For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men, that were most able and fit for labor and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors and victuals, clothes etc., with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And for men's wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it. Upon the point all being to have alike, and all to do alike, they thought themselves in the like condition, and one as good as another; and so, if it did not cut off those relations that God hath set amongst men, yet it did at least much diminish and take off the mutual respects that should be preserved amongst them.

And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number, for that end, only for present use (but made no division for inheritance) and ranged all boys and youth under some family. This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.

As almost everyone knows by now, the Republicans have pushed through both House and Senate a massive Medicare reform bill which has an estimated future cost of $395 billion.

Hard-line Conservatives hate it because it will increase the size of government and cost taxpayers billions.  Hard-core Liberals hate it because poor people will still have to pay something -- it's not completely free.  Many Democrats hate it because it gives President Bush a huge victory, and effectively hijacks what has always been a Democratic hobby-horse.  Some Republicans even hate it, because it gives in to the Democrats.  But many of the voters seem to like it, especially those who will be able to buy their prescription discount cards in the spring.

Yet what if the rest of it's a red herring, an elaborate masquerade?

Just a few months ago, THE big issue for the Democratic Presidental hopefuls was socialised medicine (though of course they would never have called it that).  Every single one of them came up with a different -- and equally disastrous -- plan to bring third-world medical care to the most prosperous nation on Earth. (Imagine a visit to your local hospital being exactly like a visit to the Division of Motor Vehicles office -- same swift, efficient service... same eager devotion to customer satisfaction.)  And these plans seemed to be gathering some momentum.

Suppose you wanted to derail the HELL out of that train, deflate the Democratic Presidential campaign even further, and hasten the coming split in the Democratic party?  But suppose, as a Republican, you also didn't want to annoy your base by shoveling too much taxpayer money into yet another huge government entitlement program?

You might put your name on the top Democratic issue, making every Democratic vote a polarising "damned if you do, damned if you don't" dilemma.  You might make sure that all the heavy expenditures wouldn't start until after the next election, so you have time to repeal or alter most of the measures.  Remember, when President Bush was campaigning in 2000, he promised senior citizens affordable prescription drugs, but hasn't been able to keep that promise until now.   Suppose the rest of this bill was added on just to take the health care issue away from the Democrats for the duration of the campaign season?  Oh, and as to that upcoming split in the Democratic party, Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca), the Liberal's Liberal, was heard to say "No true Democrat will vote for this bill".  Yet 11 Democrats did.  Those who didn't aren't going to look pretty during next year's elections.  Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Call me cynical. Call me crazy.  But I'm willing to bet -- not the farm, just a small wager -- that a great deal of this bill is going to see the business end of a shredder before its provisions take effect in 2006. It will have served its purpose by then.

That's the question you'd better be prepared to answer if you watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with your children tomorrow.

That's right... the raspy-voiced Harvey Fierstein will be playing Santa's other half in a pro-gay-marriage activist stunt designed to shove their agenda IN YOUR FACE and politicise Santa, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the biggest and most widely-watched parade of the year.  As Mr. Fierstein wrote in an op/ed piece in today's New York Times:

According to legend, New York lore and two major Hollywood flicks, Macy's Santa is the real deal. And tomorrow, to the delight of millions of little children (not to mention the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court), the Santa in New York's great parade will be half of a same-sex couple.

And guess who the other half will be? Me! Harvey Fierstein, nice Jewish boy from Bensonhurst, dressed in holiday finery portraying the one and only Mrs. Claus.

Won't America get a kick out of that? But what if Santa really was gay? Could there be a another Mr. Claus? Would those grinches who, as we speak, are fashioning legislation to deny marriage to gay and lesbian Americans make an exception for the jolly old soul? What has Santa ever done except bring joy and gifts to all? Just the sight of his face is enough to bring a smile to the Scroogiest of politicians. Would his gifts of love and goodwill be answered with exclusion and derision?

Who in hell gave him the right to take over a parade supposed to bring joy to children and families and turn it into his personal activism platform for a day?  If it weren't for the fringe in-your-face, screaming, outrageous, no-hold-barred activists performing stunts like this, forcing children -- other people's little children -- to confront adult issues like gay marriage in this hideous fashion, mainstream America wouldn't be quite so nervous about embracing gays in general.  This parade... Santa Claus, Christmas, holidays in general... are for the CHILDREN.  Remember them?  What gives people like Harvey Fierstein the right to sacrifice their innocence on the altar of his political agenda?

My guess and hope is that by the end of today, the parade organisers will announce that they have replaced Harvey the Flaming Wonder Activist with a nice, sweet-faced little old lady to play Mrs. Santa Claus in the parade.  Leave adult issues to adults, Mr. Fierstein... and let children be children while they can.

I'm sorry, but I just don't care all that much about Michael Jackson.

I'm not saying I don't care about his alleged victim; the innocence of children should never be taken from them. None of the media outlets I've seen, however, seem to be thinking about that at all. It's all about Michael Jackson, leading off every TV news program I've seen for the last few days, with one of two undertones prevailing: this must be a terrible ordeal for an innocent man who had a rough childhood, or what a wierd and horrible monster he is. Very few of them mention between breathless second-by-second updates that the trial has not yet even begun. They've all made up their minds already, but some of us will wait until the actual trial.  Just let me know when the verdict is in. If he's guilty, he will suffer the worst punishment known to mankind: taking Hillary Clinton's overly-strident dictation. No, his fame will be turned against him in the worst possible way: he will become the Conservative poster-boy against NAMBLA (The North American Man-Boy Love Association).

Dozens of investigators descended on his ranch and by now have set up portable toilets for themselves outside. I don't care.

He wasn't home at the time; he was in Las Vegas shooting a music video. I don't care.

He flew in on a private plane and was processed in about half an hour. I don't care.

He's 5'11" and weighs 120 pounds. I don't care.

He flew back out after posting $3 million for bail and flew back to Las Vegas. He was driven around town for a while as crowds mobbed the limo. People gathered outside his home to show the world how they refuse to believe he could ever do anything wrong. I don't care, though. I really don't.

There are so many far more interesting and vitally important news stories that are being mentioned merely in passing. President Bush was in Great Britain on the first State visit by a US President in decades. A few Marxists got together with a few pro-Terrorists and a lot of people just looking for some fun to protest against the "evil" of trying to stop the murder of innocents. The Democrats, of all people, are actually protesting the biggest increase in Medicare ever, while the AARP backs it.  Unfortunately, we'll be stuck with months of Michael Jackson coverage, as everyone even remotely connected with the case gets his or her fifteen minutes of fame. I don't want every minor detail shoved in my face every time I read a newspaper or magazine, or turn on my TV.  I just want to know about any important breaks in the case. For instance, if scientists figure out what planet Michael Jackson is from, let me know.

I almost wish he were running for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Then no one would even know who he is. 

As President Bush is visiting Great Britain, he's being protested everywhere by -- so far -- entire dozens of protesters waving signs saying "Stop the War". (Of course, the way the left-leaning media is playing up the story, it seems there are more protesters than the entire population of Western Europe.)  It's not hard to discover exactly what they want to stop -- and why. According to the group's web site, they want "to stop the war currently declared by the United States and its allies against ‘terrorism’."  I believe their "point" is that a) there is no terrorism, b) we're not fighting it, or possibly c) this war is bad, but maybe others are OK. So why would they protest the people trying to stop terrorism? Are they in favor of it?

Their web site proclaims they want to "Free Palestine", which ought to tell us where they're really coming from and who they're allied with.  Of course they want to stop us from fighting terrorism!  Their online shop -- and what web site would be complete without one these days? -- features "Palestinian flags and other solidarity items".  It also sells books about the human shields... those brave souls who swarmed to Iraq to stand up against American bombs until they realised some might actually be dropped, whereupon they swarmed just as quickly to the nearest Iraqi border.  Where were the human shields when Saddam's thugs were raping Iraqis, terrorising Iraqis, feeding Iraqis into woodchippers and experimenting with other fun torture methods?  Where were they when Saddam was dropping mustard gas on the innocent men, women and children of Halabja?  And where are the human shields protecting Israelis from Palestinian suicide bombers?  Why don't they protest Hamas and Hezbollah when they purposely kill innocent people?  What hypocrites.

As part of their protest against Bush and Blair's opposition to the murderers of innocents, they plan to splash red paint around wherever Bush goes, to symbolise the blood of people killed in the war in Iraq. Where's the red paint for the innocent victims of Saddam -- if they even make enough?  According to Iraq Body Count, a site devoted to keeping track of innocent civilians killed in Iraq, the estimate ranges between a low of 7,878 and a high of 9,708.  (I once wrote to ask them where I could find the counter for the innocent civilians killed by Saddam, but recieved no reply -- they're only interested in civilians cruelly murdered by evil Americans.)  Frankly, even their high estimate was a lazy month for Saddam, who UNICEF asserted was killing children at the rate of approximately 5,000 per month.  We've found at least that many in a single mass grave -- just one of hundreds.

The grave just outside the small village of al-Mahawil, located near the city of Hilla about 56 miles (90 km) south of Baghdad, is thought to be one of the largest discovered since the toppling of Saddam Hussein's government.
Local volunteers say the remains of up to 3,000 people had been found so far, but estimates suggest there could be as many as 15,000 buried at the site.
Hundreds of distraught Iraqis have been sifting through bones on the site, searching for identity cards or personal effects which may aid the identification of the bodies.
The remains are thought to include the bodies of political prisoners killed after a Shia Muslim uprising against Saddam in 1991, and volunteers have reported uncovering the bodies of women and children as young as 10.
Some seem to have been buried alive, according to the Associated Press news agency.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3024989.stm

These "Stop the War" people apparently want us to stop fighting against the murder of innocent people, stop working to rebuild Iraq, stop opening schools, stop feeding people, and stop helping them build a democratic government.  Aren't we just terrible?

Once again this past weekend, the Democratic Presidential hopefuls had their hopes of rising to national prominence completely drowned by a tidal wave of Hillary-worship. And they had to drink their bitter, unsweetened Kool-Aid with a smile.

Despite some private grumbling from operatives, the candidates say they didn't mind Hillary's presence one bit. "I think it's terrific she's going to be here," said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Friday. "I think it'll help draw attention to the Democratic race. I think people are reading it completely backwards."

That must have felt like biting on tin foil.

Some people are so brainwashed by the love-cult of Hillary-worship that they want her to run for President without knowing anything more about her than that she's married to a former President. These people nurse hopeful dreams that she will, as Bob Kunst (who runs a web site devoted to convincing Hillary Clinton to run for President, as if that hasn't always been her aim) says, "She's the only one who can save the Democrats".

Lynn Cutler, a veteran Iowa activist and former national party vice chairwoman, agreed. "Everyone's thrilled to see her," Cutler said. "She's a star."

I wondered what kind of "star" Hillary really is. And so I did some research on my own (an activity many Liberals seem incapable of. Watch out -- if it's a disability, they'll be claiming government benefits for it.) and found out a few things that chilled me to the bone. Turns out she's a Red star.

Some people might be willing to gloss over her 1971 summer internship for Communist Party USA lawyer Robert Treuhaft as a "college flirtation" with Communism. It was quite a change from her membership in the Young Republicans in 1965. It certainly seems more than a passing interest, though, when you examine her 1969 Wellesley College senior thesis, which praised Saul Alinsky, a Marxist activist who advocated lying low, hiding one's true agenda, getting into the system, gaining power and then striking to bring the system down. Regarding attacking the positions of one's opponents, Alinsky said, "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Sounds pretty much like her entire political career so far.

Aside from the Marxist angle, one could wonder how she got away scot-free, when she was the lawyer who drew up all the paperwork on the Whitewater land scheme. You could then follow that up with the fact that after two years of the billing records being missing while under subpoena, they were suddenly "discovered" in a closet in the White House... with Hillary's fingerprints all over them. Was anything missing or altered? We'll never know now, will we? They were the only copies; the originals had been destroyed.

While we're on the subject of fingerprints, you could wonder -- just a little -- about the apparent suicide of her aide, Vince Foster, upon the Whitewater scandal breaking out. He had been her aide even then, you see, and was as guilty as she. Records showed that he called her shortly before the suicide. The fingerprint connection is that his suicide note wasn't found until the third search of his briefcase, despite the fact that it had been torn in pieces... and had NO fingerprints on it. Who puts on gloves to write a suicide note...and then tears it up and shoves it in a briefcase while still wearing them? Interesting, isn't it? While on the Vince Foster question, you should probably wonder why police and Federal investigators were kept out of his office for two whole days while Hillary's White House staffers cleaned it out.

The sheer number of criminal investigations in which she figures prominently... then is somehow forgotten about... ought to at least give one pause. Personally, I'd love to have all the questions I've asked about her past answered fully and truthfully (with a few more explanations thrown in, like the $100,000 payout from Tyson Foods that she euphemestically labelled "futures trades", and her brother receiving $400,000 for getting convicted felons pardoned on Bill's last day in office). Of course, I'd also like to have all the White House furnishings that the Clintons looted returned or reimbursed too, but that's not likely to happen, either.

If you want more recent evidence of her anti-Americanism, how about Hillary Clinton's involvement with the World Federalist Association? In 1999, Hillary endorsed the WFA when she introduced Walter Cronkite at their meeting. The World Federalist Association aims to elevate the United Nations to world government status and empower the U.N. to enforce all international law. In 1986 they filed a lawsuit against the United States arguing that Article VI of the U.S. Constitution made the U.N. Charter as well as other U.N. treaties, the "supreme law of the land." Luckily, that was defeated in the courts three years later. But how can these Hillary supporters want a President whose aim is to reduce the sovereignty of the people of the United States in our own country and make us subservient to an international body which elevates countries like Libya to head its commission on Human Rights?

OSAMA BIN LADEN and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda--perhaps even for Mohamed Atta--according to a top secret U.S. government memorandum obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The memo, dated October 27, 2003, was sent from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller, the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was written in response to a request from the committee as part of its investigation into prewar intelligence claims made by the administration. Intelligence reporting included in the 16-page memo comes from a variety of domestic and foreign agencies, including the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. Much of the evidence is detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources. Some of it is new information obtained in custodial interviews with high-level al Qaeda terrorists and Iraqi officials, and some of it is more than a decade old. The picture that emerges is one of a history of collaboration between two of America's most determined and dangerous enemies.

CRITICS OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION have complained that Iraq-al Qaeda connections are a fantasy, trumped up by the warmongers at the White House to fit their preconceived notions about international terror; that links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden have been routinely "exaggerated" for political purposes; that hawks "cherry-picked" bits of intelligence and tendentiously presented these to the American public.

Carl Levin, a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, made those points as recently as November 9, in an appearance on "Fox News Sunday." Republicans on the committee, he complained, refuse to look at the administration's "exaggeration of intelligence."

Said Levin: "The question is whether or not they exaggerated intelligence in order to carry out their purpose, which was to make the case for going to war. Did we know, for instance, with certainty that there was any relationship between the Iraqis and the terrorists that were in Afghanistan, bin Laden? The administration said that there's a connection between those terrorist groups in Afghanistan and Iraq. Was there a basis for that?"

There was, as shown in the memo to the committee on which Levin serves. And much of the reporting comes from Clinton-era intelligence. Not that you would know this from Al Gore's recent public statements. Indeed, the former vice president claims to be privy to new "evidence" that the administration lied. In an August speech at New York University, Gore claimed: "The evidence now shows clearly that Saddam did not want to work with Osama bin Laden at all, much less give him weapons of mass destruction." Really?

Penn State recently decided to take a bold step to end music piracy on its campus.  Instead of enforcing the rules by blocking downloads, tracking the use of its own network, or punishing offenders, Penn State has decided to allow Penn State students to download all they want from the new legal version of Napster.  The school is paying Roxio, which owns Napster, an undisclosed fee.  So the way to stop illegal music downloads is to simply make it legal, and the school will absorb the cost.

Is it just me, or does this sound like an eery echo of the plan to eliminate illegal immigration not by increasing border control, tracking down illegal immigrants or punishing offenders, but by simply declaring illegal immigration... legal?  The problem with that scenario is, the government would absorb the cost... and the government is us. So what does this teach the Penn State students or immigrants about following our rules and obeying our laws?  Not too much, I'm thinking.

The proposed Border Security and Immigration Improvement Act (BSIIA) would basically function as an amnesty for, as stated in section 4, almost any alien who entered the country illegally before 1 August 2003.  It would grant them the status of "non-immigrant alien" as long as they haven't been convicted of any felonies, and either have a job, or are the spouse or child of anyone with a job.  It's pretty much a cold slap in the face of all the legal immigrants who've ever entered the country by filling out the proper forms, obeying the laws, following the rules, and becoming law-abiding citizens.  It sends a clear message: there is no criminal act we cannot ignore.  The most shocking thing about it is that it was proposed by Senator John McCain (R-Az), a man not normally known for endorsing either criminal acts or Liberal ideas.

We can further reduce the number of criminals in this country overnight by simply declaring their crimes legal!  If only we'd declared shoplifting legal, for instance, we wouldn't have been subjected to months of riveting footage of Winona Ryder sitting in a courtroom while talking heads and pundits discussed her outfits.  We can declare murder legal, and never have to hear about Scott Peterson again... it won't matter who killed his wife and son.  And as soon as rape is declared legal, Kobe Bryant can go back to shooting hoops without fear of being accused of anything... or having entire web pages devoted to his trial coverage.

What is the point of even having laws if, when people disobey them, you simply change those laws to accomodate them?  And don't tell me that illegal immigration is a "victimless" crime... every taxpaying American is a victim.