"It's also a reminder that big government liberals can be as much inclined to suppress civil liberties as small government conservatives -- or more so. " I keep hoping that the casual slander by people like Barone will cease. Conservatives have traditionally been for Constitutional Rights. From the 1850s when the Republcans were started to end slavery, to the 1964 Civil Rights Act (filibustered by Democrats), to today. This idea of Democrats projecting their own faults on others is really starting to get old. It's the same as a kleptomaniac thinking everyone is going to steal from him/her. Merely because the Democrats have fought civil rights tooth and toenail since the 1820s doesn't mean that the Republicans have.

It's ignored or not generally known that President Clinton changed the hiring rules in Federal Civil Service in 1993. He laid the groundwork for the current changing of FCS from it's professionalism and quality in 1992 to its current incompetence and political toadying. Less than half of Federal employees have the required degree for their job slots and most higher-ups were chosen for reasons other than competence. I worked for the Agriculture, Defense, and Commerce Departments. Today, I'm unhirable because I'm a white male, and worse, well-qualified. Well-qualified is now perceived as a "threat" to people who keep their jobs through affirmative action but do little or none of the actual work that their job slot is supposed to do. I was turned down more than 1500 times for race and gender by different agencies from the end of 2003 to 2012. Never mind that I was Schedule A disabled and rated as GS-4 to GS-13 in 21 specialties. I was white and male and that was the end of it. With that kind of discrimination, why would it surprise anyone that we have entire offices of the Federal government that have no competent members? There's no reason why the Feds couldn't have hired well-qualified women and minorities, but they made the deliberate choice not to. Why was that? It could have been a shining example of how everyone of any group could be hired if the government had continued to choose to hire people who had "done it right". Instead, they hired "chemists" who knew nothing of chemistry, "engineers" who had never cracked open a book on structures, "architects" that knew nothing of buildings, "foresters" who didn't know an aspen from a ponderosa, and so on. It's been a disaster. So why did they do it? Was it so that they would have a cadre of people whose continued employment depended upon the Democrats staying in power? It certainly wasn't good for the public to "waive" the requirements for job slots.

Back in the 1990s, because most college girls were trained in Feminism, and enamored of Clinton and Hollywood, it was pretty rare that they would date out side of the relative handful of those types of "bad boys" in our colleges/universities. About 10% or 20% of the men dated the women, going from bed to bed. Most guys just "did without" feminine relationships. I was no exception. I suppose I looked ok— a PB Playmate visiting from another country once tried to pick me up at work, and exchange student girls trusted me with a lot of things because I was safe, but women here wanted a Clinton treat-me-bad type. I wasn't going to "go evil" just to get dates. I was a hopeless romantic, though. So, for you conspiracy nuts out there: a couple of times I ordered a batch of 100 carnations and in the dead of night, left one at each girl's door. Most were thrilled or at least had their day brightened. But I wonder what our PC colleges of today would think of such a thing?

Unfortunately, the trades have declined. The trade schools declined when their students couldn't get loans. Starting around 1993, most trades decided they had too many people and for 20 years laid people off. Almost no apprenticeships during that period, so those skills are about to be lost because no one would hire apprentices. Naturally, the trades blame the kids, but they turned the kids away for a full generation. There has to be work for a trade to do to exist and that has drastically fallen off. Trucks have started complaining about no drivers, but it's a similar situation. They got used to have large numbers of out of work drivers to pick from and so they got lazy. Now that most truckers have retired, they are so used to getting something for nothing, that they are whining about no drivers. Used to be that a company would pay the several thousand dollar fees to train a driver with the idea that that driver would work for them. Today, the idea is they want a fully-trained driver and want to pay him/her minimum wage or just above. A person who is making minimum wage isn't going to be able to afford trade school.

There's no jobs for the graduates. The labor participation rate a month ago was less than 50%, meaning ~89 million had no jobs. Even science and technical curriculi have been mostly jobless for about 15 years when infrastructure was abandoned and free trade sent most industry out of the country. It just took the better part of 20 years for the economy to really crash, and BHO made it that much worse. The community college I got my A.S. from in 1990 charged $235 per term for tuition for 18 credit hours, or $705 for a year. This year to take 18 credits for 3 terms comes to $4698. Is college really 6 and 2/3rds better than 1990?

Why was the comment cut off without warning? The rest was "Americans whining about the slavery of their great-great-great-great grandfathers/mothers?" We have people who lived under slavery for years or decades and they moved on. What does that say about those who choose to wallow in past hatreds from a century and a half ago?

Coming from a mixed family (four continents and growing...) I'd have to say that the most race-conscious group in the U.S. are black Americans. One just doesn't see it so consistently with any other group. Those in my family... well, I find the idea of taking the events of the distant past and using it as an excuse to hate whites, asians, mexicans, etc. disgusting. If nothing else, 99%+ of the world's population was enslaved prior to the emancipations of the 1800s. Whether you called a person a serf, a slave, a coolie, a servant, or some other name, they were slaves. The idea of only one group not being able to move on is sick. I wonder what my future wife— who grew up under the slavery of communism— thinks when she sees so many black...

"execution-style"? No government executes criminals by that method. Where did Hollywood get that ridiculous idea? The Soviets and National Socialists both shot prisoners with pistols, but that type of mass murder could hardly be called "execution".

Obama grew up Sunni. While he's technically a syncretist, with his primary religions being Socialism and self-worship, his Sunni background would suggest that he will support the Baath Party of Assad, rather than the Shi'ites.

When you have two sides, both devoted to the worst kinds of evil, it's not wise to pick either one. Indeed, from a moral standpoint, neither the Syrian government nor the rebels can be supported. While it's true that we supported the Soviets in WWII vs. the National Socialists, there was a direct benefit to Britain and the U.S. by supporting the enemies of the Germans. In this case, no one can benefit from either Syria or rebels winning. We shouldn't get involved unless there is a major third faction that is not devoted to totalitarianism and islam and it's extremely unlikely that such will appear in that country.