American democracy is capsizing as a result of the vast increase in the number of government dependents and government employees.

It is unfortunate that Americans are no longer aware of what the constitution says and what their rights are. Because of that, we are often very passive about what happens when the government violates those rights.

If so many Americans are looking for the government to save them, then it is hard to have a dignified search for a shepherd in chief.

To blindly trust government is to automatically vest it with excessive power. To distrust government is simply to trust humanity - to trust in the ability of average people to peacefully, productively coexist without some official policing their every move. The State is merely another human institution - less creative than Microsoft, less reliable than Federal Express, less responsible than the average farmer husbanding his land, and less prudent than the average citizen spending his own paycheck.

For the average person walking down a dark street late at night, a promise from a politician is worth far less than a .38 Special.

It is absurd to expect governments to descend gradually, step-by-step into barbarism - as if there was a train schedule to political hell and people could get off at any stop along the way.

Politicians as a class are dangerous, that people who are seeking power over us are not, by definition, our friends.