Actually, a large percentage of the opposition is highly educated. My husband is an electrical engineer with a MSEE. Those degrees are difficult to earn and his work stands out. I have a BS plus 50 hours. I can quote large portions of the Constitution and can list all 27 amendments in a matter of seconds. My degree is in business, where I learned what actually works--and what our government is espousing is not it. I've owned my own (very successful) business, too. We are "bootstrap" people who have earned our own way. Nobody handed things to us and we have gone without--for many years, in fact. But we had a goal to make something of ourselves. Through hard work and diligence, my husband and I now owe nothing but our house payment and we consistently give to those in need. The difference is, mikeyn759, that we are able to discern who is actually in need and who is in desire of a handout. That's the way things used to be when churches and charities were in charge. Then the government took over. We resent having our freedoms stripped away without representation. You can argue that we HAVE representation, but the truth is--if they refuse to listen to us, we no longer have representation.

If we stay this course, you will one day awake to a country that is markedly different than the one you are now privileged to live in. And you will wonder where we went wrong. Your kind will continue to hide your heads in the sand and blame people who tried to correct it. This thing is far bigger than you realize. It is not about healthcare. There are much simpler solutions for that and most Americans (including tea partiers) are open to those ideas.

I've found that there are basically three types of progressives/liberals: those who cannot take care or themselves or want a handout, those who want to exploit that group, and those who are too naive/uninformed to believe the truth.

The interesting thing here is how this bug seems to hit and miss. I teach in a larger district. My school has had huge numbers of absences. Absences in my classes ranged between 5-11 students, although they are now tapering off. Most of these students were absent for 3-7 school days. Several have been told that they had the swine flu--others just assumed. And several have had a hard time getting well and have said it was a "bad sick". Across town, another school in our district has had few absences. Our town has seen at least one death (with pre-existing conditions). From what I've observed, I don't doubt that this is a bad flu---but aren't they all?

I suppose that we will hear differing opinions from differing sources. Odds are that most who receive the H1N1 flu shot will be fine. Still, there lingers the question of it's side effects 30 years ago. They were pretty severe. The main point is, however, that as citizens of a free country, we should have the freedom to choose whether or not we want to take this shot. We are the one who runs the risk either way.

Wow, that is really sad. I didn't see the report, but that's even more reason to avoid the vaccine. It may be impotent in fighting newer versions...

Yeah, he was being sarcastic. I've seen other posts from him. He's an intelligent thinker who "gets" what is going on in our country right now.

Wow. Makes you wonder what country we live in....

On a medical note....I recently took the Type A (seasonal) flu shot. Visiting with the nurse who gave it, I remarked that I had no intention of receiving the H1N1 vaccination. The answer given to me, in a hushed voice, was: "Don't take it--I most certainly will not. Wait to see what it does first. There are no guarantees that it's safe. The swine flu vaccine given in the 1970s killed more people than did the flu it was supposed to prevent."

True. Anybody who has read the constitution knows that control of education was intended to be at the state and local level.

Clarify, please read my post below. I'm not sure exactly what you expect of me. I HAVE challenged the state union. When they mocked us and told us to join up in order to fight, I refused. They knew (as did I), that they would take my money and silence me. I REFUSE to give them my financial support in order to try to effect change from the inside. One of the greatest ways to cripple an out of control union is to take away their funding (and I don't know if you've ever seen how high dues are, but they are not insignificant). Meanwhile, my students spend at least a portion of their day sans indoctrination. Do I try to indoctrinate with a conservative bias? No, I don't. I am very conservative, but to do so would violate one of the very principles on which conservatives stand. So, how do I challenge the unions? I have done so verbally, I have done so by deed (and non-deed), and I have done so by refusing to teach things that I know to be false. When dealing with matters of government, we look to founding fathers and political philosophers from the past and the great words of wisdom and caution that they gave us. We discuss the reasoning in these. It is amazing to watch them sort through these.

I used to work in banking. In security training, we were not taught how to recognize counterfeit money, but instead were taught how to recognize authentic currency. When we knew what "the real thing" looked like, it was easy to spot counterfeit. The same principle applies here.

Thank you Old Tom. As to your military service, I do thank you for your commitment and dedication to the safety and security of our nation. My father was career military and I grew up in that environment. It is one for which I have great respect.

Something similar happened in one of the schools I taught in--teachers became livid with how they were being duped and were financing politics with which they strongly disagreed. It created such a mass exodus from the union that they sent a union rep to the school and called a special meeting with us to find out why we were leaving. In a condescending manner, the rep told us that the answer was not in leaving the union (and taking our money with us), but in staying and fighting. She told us that we should become active and effect change from the inside. We told her, collectively, that we would be happy to give the union our money when their priorities were back in order. Of course, we knew that wouldn't happen.