What the first means is that we want other people elected – people who might be more dedicated to what needs to be done – really needs, instead of the never-ending “porkbarrel” funding and party squabbling that Congress seems so enamored of.

I could go through Wolf’s 10 steps to tyranny, and point out how each and every one, even though undeniably present here, is here on such a microscopic scale compared to the way they have been – and are – implemented in other countries, both now and in the past.

The very fact that Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky &c &c (not to forget Dennis Kucinich and Jimmy Carter), are still perfectly free to travel everywhere and disparage their home country, shows that dissent is not only alive and well here, but practically encouraged.

Wolf further shows a staggering ignorance of history by calling Guantanamo a “gulag”. That shows a profound misunderstanding of what the Soviet gulag really was. I would suggest to her that she read Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago”. Soviet gulags claimed over a million lives (estimates aren’t easy to come by, but Russia’s own records show over a half million during WW II alone).

As far as “invoke a common enemy” goes, we had that very thing throughout the 50s and 60s: Communism. I would suggest to her that neither Communism nor the Islamic fundamentalist threat is “invoked’ (in the sense of “made up”). Both are real, and both are threats to our way of life. One collapsed under its own weight (but seems to be doing a good Phoenix imitation under Mr Putin); the other is driven worldwide by its haterd and jealousy of our way of life, in contrast to their own failed society.

As far as “controlling the press” goes, she is blindingly misinformed. Our “MSM” has for years (maybe even decades) been hard-left and anti-Republican. Yet not one of them has ever been closed down for criticizing the government (as would happen in a heartbeat almost anywhere else on the world).

I might be able to support Paul, if only the majority of his supporters were not so obnoxious and antagonistic.

(PS: I came to your site earlier looking for Nassim Taleb. I finally got “Fooled by Randomness”. It’s great – an eye-opener.)