"This is Drugs. This is Free Speech on Drugs. Any Questions?"

It is utterly irrelevant, to me, that many Right-Wingers -- particularly of the religious sort -- consider the Constitution an inconvenience and do not understand the concept of freedom of speech. Evidently, from them, we can expect nothing better.

They babble some nonsense about "God's law" trumping "man's law." But what they mean is, THEIR conception of "God's law." In this irrational lack of anything approaching godly humility, they and the Taliban are two peas in a pod. And, like their Islamist allies (whom they only pretend are their enemies), these Christianist fanatics are beyond reason. They can only be contained, and dealt with as firmly and resolutely as possible.

What we must do is reason with with those supposedly sane folks who call themselves "centrist" or "bipatrisan" (the newest euphemism for "centrist") who don't seem to understand free speech, either.

Free speech means being able to say what you think without fear of governmental persecution. It does NOT mean that everybody has to agree with you, or that -- as if it were all some sort of schoolyard game -- the first person to speak up gets to say what he or she wants, but nobody else can comment on what they've said except to agree with them. The First Amendment protects your right to speak. It does NOT protect your imagined "right" to shut up everyone who disagrees with you.

Freedom of religion is yet another concept neither Right-Wingers nor many "bipartisan centrists" seem to grasp.

You have the right to live according to your own religious beliefs. You do NOT have the right to force your beliefs on others, or to try to make them behave according to your beliefs.

Why is this so hard for the Wingnuts to understand? The answer is that they are intellectually dishonest. They DO understand, but they don't want to admit it.

And why not? Because then all the "bipartisan" folks will know what liars they are, and the game will be over.

It is time to stop putting up with cowardly confusion from the press or from "bipartisan" politicians. They depend upon us for their jobs. If they refuse to deal in the truth, then we should fire them and send them packing.

There is NO Constitutional right to force others to pay you. That would be theft, and the very idea is ridiculous.

No one who cannot demonstrate even so much as an eighth-grade-level understanding of the Constitution should even be eligible for public office. Nor should any applicant for a position in the media be considered for a job if they cannot demonstrate at least this very minimal level of qualification.

Above all else, we must insist that people stop pretending they don't understand the truth when, in fact, they would be idiots not to. Most of these people are not idiots, they are merely liars. Dishonesty seems to be their drug of choice. They've gotten hopelessly hooked -- and it's time, now, for the rest of us to effect an intervention.

We can't very well stop the lunacy in the Middle East if we can't even stop it here.