I believe we are well educated in the idea of free speech and freedom of religion. Maybe we don't get much schoolin' good...but I don't think you get out of American High School without know the First Amendment of our Bill of Rights.

Thus I think (and hope)...and really believe that these warmongering attempts to make us racist or to put us into religious wars will fail.

Racist: We've been there and we've done that. We had slavery in our history. We had Civll War. We ended slavery.

We had Jim Crow. We had the fierce struggles of the early Civil Rights struggle and early Sixties. We established the Civil Rights Act (in 1965).

We are on the verge of electing the first Afro-American Preside...

I believe we are well educated in the idea of free speech and freedom of religion. Maybe we don't get much schoolin' good...but I don't think you get out of American High School without know the First Amendment of our Bill of Rights.

Thus I think (and hope)...and really believe that these warmongering attempts to make us racist or to put us into religious wars will fail.

Racist: We've been there and we've done that. We had slavery in our history. We had Civll War. We ended slavery.

We had Jim Crow. We had the fierce struggles of the early Civil Rights struggle and early Sixties. We established the Civil Rights Act (in 1965).

We are on the verge of electing the first Afro-American President...of the United States of America. (actually, half-black president).

This trajectory is from slavery to becoming the most powerful person in our nation (and a strong force in the world). This is the American direction.

I don't hate Muslims.

I don't hate Arabs.

I'd like to see bin Laden killed or captured and it's an amazing incompetence that he is not.

I'm NEVER going to go to war against someone because of their religion or race. None of us should.

citizen, in a recent survey, people were asked to give their opinions on various rights issues. They were then read a series of statements from the Bill of Rights, not quoted directly from the constitution, but phrased in such a way that anyone familiar with it should be able to recognize them.

Something like 37% said that they thought that the first amentment fitghts of speech, press, assembly, religion and petition "went too far". At least that's not a majority, but it's still over a third and disappointingly high. It means that more than a third of our citizens are not aware that those rights are already guaranteed by the earliest laws of this country.

There are times that I think th...

citizen, in a recent survey, people were asked to give their opinions on various rights issues. They were then read a series of statements from the Bill of Rights, not quoted directly from the constitution, but phrased in such a way that anyone familiar with it should be able to recognize them.

Something like 37% said that they thought that the first amentment fitghts of speech, press, assembly, religion and petition "went too far". At least that's not a majority, but it's still over a third and disappointingly high. It means that more than a third of our citizens are not aware that those rights are already guaranteed by the earliest laws of this country.

There are times that I think that it wouldnt be such a bad idea if everyone were required to pass the same test that immigrants must pass to get full citizenship. I know that's not right, but I get so damned frustrated at how willfuly ignorant so many people insist on being.

Last July 4th, the local newspaper printed a list of fifty questions chosen from the naturalization test. They considered anything above 75% to be good. I only blew two questions, not because I got them wrong, but because I disagreed with their answers. The paper said that the US was a democracy; it's not - it's a republic. They also said that representatives and senators wrote legislation, but they overlooked the fact that lobbyist consultants participate heavily in the process.