OW,

Many of my Brit friends really struggle with the "freedom of speech" thing. They profess to understand it and the superficially do but they can't really grasp the full significance of it. They don't understand it's the building block of the US. It's the first amendment for a reason and the second amendment was not granted to "protect your home or kill animals for food on your table". The second was put in to protect against the "tyranny of goverment". They knew you would have to fight to protect the first amendment.

The journalists were given absolute protection against the government and litigation. The founders did not envision that the journalists would become tools and propagandists. They are the lowest form of life in our country. They have sold their souls for 30 pieces of silver. They knew all of the above was lies and tripe and they know that Trump is not going to destroy democracy. No single person can do that but a cabal of soulless federal politicians and bureacrats can. They need a puppet to appear to lead while they run everything. They had the perfect one in a senile old fool that couldn't pass a drivers license or basic cognitive test. Now they have one that's never gotten a primary vote for president in her career and they've propped her up as the second coming.

I think the 17th amendment was the beginning of the end for us. As you know we aren't a "democracy". We are a representative republic and the Senate was created to act as a balancing act on the will of the people vs what's best for the country. They aren't always the same and without that balance "mob rule" tends to take over. The most important thing is that we have learned we have the power of the purse and can just vote ourselves the treasury. Politicians do this all the time to curry votes and no one worries about the $37,000,000,000,000 debt we've left our kids and grandkids. That will never be paid off on the day of reckoning when the world financial community collapses because it's all just paper money and IOU's will be incredibly ugly.

I will discontinue my doom and gloom rants. It's depressing and nothing anyone can do about it.