Hi Dawg,

I agree with a lot of what you wrote.  I started to watch the special Glenn Beck had about the tea parties, and was surprised to see how many Libertarians were there and had either orginized or participated.  I really haven't watched Glenn Beck much since his move to Fox, as I find I disagree with him a lot more now.  While I tend to be more conservative in some areas, I'm in favor of social programs that help people.  I don't consider things like Universal Health Care or Welfare to be evil or socialistic, but necessary to keep those without from losing what little they have.  After suffering an on the job injury in the late 80's, and then becoming disabled from working a few years ago, I can tell you the "system" is not designed to help, and it's not very user friendly.  I can see why there is a 60% denial from SSDI and there are so many attorney's that specialize in getting claims approved doing so well.  It shouldn't take a lawyer to get what you've paid into!  Yet those who work for government funded advocacy agencies that are supposed to help people through this are certainly overworked and underpaid, so don't have the resources to dedicate the real time needed to help all their clients.  This is something that really must change.  The government has to get back to understanding it works for the people, and it exists for the people, and ultimately, the people can collectively change the government simply by voting.

I wonder how history will judge this period?  Sometimes it seems there is much more wrong than right with our government, our worldview as a nation, and how we've allowed ourselves to become apathetic to those things we should be most dilligent about in our government and elected public servants.  We do need to remind the lawmakers we put them in their positions of power, and we can certainly take them out by voting someone else in that promises to do the job they signed up for.

While I think social programs are needed, I also would like to see a more focused federal government, dealing with those things that are out of the realm of States rights, and keeping the insanity an foolishness to a minimum.  <-- Talk about a pipe dream :)

Tony