MJM Picture Link

2009-06-10T21:28:00.001-07:00

2009-06-02T01:46:00.001-07:00

"We will never be through with our fight for Liberty, because their will always be people who do not want the responsibility of freedom, and the will always be people who will gladly take that responsibility away from them, for the power it brings." N. Scott Mills

"Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end." Lord Acton

"Philosophy is harmonized knowledge making a harmonious life; it is the self-discipline that lifts as to serenity and freedom. Knowledge is power, but only wisdom is Liberty." Will Durant

"Liberty has never come from Government. It is always come from the subjects of Government. The history of Liberty is the history of resistance." Woodrow Wilson

"America was established not to create wealth but to realize a vision, to realize an ideal-to discover and maintain liberty among men." Woodrow Wilson

"Individuality is the aim of all political Liberty. By leaving the citizen as much freedom of action and of being as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a free Man. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner." James Fenimore Cooper

"I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me Liberty or give me death." Patrick Henry

The basis of a democratic state is Liberty." Aristotle

"We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first Revolution. Let the word Go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.... Let every Nation know, whether it wishes as well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to ensure the survival and success of Liberty." John Fitzgerald Kennedy

"Fourscore and seven years ago our forefathers brought forth upon this Continent and New Nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all Men are Created Equal." Abraham Lincoln

"A frequent reference to fundamental principles is absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of Liberty, and keep a Government free." Benjamin Franklin

"If none were to have Liberty but those who understand it, there would not be many freed Men in the world." Lord Halifax

"If we truly cared about our children and future generations, instead of demagoging about them, we'd worry more about saving Liberty than saving Social Security." Walter Williams

"Without Liberty, Law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without Law, Liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness." James Wilson

"The object and practice of Liberty lies in the limitation of Governmental power." General Douglas MacArthur

"When the same man, or set of men, holds the sword and the purse, there is an end to Liberty." George Mason

"The main political problem is how to prevent police powers from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all struggles for Liberty." Ludwig Von Mises

"In any free society, the conflict between social conformity and individual Liberty is permanent, unsolvable, and necessary." Kathleen Morris

"My language has always been that of Liberty and humanity, and I know by experience that nothing so exults a nation as the union of these two principles, under all circumstances." Thomas Paine

"We have a solution for war. It is to expand the sphere of Liberty." Rudolph Rommel

"Few Men desire Liberty; most Men only wish for a just master." Sallust

"Liberty is an opportunity for doing good, but only so when it is also an opportunity for doing wrong." F. A. Hayek

"The argument for Liberty is not an argument against organization, which is one of the most powerful tools human reasoning can employ, but an argument against all exclusive, privilege, monopolistic organization, against the use of coercion to prevent others from doing better." F. A. Hayek

"It is seldom that any Liberty is lost all at once." David Hugh

"The true danger is when Liberty is nibbled away, for expedients and by parts.... The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

"The God that gave us life, gave us Liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but it cannot disjoin them." Thomas Jefferson

"The tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants." Thomas Jefferson

"Of Liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its existence, is unobstructed action according to our will. But Rightful Liberty is within limits drawn around us by the Equal Rights of others. And I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’, because the law is often but the Tyrants-will, and always so when it violates the Rights of an individual." Thomas Jefferson

"I would rather be exposed to the inconvenience attending too much Liberty than those attending too small degree of it." Thomas Jefferson

"A government big enough to supply you with everything you need is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.... The course of history shows that as the government grows, liberty decreases." Thomas Jefferson

"Liberty is the great parent of science and virtue; and a Nation will be great in both, in proportion as it is free." Thomas Jefferson

"The equality of the general rules of law and conduct, however, is the only kind of equality conducive to Liberty and the only equality which we can secure without destroying Liberty. Not only has Liberty nothing to do with any other sort of equality, but is even bound to produce inequality in many respects. This is the necessary result and part of the justification of individual Liberty; if the results of individual Liberty did not demonstrate that some manners of living are more successful than others, much of its case would vanish." F. A. Hayek

"Free institutions are not the property of the majority. They do not confer upon majorities’ unlimited power. The Rights of the majority are limited Rights. They are not only limited by the Constitutional guarantees but by the moral principles implied in those guarantees. The principal is that Men may not use the facilities of Liberty to impair them. No Man may invoke a Right in order to destroy it." Walter Lippmann

"Individuality is freedom lived". John Dos Pessos

"In its larger and juster meaning...a man has property in his opinions and the free communication of them...in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them. In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights." James Madison

"The right of freedom being a gift from God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave." Samuel Adams

"No Man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation." General Douglas MacArthur

"Throughout its history, America has given hope, comfort and inspiration to freedom's cause in all lands. The reservoir of goodwill and respect for America was not built-up by American arms or intrigue; it was built upon our deep dedication to the cause of human Liberty and welfare." Adlai Stevenson

"Any Man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave. Alex De Tocqueville

"Force is the antithesis of freedom, but force must be used, if only to defend against force." Thomas Sowell

"Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of Tyrants; it is the Creed slaves." William Pitt

"He who does not love solitude will not love freedom." Arthur Schopenhauer

"The world's problem is not too many people, but the lack of political and economic freedom." Julian Simons

"Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric." Thomas Sowell

"None can love freedom but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license, which never hath more scope than under Tyrants." John Milton

"There is only one basic human Right, the Right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes only one basic Human Duty, to take the consequences." P.J. O’Rourke

"Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men." Milton Friedman

"The greatest glory of a freeborn people is to transmit that freedom to their children." William Harward

A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own, which he is entitled to follow, can have no respect for the dignity of the individual, and cannot really know freedom." F. A. Hayek

"The aspiration towards freedom, is the most essentially human of all human manifestations." Eric Hoffer

"Mankind is at its best when it is most free. This will become clear if we grasp the principal of liberty is freedom of choice, which many have on their lips, but few have in their minds." Dante Alighieri

"The basic tests of freedoms are perhaps less in what we are free to do, then what we are free not to do." Eric Hoffer

"Make men wise and by that very operation you make them free. Civil Liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurp power can stand against the artillery of opinion." William Godwin

"Every device to bolster individual freedom must have as its chief purposes the impairment of the absoluteness of power. The indications are that such impairment is not brought about by strengthening the individual and pitting him against the possessors of power, but by distributing and diversifying power and by pitting one category or unit of power against another. Were power is one, the defeated individual, no matter how strong and resourceful, can have no refuge and no recourse." Eric Hoffer

"True freedom has only the power of individuals; to think for themselves, to choose for themselves, to take responsibility for the themselves, their actions and their lives." N. Scott Mills

2009-06-02T01:18:00.001-07:00

1. Liberty in all forms... economic and personal are always challenged by the self proclaimed elite, elected or not. Everyday individual liberty is under assault and a case must be made vigorously to protect it.

-Brian Cala- I have absolutely no idea who he is but I think that this is he.

2. Many have found defense of liberty a hard price to pay. While others have found it much easier to surrender to the chains of Government.

-I cannot find out who said this-

3. A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.

-Edward Abbey quotes (American Writer whose works, set primarily in the southwestern United States, reflect an uncompromising environmentalist philosophy. 1927-1989)-

4. Mankind is at its best when it is most free. This will be clear if we grasp the principle of liberty. We must recall that the basic principle is freedom of choice, which saying many have on their lips but few in their minds.

-Dante Alighieri, was an Italian poet of the Middle Ages. His central work, the Divina Commedia (originally called Commedia and later called Divina ("divine") by Boccaccio), is often considered one of the greatest literary works composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature-

5. When the government fears the people there is liberty; when the people fear the government there is tyranny.

-Thomas Jefferson-

6. The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

-Thomas Jefferson-

7. Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual

-Thomas Jefferson-

8. The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.

-Thomas Jefferson-

9. I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

-Thomas Jefferson-

10. Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside of the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States.

-Sen. Barry Goldwater (Rep. AR)-

11. Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Tolerance in the face of tyranny is no virtue.

-Sen. Barry Goldwater (Rep. AR)-

2008-11-16T19:43:00.001-08:00

About 10 bucks.

See, the country is bankrupt and capital is the amount of money that they have.

2008-09-08T01:03:00.001-07:00

If you said Brazilian..... You are WRONG. Some say that its Polish as in Polish sausage. I just say sausage.

2008-09-07T23:48:00.001-07:00

post test

2006-10-18T08:36:00.000-07:00

Democratic President John F. Kennedy in a December 14, 1962 speech at the Economic Club of New York.

2006-10-04T03:40:00.000-07:00

Never...ever stay at the Royal Taal Inn.

2006-07-09T20:01:00.000-07:00

Hate Groups Are Infiltrating the Military, Group Asserts
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By JOHN KIFNER
Published: July 7, 2006
A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines.

"We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," the group quoted a Defense Department investigator as saying in a report to be posted today on its Web site, www.splcenter.org. "That's a problem."

A Defense Department spokeswoman said officials there could not comment on the report because they had not yet seen it.

The center called on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to appoint a task force to study the problem, declare a new zero tolerance policy and strictly enforce it.

The report said that neo-Nazi groups like the National Alliance, whose founder, William Pierce, wrote "The Turner Diaries," the novel that was the inspiration and blueprint for Timothy J. McVeigh's bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, sought to enroll followers in the Army to get training for a race war.

The groups are being abetted, the report said, by pressure on recruiters, particularly for the Army, to meet quotas that are more difficult to reach because of the growing unpopularity of the war in Iraq.

The report quotes Scott Barfield, a Defense Department investigator, saying, "Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members."

Mr. Barfield said Army recruiters struggled last year to meet goals. "They don't want to make a big deal again about neo-Nazis in the military," he said, "because then parents who are already worried about their kids signing up and dying in Iraq are going to be even more reluctant about their kids enlisting if they feel they'll be exposed to gangs and white supremacists."

The 1996 crackdown on extremists came after revelations that Mr. McVeigh had espoused far-right ideas when he was in the Army and recruited two fellow soldiers to aid his bomb plot. Those revelations were followed by a furor that developed when three white paratroopers were convicted of the random slaying of a black couple in order to win tattoos and 19 others were discharged for participating in neo-Nazi activities.

The defense secretary at the time, William Perry, said the rules were meant to leave no room for racist and extremist activities within the military. But the report said Mr. Barfield, who is based at Fort Lewis, Wash., had said that he had provided evidence on 320 extremists there in the past year, but that only two had been discharged. He also said there was an online network of neo-Nazis.

"They're communicating with each other about weapons, about recruiting, about keeping their identities secret, about organizing within the military," he said. "Several of these individuals have since been deployed to combat missions in Iraq."

The report cited accounts by neo-Nazis of their infiltration of the military, including a discussion on the white supremacist Web site Stormfront. "There are others among you in the forces," one participant wrote. "You are never alone."

An article in the National Alliance magazine Resistance urged skinheads to join the Army and insist on being assigned to light infantry units.

The Southern Poverty Law Center identified the author as Steven Barry, who it said was a former Special Forces officer who was the alliance's "military unit coordinator."

"Light infantry is your branch of choice because the coming race war and the ethnic cleansing to follow will be very much an infantryman's war," he wrote. "It will be house-to-house, neighborhood-by-neighborhood until your town or city is cleared and the alien races are driven into the countryside where they can be hunted down and 'cleansed.' "

He concluded: "As a professional soldier, my goal is to fill the ranks of the United States Army with skinheads. As street brawlers, you will be useless in the coming race war. As trained infantrymen, you will join the ranks of the Aryan warrior brotherhood."

2006-05-08T08:35:00.000-07:00

Dear President Bush,

All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy. All work and no play make Mahmoud a dull boy.

Regards,
Mahmoud

2006-03-24T18:33:00.000-08:00

March 24, 2006

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

Flat Tax, Comrade
March 24, 2006

Tax reform is in the air in Beijing, so we'll throw our two renminbi in: Instead of twiddling at the edges, why doesn't the People's Republic adopt a flat tax?

Today, China's tax system -- not unlike the regimes in New York or California -- resembles a bowl of sloppy noodles. A mix of progressive personal income taxes, corporate taxes, consumption taxes, value-added taxes, property taxes . . . well, you get the idea. This week, Beijing's tax authorities announced that as of April 1, new levies will be imposed on luxury goods like yachts and golf balls, in an effort to penalize the rich and redistribute their money to the poor. Oh, and a 5% tax on wooden chopsticks too, to slow deforestation.

What a fiddle. China's newest taxes aren't going to meaningfully impact its fiscal balance, which runs around a 1.5% budget deficit. And who ever said that it was wrong to get rich? Certainly not Deng Xiaoping, who called wealth glorious, thereby firing the starting gun for China's economic miracle.

Listen closely, Comrade: a flat tax is simple. It's easy to implement. It would be easy to monitor, helping to combat rampant local corruption. It would boost tax receipts, giving more room for relief to the rural poor -- something the Party is trying to do anyway. Lower tax rates would stimulate workers to work harder, lifting productivity. And best of all, the Party could sell a flat tax as fair treatment for everyone, which it is. After all, isn't that what the People's Republic is supposed to be all about?

The political left -- meaning whatever Communist ideologues are still around -- will wail that a flat tax is some kind of sinister plot to boost the rich at the expense of the poor. But as much of the enlightened former Soviet bloc has learned, if you're really out to squeeze the rich, the best way to do it is to generate more rich people, and give them more incentive to report their income by keeping rates low.

2006-03-22T23:37:00.000-08:00

March 22, 2006

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

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Bernanke's 'Deadweight'
March 22, 2006; Page A16

Congratulations to new Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who addressed the Economic Club of New York Monday and managed to confuse the financial press about monetary policy more thoroughly than even Alan Greenspan used to.

Yesterday's papers contained acres of analysis suggesting that Mr. Bernanke had said that the current low long-term bond yields could be caused by any number of factors that could lead to either higher (or lower) short-term interest rates, and in any event meant that central bankers had to be flexible and rely on all sorts of economic indicators rather than get pinned down by one or two. Or something like that. With remarks of such studied opacity, Mr. Bernanke is well on his way to joining the central banker hall of fame.

On the other hand, we also heard his speech and think Mr. Bernanke did make news on fiscal policy. One of the evening's questioners, Columbia Business School Dean (and Journal contributor) Glenn Hubbard, pointed out that Mr. Bernanke's recent criticism of budget deficits had received wide attention. Mr. Hubbard wanted to know if the Fed chief believes it matters to economic growth how deficits are lowered -- whether by spending reductions or tax increases?

Mr. Bernanke replied that there was a "big difference" between having the deficit balanced at, say, 15% of GDP versus 25% of GDP. That difference was in the "resources" that are taken out of the private economy that could otherwise be put to productive use. He also cited Milton Friedman's famous analysis of the "deadweight loss" and "extra burden" on economic growth that often exceed the direct cost of greater government spending.

Ultimately, the Fed chief added, any answer to the question depends on how much you value the things that government would spend the money on. This is surely true. But we think we heard Mr. Bernanke saying as clearly as any central banker every will that policy makers need to appreciate there is a cost in lower economic growth and efficiency from higher taxes. This isn't a message that goes down well with a financial press that largely agrees with Robert Rubin that tax increases are urgently needed. But we thought it was a useful warning from a new Fed chairman who may be around for a while, and that our readers might even like to know about it.

2006-02-07T02:49:00.000-08:00

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

Thanksgiving News
November 23, 2005; Page A16

Judging from the opinion polls, some Americans think they have it nearly as tough as those early Pilgrims (see The Desolate Wilderness1 or And the Fair Land2). Not us. In the spirit of tomorrow's holiday, we'd like to take a respite from major policy combat and consider instead a few of the many things we're grateful for. Such as:

Eliot Spitzer's campaign for Governor. Now that the New York Attorney General is running for higher office, especially one that would make him responsible for the state's economic progress, he seems to be rethinking his Lord High Executioner reputation. This week he dropped his case against another bit player in the mutual fund timing scandal, his second retreat in a month. If we had known his candidacy would do this much to stop overzealous prosecution, we might even have encouraged him.

Proliferating pandas. We learn something new every day, and this week that included the revelation that China's pandas aren't as endangered as we thought. Thanks in part to the cash and attention of Western conservationists, the Chinese panda population has now grown to something like 1,600 from the 1980s' estimate of 1,000 or so. At this rate, the world will have to make sure Beijing doesn't begin to enforce a strict one-panda birth control policy.

Catholic schools in New Orleans. That damaged city's public schools remain closed, but at least eight of its 35 private Catholic schools are already back teaching, less than three months after Katrina. Here's a modest proposal to help that city's poorest kids: Don't reopen any of the old public schools, 102 of 117 of which were performing below the state average in any case. Make the entire city a charter and voucher testing ground, and watch the creative spirit of teachers, entrepreneurs and students start to flow.

Our friends the Mongolians. The press corps had a high old time mocking President Bush for visiting Ulan Bator this week, but Americans are lucky Mongolians aren't as cynical as journalists. Despite its small population, the country is keeping 150 of its troops in Iraq. As recent converts to democracy, Mongolians have a better appreciation for freedom's struggles than do certain Europeans we know.

Michael Doran at the NSC. The Bush Administration has not always been populated by people who support the President's foreign policy. So it's encouraging that Mr. Doran, a Middle East scholar in the mold of Princeton's Bernard Lewis, has become the National Security Council's senior director for Near East and North African affairs. He has written sagely about the "civil war" within Islam, and with any luck he might even be able to educate the career Near East analysts at CIA and the State Department.

There's much more, but you get the idea. Notwithstanding the headlines, America remains a lucky country -- lucky, most of all, to have men and women willing to fight in places like Iraq and Afghanistan for their freedom, and ours.

2005-10-20T00:12:00.000-07:00

The 49th parallel is the boundary line between the USA and Canada agree to between the USA and Great Britain on October 20, 1818.

It was also referred to as the Medicine Line by Indians since when they were scuffling with US soldiers, the soldiers wouldn't cross the line and it was like magic or medicine to the aboriginal Indians.

2005-08-19T23:02:00.000-07:00

What They Did Last Fall

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 19, 2005

By running for the U.S. Senate, Katherine Harris, Florida's former secretary of state, has stirred up some ugly memories. And that's a good thing, because those memories remain relevant. There was at least as much electoral malfeasance in 2004 as there was in 2000, even if it didn't change the outcome. And the next election may be worse.

In his recent book "Steal This Vote" - a very judicious work, despite its title - Andrew Gumbel, a U.S. correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent, provides the best overview I've seen of the 2000 Florida vote. And he documents the simple truth: "Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election."

Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida's ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore. This was true despite a host of efforts by state and local officials to suppress likely Gore votes, most notably Ms. Harris's "felon purge," which disenfranchised large numbers of valid voters.

But few Americans have heard these facts. Perhaps journalists have felt that it would be divisive to cast doubt on the Bush administration's legitimacy. If so, their tender concern for the nation's feelings has gone for naught: Cindy Sheehan's supporters are camped in Crawford, and America is more bitterly divided than ever.

Meanwhile, the whitewash of what happened in Florida in 2000 showed that election-tampering carries no penalty, and political operatives have acted accordingly. For example, in 2002 the Republican Party in New Hampshire hired a company to jam Democratic and union phone banks on Election Day.

And what about 2004?

Mr. Gumbel throws cold water on those who take the discrepancy between the exit polls and the final result as evidence of a stolen election. (I told you it's a judicious book.) He also seems, on first reading, to play down what happened in Ohio. But the theme of his book is that America has a long, bipartisan history of dirty elections.

He told me that he wasn't brushing off the serious problems in Ohio, but that "this is what American democracy typically looks like, especially in a presidential election in a battleground state that is controlled substantially by one party."

So what does U.S. democracy look like? There have been two Democratic reports on Ohio in 2004, one commissioned by Representative John Conyers Jr., the other by the Democratic National Committee.

The D.N.C. report is very cautious: "The purpose of this investigation," it declares, "was not to challenge or question the results of the election in any way." It says there is no evidence that votes were transferred away from John Kerry - but it does suggest that many potential Kerry votes were suppressed. Although the Conyers report is less cautious, it stops far short of claiming that the wrong candidate got Ohio's electoral votes.

But both reports show that votes were suppressed by long lines at polling places - lines caused by inadequate numbers of voting machines - and that these lines occurred disproportionately in areas likely to vote Democratic. Both reports also point to problems involving voters who were improperly forced to cast provisional votes, many of which were discarded.

The Conyers report goes further, highlighting the blatant partisanship of election officials. In particular, the behavior of Ohio's secretary of state, Kenneth Blackwell - who supervised the election while serving as co-chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio - makes Ms. Harris's actions in 2000 seem mild by comparison.

And then there are the election night stories. Warren County locked down its administration building and barred public observers from the vote-counting, citing an F.B.I. warning of a terrorist threat. But the F.B.I. later denied issuing any such warning. Miami County reported that voter turnout was an improbable 98.55 percent of registered voters. And so on.

We aren't going to rerun the last three elections. But what about the future?

Our current political leaders would suffer greatly if either house of Congress changed hands in 2006, or if the presidency changed hands in 2008. The lids would come off all the simmering scandals, from the selling of the Iraq war to profiteering by politically connected companies. The Republicans will be strongly tempted to make sure that they win those elections by any means necessary. And everything we've seen suggests that they will give in to that temptation.

E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com

2005-07-04T10:39:00.000-07:00

The Creator.