...this administration is not going to tolerate manipulation. We expect our consumers to be treated fairly(emphasis mine).

Whether one is discussing gay marriage or polygamy, we're ultimately talking about issues that drill deep down to the holy of holies of individual liberty and you are calling the Ninth Amendment of the US Constitution into order. The original colonies of English settlers all had very different relgious beliefs but coexisted because there was an understanding of boundaries--and that's what it still comes down to.

First we must begin with a clear definition of liberty and here it is: As individuals, we are free to pursue our own vision of happiness, provided that this pursuit does not infringe upon the life or liberty of any other citizen.

As I write this, I am one week past my review of Brokeback Mountain and into the third episode of the Showtime series The L-Word about lesbians in LA and these cultural expressions, along with shows like Will & Grace have done much to bring homosexuality into the mainstream, although it has been there all along. (Did you know that the 15th President of the United States was most likely a homosexual?)

There are factors to consider here--the public and the private. Publicly, the Ninth Amendment preserves the rights of determining who gets marriage certificates and the like to the people and the states, respectively.

Privately, these issues come down the nature of your soul. If you believe that any action human beings can take against one another can change the nature of God's love, then while you may have read your New Testament and memorized the parables and teachings of Jesus, you have not yet heard with your inner ear and your Third Eye, what the Son of Man was saying to the Children of God.

If the peacemakers are the blessed among us, then what does that say about those who would stand in the way of the happiness of consenting adults, wagging a finger and chucking yard stones into brittle glass?

For those who understand what lies beyod the metaphoric symbol G-O-D, it is readily apparent that we as individuals, communities, cities, states, countries, civilizations, and species cannot divert, divest, dilute, or dissolve the love of God once it has been turned on like a light in a dark room. And no book, voice, or symbol of state will ever capture or reproduce the majesty of divinity in the simplistic terms of time and space.

The main problem in the world today is an utter lack of mysticism in religious thinking and a plethora of ethical nonsense being bartered as civic duty.

Now honestly, don't you think we have enough work to do in our own minds and hearts to be worrying about what consenting adults do to each other outside the boundary of our lives and property?

To combat socialism Bismarck put through between 1833 and 1889 a program for social security far beyond anything known in other countries. It included compulsory insurance for workers against old age, sickness, accident and incapacity, and though organized by the State it was financed by employers and employees. It cannot be said that it stopped the rise of the Social Democrats or the trade unions, but it did have a profound influence on the working class in that it gradually made them value security over political freedom and caused them to see in the State, however conservative, a benefactor and a protector. Hitler, as we shall see, took full advantage of this state of mind. (p 96)

Q You never stop talking about freedom, and I appreciate that. But while I listen to you talk about freedom, I see you assert your right to tap my telephone, to arrest me and hold me without charges, to try to preclude me from breathing clean air and drinking clean water and eating safe food. If I were a woman, you'd like to restrict my opportunity to make a choice and decision about whether I can abort a pregnancy on my own behalf. You are --

THE PRESIDENT: I'm not your favorite guy. Go ahead. (Laughter and applause.) Go on, what's your question?

Q Okay, I don't have a question. What I wanted to say to you is that I — in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency, by the Senate, and --

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: No, wait a sec — let him speak.

Q And I would hope — I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration, and I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself inside yourself. And I also want to say I really appreciate the courtesy of allowing me to speak what I'm saying to you right now. That is part of what this country is about.

THE PRESIDENT: It is, yes. (Applause.)

Q And I know that this doesn't come welcome to most of the people in this room, but I do appreciate that.

THE PRESIDENT: Appreciate --

Q I don't have a question, but I just wanted to make that comment to you.

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate it, thank you. Let me --

Q Can I ask a question?

THE PRESIDENT: I'm going to start off with what you first said, if you don't mind, you said that I tap your phones — I think that's what you said. You tapped your phone — I tapped your phones. Yes. No, that's right. Yes, no, let me finish.

I'd like to describe that decision I made about protecting this country. You can come to whatever conclusion you want. The conclusion is I'm not going to apologize for what I did on the terrorist surveillance program, and I'll tell you why. We were accused in Washington, D.C. of not connecting the dots, that we didn't do everything we could to protect you or others from the attack. And so I called in the people responsible for helping to protect the American people and the homeland. I said, is there anything more we could do.

And there — out of this national — NSA came the recommendation that it would make sense for us to listen to a call outside the country, inside the country from al Qaeda or suspected al Qaeda in order to have real-time information from which to possibly prevent an attack. I thought that made sense, so long as it was constitutional. Now, you may not agree with the constitutional assessment given to me by lawyers — and we've got plenty of them in Washington — but they made this assessment that it was constitutional for me to make that decision.

I then, sir, took that decision to members of the United States Congress from both political parties and briefed them on the decision that was made in order to protect the American people. And so members of both parties, both chambers, were fully aware of a program intended to know whether or not al Qaeda was calling in or calling out of the country. It seems like — to make sense, if we're at war, we ought to be using tools necessary within the Constitution, on a very limited basis, a program that's reviewed constantly to protect us.

Now, you and I have a different — of agreement on what is needed to be protected. But you said, would I apologize for that? The answer — answer is, absolutely not. (Applause.)

The President's job is to speak as often as possible about peace while acting as an agent for the military and their hardware manufacturers.