ON SOCIAL PROBLEMS & LAW AND ORDER
America is not a done deal; we are becoming - we are constantly becoming. We have a long way to go before our experiment is finished, which is not possible, for, as you know, the closer we get to a goal, we see over the horizon and more room for improvement.
We are what we had not planned to be; we were supposed to be a one-religion nation, which is to say, a *variety* of a single dominant religion, but we became a society of every race, religion, and culture on earth, and for many, it’s difficult to accept.
We planned to be a nation of Law - not “laws”, which exist in all nations, but “Law” - which, unlike many nations, is in control, and commands our behavior. We have to this point produced a society loaded down with laws that clash among themselves, having been created to satisfy practically every group’s whim, even where reason tells us freedom should not be.
The problem I see, is that we have produced an unmanageable place; Too many people, with too many ideas, or none-at-all, are in charge; we have become a restaurant owned and run by its customers, most of whom are incompetent, few of whom can think originally, so fellow “stockholders” with constructive ideas find themselves lost in the crowd, forced to watch the business founder toward bankruptcy for the lack of productive ideas, and the overpowering will of gangsters,* who create meals that do nothing to nurture their bodies, not ours.
What follows are my unheard cries in the noisy crowd of people offering nothing more substantial than their mere presence at the table.
If, until the 1940’s, the Court never had addressed an individual’s right to privacy, how can we say the Constitution makes reference to individuals, not the people as a group?
A note before going on: In July 2006, the authorities responsible for locating a place for a pedophile to live before being released had failed to do so, so a judge ruled that the guaranteed threat to children must be released without any restriction as to where he lives. This was punishment of the administration, you understand!
From what I have read, there is no cure for pedophiles, which makes the way we deal with them outrageous. We need to provide them, and their victims - past and future - permanent protection at as little ongoing expense as possible, with a certainty that reduction of the threat to children will radically decrease as a result, and eliminate our abuse of such people. We are wasting our time, effort, and great expense, to solve the problem, with absolutely no return on our investment.
I propose a city in the desert, far from any other - not that a desert, and distance, have meaning, but to deal with NIMBY’s,* and to use cheap land. This city would be a genuine prison -walled-in, and guarded - with no children, and all its citizens resident for no less than life. Adjoining visitors buildings would be provided for necessary physical contacts, under watchful eyes; it would also be a genuine town, but for the walls and guards, like any other.
It should be to this type of prison convicted abusers would be offered as an alternative to living in a cage. Those convicted of a single incident should be offered life in this city, instead of a shorter prison term; those who had been convicted more than twice before, should be left no choice.
Those leaving a regular prison on parole should be given a choice: no periodic parole hearings, no angry and fearful neighbors, no police bothering them whenever a child in the neighborhood is missing, abused, or killed, and not having to deal with being free under ridiculously un-free conditions, by giving themselves a life sentence in this city of personal freedom.
When a pedophile is convicted of causing a death, and the law mandates a sentence of less than life, he should be offered a life sentence in this city, which means, without possibility of parole. An incentive for us all would be that his incarceration in *this* prison will cost us nothing, which, in effect, would produce a profit.
His acceptance, without pressure ( Lots of signatures and disinterested witnesses to confirm this, or it won’t work, Lawyers would destroy it in most cases.) would eliminate our concerns about, and the expenses of, appeals. We want to eliminate this threat to millions of families; at present, we don’t eliminate anything, we build on it.
This city could be named, and built, by the first inhabitants. They would be “as free as birds, within the walls.” Birds who can’t fly! ( I thought I would head-off the inevitable joke.). They would elect their municipal government from among themselves, service and maintain their infrastructure, economy, and their lives, doing business - electronically - throughout the world, with easy, but screened, ingress and egress of goods.
Shipping and packaging of products, and personal effects, should probably begin outside the walls, and should probably be done by non-prisoners, with no access to the town.
Their computers could be under control, and observation, by state authorities, with no possibility of their physical access to children, which is the entire point. Being a *prison* in no uncertain terms, I don’t see the Constitution entering into questions relative to the policing of their use of the internet, and any other surveillance.
Transportation within the city could be with battery-driven vehicles - large and small - rather than the modes of transportation we use, so that roads would occupy much less land than otherwise, which would greatly reduce the amount of land required. We could build up, rather than out.
In fact, my idea on the making cities two-tiered, could be put into practice here.
Businesses and professionals on the outside would be free to contract with the state for production within this prison; visiting “passports” would be issued, and policed; anyone leaving would be checked. Movement within the walls would be as free as in any city, yet ingress and egress would be policed no different than any other prison, and all visitors to the inside would be accompanied by a guard at all times.
We currently release these types of criminals, and make their lives miserable thereafter. It’s ridiculous. After all, they are not animals, they are people with an “illness,“ and our sole purpose should be to keep them from children, not to torture them. If that‘s what we want, then let’s do it the Roman way, call out the lions!
This city of males only would have no ongoing expense to the taxpayer once it is up and running; eventual recovery of all expenses from taxpayers by a repayment tax within the city added to all other state and federal taxes, would be logical. Security and infra-structure would be covered by their own taxes levied by, and on, the residents themselves, to build a tax-base. Much, if not all, of the cost would be provided by savings in the regular prison expenses, and the costs of oversight after release, the state would no longer incur. This will also lessen the burden of parole officers, allowing them time for other parolees.
Pedophiles come in every profession and walk of life; I see the prisoners providing for their own legal, and medical services from among themselves. Even their own health insurance trust; doctors, bankers, accountants, construction, manufacturing, retailers, etc. Walmart would probably open there before the walls are up!
To these citizens can go the jobs that go to India, for the same, or less, cost.
Each state should build their own such city; the less populated could combine.
* NIMBY, “Not in my back yard!” You knew that.
The place could be run by a commission, under the authority of the Governor, with the responsibility of preventing illegal importation . . . of anything. Establishing this city would cost a few dollars, repaid in the form of a drastic drop in crime, wasted temporary treatment, law enforcement, litigation . . .
This could also serve as a place to send released prisoners with a proclivity toward drug use.
(I see tax cuts! I‘m going to cry.)
ALABAMA CHIEF JUSTICE ROY MOORE, AND THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
There would be nothing wrong with putting up signs in public schools and court houses listing the ten commandments as: “Do not kill, steal, commit adultery. . .”, etc. without presenting it as religious instruction.
It would, in fact, be a good thing to do. All one needs to recognize is that there are a multitude of fellow Americans of high quality who do not want people in government presenting religious thought, as such.
The Ten Commandments are now integral to our society; they should be promoted enthusiastically, but in a nation that knows what follows the liberties strongly religious people are inclined to take when in positions of authority, we must say “No“ to the Roy Moores.
“Justice,” is served when we get what we want. It’s a miscarriage when we don’t.
The system “worked” when we win. It didn’t if we lost. That’s why OJ believes the system works.
So what exactly *is* the system?
Can you describe it?
I’ll bet you can’t!
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge, Jacqueline Connor allows jurors to pose questions to witnesses in writing while the trial is under way. I had no idea that one of my many ideas for court procedure was actually practiced. Good for Jackie.
All growers employing migrant labor should be required by states to provide living quarters that meet minimum standards. Laborers, legal or not, should not have to sleep in the wild, with animals.
And I do believe illegals should be deported on discovery, with very simple and rapid legal procedure, then take them to the border, Pronto, unless my registration idea is adopted.
All laborers from across the border should be required to apply, and await, legal entry.
As it is observed by many, compelling the unemployed in Mexico to stay there would build pressure on that government to change. Letting them come here for money, and sending it to their families keeps Mexico poor, with governors and people of influence enjoying the good life. Our receiving these workers relieves the pressure on Mexican government, and the Elite, to change. So they don‘t.
SIMPLY PUT:
No child born to an illegal resident should be a citizen of the U.S. Period!
It’s really very simple! When the big “C” became our foundation, and when the Bills of Rights was approved, there was no such thing as an illegal. We should have foreseen, when we proposed the appropriate laws to establish illegality as an act, to have produced the appropriate amendment.
Well, let’s do it now!
Reporters, IE; Professional Voyeurs, and their employers, should be potentially liable for anything in an article that is second hand. Yes, they hold themselves to a requirement of two sources for a report to be printed, and I don’t question that here; I question any article that simply repeats another report, or a part thereof. This is no more than back-fence gossip, and such freedom of the media should not receive constitutional protection to the point of immunity from liability. A imitation invalidates itself as “news.”
Each American pays $866 a year in higher prices to cover the cost of litigation in lawsuits brought by lawyers, according to a March 2006 Tillinghast Towers Perrin study of the cost in 2004.
Trial Lawyers are the enemy, right behind Osama, and Bush, Jr. in their cost to the American people. I recommend you bring up the site, < IMG SRC="/pictures/whiteball.gif"> Institute For Legal Reform,
and consider getting into the fight to put them behind bars of restraint.
Barbra and hubby Brolin had a run-in with an idiot camera-slinger; they had him arrested. Good!
I say that self-employed photographers seeking to capture and sell photos of famous people in their private lives, are not “media,” protected by the Constitution. They are no more than lice.
People have no right to privacy when making public appearances, asking to be seen, photo’d, and commented on, but that should not entirely deprive them of the right to privacy. When entering one’s home, walking on a public street, or shopping mall, with one’s family as anyone else, they should not be exposed to ravenous wolves out for a buck.
The law states that only as an unidentified member of a crowd, can a person be photographed without permission. This law should rightfully be applied to public figures, political, as well as entertainers.
The Supreme Court, on May 24th, 1999 declared that the right exists to sue schools for sexual harassment of, and by, students, if management had done nothing about it, once reported. That’s OK. However, we ignore the fact that suing tax-supported entities is suing ourselves, who’ve had nothing to do with the act.
This is the only way Lawyers can support their firms and themselves, which is their reason for being, so they go for the green in the deepest pocket. But it’s wrong for us to permit it.
Let there be lawsuits for this sort of thing, but let it be to compel
correction, not produce loud sucking sounds of money drawn from government, insurers and our, pockets. Any judgment, and compensation to lawyers, should come from those individuals responsible for failing to correct. This less profitable route won’t go well with the sharks, but do we care?
Now ( March, 2000 ), a 23-year on-going federal sex discrimination lawsuit filed by 1,100 women, just awarded $508 million of our money, to teach government a lesson.
The basis for the lawsuit is sound: idiotic executives in government - in this case, the now-defunct U.S. Information Service, practiced lousy judgment, but why are WE paying for it? Because the idiot executives don’t have deep pockets, that’s why.
Much of the award consists of back-pay - for a job they were not hired to do, and didn’t, but where is the money-judgment against the particular executives?
We need a taxpayer lawsuit against them. Do you agree?
A federal judge ordered the government to pay more than $600,000 legal fees for failing to produce documents promptly in a lawsuit concerning the trouble-plagued Indian trust fund.
Judge Royce Lamberth said he is dismayed that taxpayers will be forced to pay for government officials and attorneys, but he is precluded from hitting them personally for as much a part of the award as possible. Do we accept this? or do we write our CongressMembers?
And I’ll wager those lucky government officials will soon be promoted to higher positions, with no thought given to their proven lack of qualification. There ought to be a law!
A killer is given life, without possibility of parole. The DA in another jurisdiction wants to follow this up with a trial for a murder in his territory, and go for the death penalty. Wouldn’t he have trouble actually getting the killer executed? Wouldn’t his case be expensive? What would “WE” gain?
Ridiculous ! ! !
I would like to see, in conjunction with a defense lawyer, the use of the lie detector, voice-stress analyzer, and narco-synthesis - all three - to qualify a felony charge for prosecution. We can’t simply agree to accept the imperfection of trials that merely pit two adversaries against each other and accept the results, unless one could find a reason to cry foul. It’s a game, and an unnecessarily expensive, and time-wasting, game.
The need for a defense, as defined in the constitution, can be adhered to, to the detriment of lawyers who profit from society’s dependence on them alone. We can make use of what technology we have, to the benefit of all of us, and let juries balance the lawyer’s commitment to anything that may work, and technology. Only YOU can make this so, with letters to your representatives, or a copy of this page.
I recall a famous Texas lawyer who had never lost a case, saying on a TV talk show years ago, that no accused need be convicted if he has a good attorney. His message was, that the purpose of trial law is the pitting of two adversaries against each other, with the accused merely being the mechanism by which to bring about the contest; any lawyer who loses a case, is by that fact alone, incompetent.
Only a society run by Lawyers could support that stupid idea.
I would like all my dedicated followers to tell me how you, who are without a law-book mentality, feel about criminal cases that consume many years of frustration felt by victims’ families, and many of OUR tax dollars. Consider killers who go through many trials over ten to fifteen years, not because he didn’t do it, but due to technicalities having nothing to do with the question of guilt, for the purpose of preventing law enforcement from becoming abusive.
Yes! Our constitution rightfully guarantees unfairness in favor of keeping control of the State, but do we really need to go so far to one extreme in fear of the opposite extreme?
Not only should we know whether a person did, in fact, commit a serious crime, we should know why?
As I said, we should use technology in conjunction with Lawyers at trial; we should also use it during investigations. We should also want to understand why the crime occurred, and Narco-synthesis seems to me to be the best way to acquire the knowledge with which to improve prevention, and correction, regardless of the fact that it is generally thought to be undependable. Lawyers are?
This subject came to me with the O.J. Simpson fiasco, and now with the question, why did an intelligent, college educated New York City cop, Justin Volpe, humiliate Abner Louima with a stick in his rectum, and mouth? And why did others either help him, or just stand by, not even trying to prevent it?
We are willing to accept Volpe’s having admitted to it, and he’s sorry, ( not that he did it, but that he was caught ) but he can’t ( won’t ) explain his motivations.
At a certain point in an investigation, when enough facts have been accumulated to “make a case,” all three forms of technological confirmation should be required to qualify for prosecution.” I reject any disagreement that includes the word “invasive.”
PS: Not until we replace egos, and melodrama with truth-checking technology in the courtroom should we allow TV.
I suggest the national and state high courts enlarge their organizations to put more sense into our system. Every ballot initiative should be evaluated and passed on before admission to the ballot. Too many are in need of revision. See my idea on official semanticists. The savings, and decreased waiting periods for new cases would make it a profitable move.
Fingerprinting children to make it easy to identify the stolen, or dead, and airlines fighting terrorism by requiring photo-identification are said to threaten freedom. Are the fearful over-reacting?
Having your kid stolen or killed is highly unlikely, so let’s not get so
excited that we give Big Brother and Sister more power over
us. Right?
Those who fear fingerprinting our kids and having all soldier’s DNA
on the record are not in control of the child within. I can see no threat
of a police state in either, and one hell of a lot of benefit.
As for the court’s decision (October 2003) that requiring every prisoner to submit his DNA so we would have it on record for future crimes, is an infringement of his rights, *Horsepucky*!
There could be no more intelligent thing for us to do than keep up with technology with an up-to-date inventory of DNA of the convicted, just as we are permitted to do with fingerprints. I don’t see a difference between taking fingerprints, and taking DNA; they’re both from our bodies, without physical harm. The judiciary many-times goes too far when interpreting the intent of the constitution.
The Lawyer for a young man convicted of a savage murder while possibly under the influence of voluntarily ingested drugs, or alcohol, is asking a jury to not kill him, but show him mercy by putting him in a cage, like an animal, for life.
Why is this kid asking to be locked in a building of cages, for possibly fifty years, living a life without redeeming value, with no chance of ever contributing to society, raping or being raped by other inmates, degraded each and every day till the end of his time above the earth?
The lawyer wants this kid to live this kind of life because he was a nice kid who went on a rampage and had an unfortunate life. This is the horsepucky defense lawyers deliver, trying their best not be known as having lost a case.
A quick bullet when the kid isn’t looking would be a lot more humane. Actually, our customarily slow procedure of appeals and backtracking, taking him from his cell to the execution chamber and back when the Governor calls, over and over again, until appeals run out and he finally gets the execution he will feel relieved to get, is the most appropriate punishment for his own brutality, but what an idiotic society we are to think that more than three years in a cage is humane.
PS: I’m referring only to those cases where guilt of the act is beyond question; a “candy bar” defense, should not stop it.
And now we have the David Westerfield case, in my neighborhood, where his Lawyer, having failed to get a promise from the prosecutor not to go for the death sentence if the defendant told them where he had placed the child’s corpse, continued the trial, flagellating witnesses, and denigrating testimony. Both he and the prosecutor behaved as if the defendant had not, in no uncertain terms, confessed, and would produce the body, per the belief that the Constitution demands it.
The decision? Death!
Now there will be ten to fifteen years of appeals, and two to three million tax-dollars spent, and still there will be no execution. So Westerfield will sit in prison for the rest of his life. That should have been the sentence. Even if it would have displeased the child’s parents.
Killing a man does not subject him to capitol punishment if CP refers to punishment itself; a person has to exist to comprehend that he has been punished - If you’re dead, you don’t know it, so you won’t comprehend it.
Capitol punishment in this country - though unintended - takes the form of sentencing the convicted to death, then putting him through the higher-court review demanded by law, and the unending appeals made by the defense attorney in support of his or her conviction that CP is uncivilized; Lawyer’s humanistic actions cause Governors to stop executions - many times in mid-process - repeatedly, until the convicted, who has become a victim to our legal system that is designed to protect his constitutional rights, longs to be put our of his misery. It’s great for a movie, but in reality is ridiculous.
Capitol punishment is intended to warn people away from murder, and for us to ultimately kill anyone who does not heed that warning. It in no way, is punishment; a person needs to exist to perceive he has been punished by having “lost his life.” Unless he has found himself in Hell, he must be in Heaven where he can’t conceivably think he had been punished. Not if you believe in Heaven as a reward for having lead a good corporeal life. So he’s dead! Non-existent, and can’t perceive that he had lost his life, though he saw it coming, and coming, and coming, until he had finally been gifted with peace.
We need to be told, and to believe it will happen, that if convicted of murder we will be given the ultimate punishment of a pain so horrendous that you would not intentionally kill. But we don’t do it right.
If we are to punish people for taking a life, then let it be a punishment that the person will *feel* he had been punished, and recalls the pain of it. Otherwise, we make our form of punishment foolish. If we cannot maintain a policy of true punishment in the form of a slow
agonizing death, with lots of pain, and witnesses to make it “civilized”, then we should do away with the death penalty. . . If “punishment” is the intent.
We can, however, fit-in with other nations less civilized and great as we, who had done away with killing killers long ago. We can gather in a room, with lots of witnesses, to make it humane, and have three people simultaneously, spray acid on the eardrums, vocal cords, and eyes of the convicted. Then turn him free, or, if no one offers to take care of him, put him on a “prison island to live out his life with others in the same quandary. Now *that* would be, “Capitol Punishment” = The Ultimate!, which is why, in my imagination, If I were to want to destroy a person for hurting my feelings, I would not reward him by killing him and giving him peace, I would use the acid I keep in my medicine cabinet for just such an opportunity.
( Kidding!)
The only reason anyone would commit first-degree murder would be that he believed he would escape discovery, but even a person considering murder, knowing that “Ridgeway punishment” would follow conviction at midnight of the fifth day, would not fail to realize that his success at deception was not guaranteed.
Do you know of anyone who would chance it?
The death penalty is a reward to those who’s existence is, in the scheme of American life, meaningless, Death is a gift of “life“ to the self-declared worthless, and many young blacks and browns in the ghettos don’t feel threatened even by a guaranteed CP, which they see as liberation from a life in the form of death, to death in the form of life.
Execution should not be a penalty given the convicted, but an act on society’s part to rid ourselves of a disease; a parasite; a lousy rat fink.
I have spoken!
To me, three years in a cage should be enough. If longer than that is the only thing that can settle the psyche of those involved, then kill him! If you can’t do that because his crime was not that serious, then why are you putting him in a cage? To punish him! So do it! Punish him. But let‘s have him cover the costs.
We should have a place for convicted felons to serve out sentences that pretty-much take their meaningful lives away, and leave them very little chance of a life when they get out. I think of the movie with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, who were released from prison at ages 66 and 58, having been successful train robbers until thirty years before confinement.
They both tried many trades, like dishwasher, waiter, and like that, but the only thing they knew how to do was rob trains. So they eventually, in the face of failure to meld in, did it, right into Mexico, where the Federales were waiting. Very funny! But what else did the justice administration and legislature think they would do? If not trains, then banks, or . . . We have lots of released felons facing a life of failure and despair; it should not be so, in a civilized society.
Solution? Far from a town, a “Felon’s Island,” In the middle of a lake, within a wide circle of barricade that would contain many, many, sharks, and cutting stakes to rip apart any escape-vessels. Outside this circle would be anti-swimming cutting tools. Along the entire shore would be electronics to espy movement, and issue a warning to security.
This place would be walled in and guarded, but would be constructed to allow productivity, such as all the jobs our businesses are turning over to India, Mexico, etc. ( I hate to take it from them, because I realize we share the globe with them, and they need work too, but….)
The prisoners would produce income from business activities giving them experiences that would place them in jobs immediately on release. Many of them with experiences would set up businesses or classes, and those with academic teaching experience could raise the level of education among the population. We now have custody policies that simply store people; let’s instead improve them, and prepare them for eventual social value, while they pay for their keep.
( I hope I don’t have to actually write what it would do for state and federal budgets.)
Let’s face it! This idea wont’ get very far; nothing will help. The USA is like a Mashugina* restaurant. But here it is.
(*) Discombobulated, confused, crazy, uncoordinated, ill-informed, self-willed personnel, and unqualified management.
I have spoken, again!
By the way, put this idea together with my “Pedophile City” idea, and we’ll eliminate unemployment forever.
In October, 1999, the Toshiba Company agreed to pay lawyers over a billion bucks to withdraw from a class action lawsuit that actually had no basis; no one had experienced an injury from a fault no one was aware of, or had much of a chance to experience.
Lawyers have been going berserk with such extraordinary attacks for the past several years, and it has to stop. We all pay for it in higher costs, and will, as lawyers find more victims, pay much, much more, for everything.
We must ask - no, demand from our lawmakers legislation that prohibits class action lawsuits from being filed on behalf of any person who has not personally filed a complaint, where they were not first approached by a lawyer or his/her representative to file the suit. And that actual injuries have been experienced by each of the complainants from the identical cause. That’ll do it!
See the following web site for more on the subject of society being:
< IMG SRC="/pictures/whiteball.gif"> Over-lawyered
I think liability for personal behavior that was intentional, should not be insurable. By law!
550,000 + of us have a CongressMember representing our community. So a half-million people within a small area of St. Louis, Missouri, and a half-million within a small area of Kansas City, MO have their own CongressMembers; all states have many reps in the House all seeking benefits for their own particular constituents.
Why not have *all* voters in Missouri elect, at large, the number of Reps produced by dividing exactly 500,000 into the total number of adults in the state, all of them representing the very same constituency?
It is appropriate for us to have district representation in state Legislatures, but at the national level, I see no reason for it. Representatives should run for election from the entire state, with the winners, regardless of where they live, representing the people of the entire state. Naturally, they’ll split up the state’s problems to manage them for full coverage.
The people of each state should be represented in the national legislature; 2 Senators, and whatever number of House members, relative to population, each of them protecting our state’s interests without district chauvinism.
The result?
* No more Gerrymandering!!!!!!
* Benefits minorities.
WE INVITE YOUR COMMENTS. But please be civil.
What is your opinion of this web site?
© 1997 burtonridgeway@yahoo.com
A better way to secure our benefits:
Social Security
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Another idea on:
Taxation
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“Political leaders everywhere have come to understand that to govern they must learn how to act . . . who are we really voting for? The self-possessed character who projects dignity, exemplary morals, and enough forthright courage to lead us through war and depression, or the person who is simply good at creating a counterfeit with the help of professional coaching, executive tailoring, and that the whole armory of pretense that the groomed president can now employ? Are we allowed anymore to know what is going on, not merely in the candidate’s facial expression and his choice of a suit, but also in his head? Unfortunately. . . This is something we are not told until the auditioning ends and he is securely in office. . . As with many actors, any resemblance between the man and the role is purely coincidental.”
Arthur Miller, playwright.
A proposed end to this spectacle we tolerate
”The FECMA Conspiracy.”
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Who’s body is it, anyway?:
Abortion
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We need a better approach than:
"A War on Drugs"
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Our kids are in trouble:
Public Education
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Are we destined to go on and on about the right of an
individual to own an arsenal?
Guns and the 2nd amendment
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Is it really a threat?
A National ID Card
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The solution, finally!:
Paying for Health Care
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Our cities are terrible!
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Proposed changes in the Constitution
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A commentary on miscellaneous issues and questions:
Misc.
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Rev./Rab./Fr. Burton
at the pulpit
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On Near-east problems
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For your funny bone:
Thoughts too minor for serious people
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