thanks

I'm not sure about that. Maybe at the local level judges should have leeway to do what is right. At the SCOTUS level, they should be limited to determining if a law is constitutional or not. Allowing them to base decisions on morality or personal belief is what leads to narrowly decided cases. After all, what is morally right or good to one person may be unbelievably evil to another.

A big block of 3rd party voters will send a message, but we'll still end up with Obama for a 2nd term. Maybe the best we can hope for is to continue to elect conservative reps and Senators to replace the big-government advocates that are currently serving as Republicans. At least they'll be resistant to party-line votes for a Republican President's policies based on not wanting to offend or embarrass him as we often hear.

I seriously doubt whether you have any friends that are Republican, and am certain you aren't on speaking terms with anyone that admits to being associated with tea parties.

"Palin is increasingly becoming part of the establishment". I'm starting to wonder about that myself. Sarah Palin political endorsements. Why is this happening? Tea partiers and others are fighting both major political parties because they are fed up with politics-as-usual. They are tired of not having a voice in their government. Politicians (both Republican and Democrat) have demonstrated to an extreme that our wishes are not a factor in what happens in our governments. Having a politician give out endorsements like this smacks of that same attitude. We are in effect being told "I'm smarter and better informed than you, so vote for who I tell you to".

"For example, Congress should require able-bodied adults to do something productive in return for receiving benefits." Good point. Why pay (able-bodied) people to sit around watching TV, when they could be building roads or other public works projects.

The attempted exercise of free speech here in the US isn't what is putting the troops in danger. They are in danger because they are on a dangerous mission in a dangerous country. If we have to give up our rights to appease the religious zealots that are already keeping them at risk, is there really any point to us being there in the first place?