[RKC]

[QUOTE=varmint;3466683]"when people find they can vote themselves money it will be the end of the republic."

We all get to vote ourselves money by the Senators and Congressmen we elect: welfare and minimum wages are voted in by the poor; tax cuts and subsidies by the better off.

Is the Republic at an end?

I think if we look at things clearly, we see that things are fine. The rich are getting richer than at any time since the 1920's. Minorities and women can join their ranks because they now have rights and opportunities they could never have dreamed of back then. Both right-wing Christians AND gays are more tolerated than they were in the recent past (nothwithstanding the golden but false dreams of how things really were in some fanciful past).

Everybody is winning, albeit at the gradual pace that keeps any one group from winning faster by itself. Don't stop fighting for your particular group - it is that dynamic that drags the whole forward.....but once in awhile, just think hard about how far we've come in one lifetime....