worthless quote until put into context! Amazing how some of the above posters seem to believe this is some statement about Obama when it was written in 1985 (during Herr Reagan's reign).

LOL, and we have people here claiming that facists are leftists... what a riot!!! and the claim that today's Democrats are "left-wing" (to say nothing of "facist") shows a complete lack of understanding of either term or the very fabric of today's society.

Thankfully, unlike King George W who was a small man seeking to bring all down to his level, we now have the hope of reversing this trend and returning to a approach of meritocracy where the cream rises to the top rather than being skimmed off and surpressed.