I lived in Chile while Pinochet was running the joint, and he wasn't right wing, except when compared to a hard leftist. He was all for building government housing interfering in everything he could etc. He came up with plan after plan to help the poor, and his style was like socialism's maiden aunt, with some nasty secret police activity on the side. If he's right wing for using several Chicago economists to revamp his economic system, then China is right wing for liberalizing their economy. I'm afraid that the only real difference between 'right wing' and 'left wing' dictators is their allegiances; you can barely tell one from the other, but if they aligned with the Soviets they were left, and with the USA they were right.

Originally 'right wing' meant monarchist, which while not a dictatorship per se, usually is in effect. Any king needs a bunch of ministers and officers too; the difference between the Tsar and his secret police and Stalin and his NKVD is barely perceptible to the naked eye, but there's your right wing and left wing dictatorships. It's the problem with using so many stupid labels for a continuum that doesn't fit on a straight line anyway.

Silly human, it's still the Republican's fault! The city is just going bankrupt as a new method of union-busting. It's all a scam to frighten the union into giving in! Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket!

If it's okay to admit you don't know, then why demand that all believe? A demand for an unquestionable dogma is not scientific, nor is the use of shifting definitions in arguments. If you define evolution as "changes in animal species" then you'll find nobody, not even a 6k-year creationist, who'll disagree. Everyone agrees that species have changed over time. If you define evolution as it is forced upon us all as a new religion, then you run into more problems with belief. I disbelieve evolutionary theories for the same reason I disbelieve environmental alarmism: the command that I am required to believe. A billion PhDs do not grant the right to demand absolute belief from others.

It's not the unknowns that are irritating. It's the smug demand that we all must believe without evidence--we must have faith that the unknowns will become known, the gaps will be filled, just trust us, WE'RE SCIENTISTS, high priests of the new religion, and you will believe or be mocked and marginalized and never work in this university again! Evolutionists are the new Spanish Inquisition, with only the ability to fire and ostracize unbelievers, at least for now.

In point of fact there is no evidence that supports Darwinian evolution; it's the reason Gould came up with punctuated equilibrium because the slow steady change over time via mutation and natural selection is not supported by any evidence of any kind. Speculation is not evidence. I would be much more likely to listen to evolutionary preachers if they would stop screaming "shut up! the science is settled! how dare you question the ultimate truth INFIDEL DEFILER!"

All legislation is legislated morality. Morality really means a rough consensus of what a society considers right and wrong--it changes over time. Once upon a time women baring their ankles or legs or wearing makeup was considered immoral and only a prostitute would THINK of doing such a thing. Walk into almost any church and you'll see makeup and knee-length skirts. Some women will wear hose and some will not--actual bare legs. Immoral! Morality is mutable, but virtue is not; a woman wearing a knee-length skirt and too much makeup, or even (Heaven forfend!) a bikini, may be completely chaste. The morality provides at most a clue to the underlying virtue. VIRTUE cannot be legislated, it must be freely chosen.

The 'socialist' label bugs me too, mainly because it's too broad. It's like saying 'Christians.' Many factions within. I think Dr. Sowell is quite correct that the closest approximation of the current Democratic Party is fascism--they agree with the fascists on just about everything. That is not to say Nazis, who had that weird theosophist racist theory saddled on top of fascism. There are plenty of theosophist Liberals, but they generally don't buy the Atlantean theory of race that was so important to Nazism. Fascists in both Italy and Spain were not nice people, but they're skim milk socialists, with relatively minor body counts. Fascists are the right of the left, but still well left of republicans/Republicans in general.

Romney is not running for Savior. The purse strings are, and have always been controlled from Congress. The reason why the Senate won't pass a budget is to keep the House from fixing anything. Personally I think the House should ignore the law too, but they're holding to it so they can point their fingers at the Dems and hopefully win this thing in Nov. At which point they have their chance, if the Repubs get both houses. The president could help or hurt at that point; Obama hurt, Romney help. But the presidency is neither a kingship nor imperial office. The change that is needed MUST come from the people, and that means the House, Senate and the state legislatures and governorships, the mayors, county supervisors, etc.

They appear as "crude, unmannered bullies void of arguments and full of fear and loathing" because that's what they are. The petite-fascists have nothing to sell but hatred and resentment; every one of their arguments is about sticking it to somebody more than anything else. 'Fairness' isn't about equity or equality, but hurting those who have unfair advantages, which helps nobody. How does it make my life any better that a guy who was driving a Cadillac now drives a Chevy? I'm happy with my Kia Soul, and it doesn't bother me in the slightest to see more expensive cars all around me. How does it hurt me? I'd rather have a Jeep Rubicon, and I will again someday. Meanwhile why hate those who have what I want? Resentment is a waste.

A couple more for you: It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. (The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses) I am not angry–except perhaps for a moment before I come to my senses–with a man who trips me up by accident; I am angry with a man who tries to trip me up even if he does not succeed. (Mere Christianity)