Definitions

I couldn't disagree with anything you said Kungfu. The rule of law is at the heart of civil society.

On a separate note, I really like the Horace quote in your signature:

It is not the rich man you should properly call happy, but him who knows with wisdom how to use the blessings of the gods, to endure hard poverty, and who fears dishonor worse than death, and is not afraid to die for cherished friends or fatherland."

- Horace

I've not seen that before, and frankly I can really identify with it. I have endured poverty, I do think I've acquired wisdom with my blessings, and though I fear death and certainly wouldn't want to put my life at risk unnecessarily, I do hold my honor, my friends and family, and my country as precious.

I recently read Tolstoy's Resurrection (a superb novel, I might add), and I found some of the ideas presented within quite interesting.

I quote:

"Nekhlyudov saw that all the vices which developed among the convicts---drunkenness, gambling, brutality and all the dreadful crimes committed by the inmates of the prisons, and even cannabalism itself---were neither accidents nor signs of mental or physical degeneration (as certain obtuse scientists have declared, to the satisfaction of the government) but that they were the inevitable result of the incredible delusion that one group of human beings has the right to punish another."

And later, Tolstoy writes:

"Now Nekhlyudov understood that society and order generally existed, not thanks to those legalized criminals who judge and punish other men, but ebcause in spite of their depraving influence people still pity and love one another."

I dunno, just some thoughts.

Maybe it's the Awards System that's at fault. Maybe it's time to reform the process of Appointees so that when something is earned, it is networked more efficiently and accurately. Maybe it's time to restore Principle to governance and draw some of the stacked credence away from the Principal. Thanks for making your point, Don. I haven't read much Tolstoy, only Anna Karenina; I've read more Dostoyevsky, which is why I think about the politics in society now.

I urge you to read Resurrection by Tolstoy. It's a great book. Not as good as Dostoevsky's major works, but very good in its own right. It's shorter than both Anna Karenina and War and Peace (my edition had 567 pages or so).