To Don Firth:

Cool beans. Thanks for the info!!!

To Bill D:

That's very interesting. I'm impressed that you ran for office. Sounds like you didn't win against the "avowed bigot" – too bad. (Really? He really declared that he was a bigot?)

Politically, I'm a classical liberal – which is almost nothing like what passes for a "liberal" today. Originally, classical liberalism had as one of its main goals the abolition of privilege, which was standard in governments of the time, and meant special rights or immunities granted to particular classes of individuals, e.g., royalty, aristocracy, clergy, etc. A classical liberal believes in individual rights, limited government, complete equality under the law regardless of race, class, etc., and equality of opportunity (not equality of outcome). Classical liberalism espouses the cause of free men and free markets.

So from what Don Firth says above, I guess that makes me an 18th-century leftist. ;-)

I was a Bobby Kennedy Democrat in the 1960s (I met him and shook his hand when he was running for US Senator from New York), and I was a Reagan Republican in the 1980s, without changing my politics between the two eras – it was the parties that changed.

I've never run for public office, nor do I think I could have won (I'm not a good enough public speaker, and I've the charisma of a baked potato). I have a masters degree in physics, a doctorate in law (I studied constitutional law). I put myself through college driving a taxi cab, and after college I had careers in software and aerospace engineering and as a patent attorney.

I think the recent Supreme Court decision on "Citizens United" was correctly decided, and is probably the most misunderstood and most deceptively demagogued and mischaracterized Supreme Court decision in recent history.

I sing and play guitar, mostly traditional Scottish/Irish, but also American folk music. I'm up in the area of the Taconic Mountains, which explains my handle.