[Rodebrecht]

Rights are God-given. Or Nature-given, whichever you prefer. They cannot be earned.

Thankfully, veterans have preserved them for us.

[Christian4Bush]

bump

[danielmryan]

One online commenter suggested that the taxpayers had earned the school desks, a criticism that irked Cothren. "If it weren't for the soldiers, we wouldn't have to worry about paying taxes."

That statement could almost have been made by Lt. Col. Dubois in Starship Troopers.

One of my pet theories regarding that book: The girl who said that "violence never solves anything!" was a proxy for Ayn Rand. In one of his now-published letter, Heinlein said he wanted to do for modern art what The Fountainhead did for architecture; it impressed him that much. The influence shows in the art dialogues in Stranger In A Strange Land...

...but he never had a word for Atlas Shrugged.

[Parmy]

Just took two sacks, black garbage, full of stuffed animals to the Toys R Us, where the Marines have their Toys-for-Tots boxes.

They were there in their dress blues. Sharp!

I can't appreciate our fighting men enough. I try to treat them the way we weren't when we came home 40 years ago.