Jet does research... he just does it very selectively, and ignores anything that doesn't fit his preconception grin popcorn

On a serious note, I constantly amuse myself by reflecting on how alike the extreme left and right have become in terms of how their thought processes work. The only difference is in what topics they choose to have "importance".

The left places importance on things like health care, "environmentalism" , and commerce regulation - and tends to support any talking head or politician who claims to "tackling these important problems" without encumbering themselves with the pesky task of rationally analyzing the full effects (or lack thereof), or unintended consequences of the harebrained plans put forth by said politicians.

On the right, we often see the topics of immigration, legal and otherwise, "family values", homeland security, drugs, and combating Islamists. Again, same deal. Lots of demagoguery, lots of hare brained plans and policies that completely ignore objective reality on these topics and completely abstain from any type of thorough rational analysis of the true scope and effects of said policies.

Few people want to think, or deal with objective reality. Too many people are entirely content to take whatever sound-byte sounds ideologically pleasing and run with it.

The problems of drugs, homeland security, illegal immigration, and "family values" are not going to go away because of crackpot schemes that crack down on individual liberty and/or spend obscene amounts of taxpayer money any more than cracking down on individual liberty, implementing crushing tax and regulation levels and spending massive outlays of taxpayer money on new multi-tiered bureaucracies are going to solve the problems of health-care, social inequality or keep opportunistic Wall Street types from finding a loophole to fleece unwary investors.


For who could be free when every other man's humour might domineer over him? - John Locke (2nd Treatise, sect 57)