[BlueTrain]

Of course I have faith and I have a sort of belief system, same as you. It's just different. I also realize that sometimes I'm a little hard to follow and that what I write is not up to your academic standards. Take all this as a conversational style exchange, not as a term paper. Maybe my problem is I'm saying what I think, not what someone else said I should say. Sometimes I try to think but nothing happens.

On the other hand, I'm not sure how much faith I have in big government. I don't think it's been tested. But I also have no faith that it will get any smaller unless the country gets smaller or there are fewer people around.

To coachteet (interesting name, by the way), I see no problem with not worrying what the federal government is doing while at the same time, being worried about what the local government is doing. After all, they are two separate governments. I also worry a little about the general militarization of the police, too.

I was being a little tongue-in-cheek in my comments about slavery. I guess no one sees the irony of the way those who wrote so highly about freedom and liberty and equality owning slaves at the same time, while still putting a lot on the line for their cause. It would be asking a lot for them to rise about the age. Obviously, it was a problem they simply were unable to address. They probably hoped it would somehow go away, which sounds a lot like the communist idea of the withering away of the state. I'm not comparing them to communists, just that they didn't settle everything for all time. In fact, as far as slavery goes, it got worse.