Hawkins makes some good points, but he missed a big one: our failed educational system. Our high tech society doesn't have much use for people who are unskilled and barely literate. Those people are doomed to poverty. Bust the teacher's unions, and privatize education.. put the public schools out of business!

Have we learned nothing from our experience in Vietnam? The incremental escalation of attacks on the North was a dismal failure as a military strategy- it only gave the enemy time to adapt, improvise, and overcome. The Powell doctrine of overwhelming force should have taught our politicians once, for all that, once you are committed to military action, you make an all out effort to destroy the enemy. If you aren't serious enough for that, then stand down.

He was kidding....!!

Well said!!

There's another important point in here that goes unnoticed... The concept of corporations as "persons" is a concept that came about during the debate many years ago concerning the taxation of corporations by government. Businesses argued that corporations were simply legal entities- not actually citizens subject to income tax. In response, the court created a definition of corporations as persons that has stood to this day. I don't think that those who argue against the "personhood" of corporations have thought all the through the implications of their position. If businesses were to again be considered merely legal entities, they would no longer be subject to income tax.

Ironic that an evidently non-religious person such as yourself would invoke the concept of "evil"... thought that was just a stick used by religious conservatives to beat people in line..

Don't replace... repeal. Health insurance is none of government's business

This is the dumbest thing I have heard in some time!! People, as you know, come in all shapes and sizes. I happen to be 6'4", and according to some charts, my 230 lb body weight makes me "obese". Really?!! At the recommended weight of 185 lbs, I would be practically a human skeleton, with little strength or energy to perform daily tasks.. First of all, we need to drop the term obesity- it's shock value is long lost due to overuse. Yes, many people are overweight; not so many are actually obese. Obesity is a severe, imminently life threatening condition. Second, we need to stop trying to coerce, bribe, or threaten those whose physical conditions or lifestyles do not meet favorably with our expectations.

umm... how about industry leaders and business owners running industry? And property owners , who pay taxes, owning property? I hope you aren't suggesting that government can run things better. Government control is the problem. Government's job is... to govern. And keep their noses out of everything else.

Massachusetts is now so far removed from its colonial roots it will never find its way back. The greedy, grasping monarchy of 18th century Britain has only been replaced with an even greedier state government that is nothing more than a mechanism for collecting revenue from the rest of the state and feeding it into the city of Boston in the form of water and sewer rate relief, subsidies to the MBTA, and sops to the union thugs that have a stranglehold on construction in the city- think Big Dig. Corrupt, greedy, tone deaf and uncaring. That's why I moved to NH!!