"I believe that the"what's yours..." is communism, not socialism."

Okay then. Please give me your definition of socialism, and how it is applied in your ideal government.

"The investigation is on-going (and the claims of voting irregularities predates the presidential election by a couple of years)."

There are claims of voting irregularities in every election, in every state. Become a judge of election, and you'll find out how often they occur. Here in Chicago, we had States' Attorney's Office looking over our shoulders all of the time.

"Miami-Dade went over the voting rolls and found that there were a number of people who were listed as felons and not allowed to vote."

Yeah, I read that story. Again, there was no real claim that African Americans were targeted.

"Similarity, people who weren't citizens were allowed to vote They found over 100 problems as I recall. This from the corrected voter rolls supplied by Tallahassee. My county started verifying the list and finally tossed it as hopelessly inaccurate. People were denied the right to vote, of all ethnic backgrounds."

Which is the key. Of all ethnic backgrounds.

"Clinton blew it. Is that worse than having a sports stadium built by the taxpayers for your team?"

Since when did you see me argue for a sports stadium??? Your analogy doesn't even hold on a parallel. One could argue that a sports stadium benifits the many. You can't argue that for Clinton.

"Clinton being wrong doesn't make the other side right."

And I have argued against sports stadiums being publicly funded also.

"As the founding fathers have been dead these many years, I don't really care."

Do you agree with the Constitution as a document?

"I strongly suspect I wouldn't have liked a lot fo the founding fathers."

Given that, I have a strong suspicion that I wouldn't like you.

"Especially those who had to be pressured into the Bill of Rights. They created a living document."

Arrrgh. The *Living Document* people. Q: Did you ever read up on our Constitution just for the heck of it?

"It wasn't divinely inspired or written on stone tablets and brought down from the mountain. How it's used is for us to decided, through our elected representatives."

You could not be more wrong. The Constitution is ONLY supposed to be interpretted by the Supreme Court. Why do you think the legislature has to AMEND the constitution whenever we come up with a way that we want to add to it?

(Which works better on paper than in reality?).

"Define "successful."

Eating well. Vacationing well. Having a nice house, and smiling because they don't complain about money.

"Their families, doctors and therapist might disagree,"

I've been poor and working less then 40 hours. I've made a good living working more then 40 hours/week. I prefer the latter.

"Looking at the failure rate of dot.com, e-commerce and internet related industries, including the massive losses reported each quarter even from the successful ones, "smart' may be pushing it."

Smart people often take chances. Just because they fail the first time out, it doesn't mean that they are stupid. On the contrary, if they are making 6 figures while failing, that's not a bad way to fail.

"I think that once someone has served whatever sentence is imposed, they've "paid their debt to society"."

Just to be clear, then you are FOR former felons voting?

"It also further marginalizes and stigmatizes people and would seem (at least intuitively) to be more part of the problem than the solution"

I have no problem with putting a stigma on being a felon.

"When you ask the general employee population why they work for the company, pay is anywhere from 4th to 6th on the list. Ask the senior managers and pay is #1."

Your argument is backwards. You are telling me what the EMPLOYEE believes, not what the EMPLOYER believes. If management is only after salary, then that's what they get more of. If general employees list salary as 4th or 6th on their list, is it that surprising that they aren't getting paid more?

"When it's all about money, productivity suffers, in the long run."

Based on what style of management?

"Both of the Clintons lost a lot of my respect over the Senate/Real Estate deal and the Pelitier Pardon. Not to mention the WhiteWater thing. At the time, I did not put a lot of stock in that, but now????????"

What took you so long to get on board?????

John