This is what results from the liberal "we're for the poor man" platform

A letter to Henry S. Randall, biographer of Thomas Jefferson - May 23, 1857

Distress everywhere makes the laborer mutinous and discontented, and incline him to listen to agitators who tell him that it is a monstrous iniquity that one man should have a million while another cannot get a full meal.

The day will come when in the State of New York, a multitude of people, none of whom has had more than half a breakfast or expects to have more than half a dinner, will choose a legislature. On one side is a statesman teaching patience, respect for the vested rights, strict observance of public faith. On the other is a demagogue, ranting at the tyranny of capitalists and usurists, and asking why anybody should be permitted to drink champagne and ride in a carriage while thousands of honest people are in want of necessities. Which of these candidates is likely to be preferred by a working-man who hears his children cry for bread?

...your republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid to waste by the barbarians in the twentieth century as the Roman Empire was in the fifth, with the difference that the Huns and Vandals who ravaged the Roman empire came from without; and that your Huns and Vandals will have been engendered within your own country by your own institutions. - Thomas Babington Macaulay

I can see clearly now...

I thought I'd recant this story here, it happened a few months ago.

I was on my last pair of disposable contacts (these ones had lasted me a long time, I only wear them a few times per week usually), and these contacts began to REALLY bother my eyes, to the point where I couldn't put them in without hurting.

Now, last time this happened, I had to dump something like $200+ to get a "current prescription" from an optometrist for my wife and I. Why? Apparently we've got a few nannies involved in writing laws, because there's a law "for my own good" that says "you can't buy contacts without a current prescription". Sounds like a good idea, right? Well, I had already been wearing the friggin' contacts to begin with. And I could have bought a 10 year supply if I really wanted to, but if it's July 2nd, and my one-year prescription ran out on July 1st, I need to go to an optometrist and dump $100+ per person on a contact lens exam.

And so that time my wife and I went to the eye doctor, each getting a prescription for the SAME exact contacts we were already wearing, basically wasting our time and money. I only ordered a 3 month supply (which lasts me about a year and a half because I don't wear them often), and that brings me to the time frame I was talking about in the beginning of this post. My contacts were starting to hurt, but I didn't have the $100+ each for a new exam, nor was I about to blow my money on a new exam to tell me what I already know, that my prescription is the same.

So, remembering the experience I had last time, I thought "maybe I'll call a place in Ohio, and see if I can order from there". Turns out Ohio has the same law. So I call another state, same thing, and I end up finding out that there is a federal law that forces US businesses (optometrists and other resellers of contact lenses) to verify a "current" prescription (usually 1 or 2 year) before they can sell contact lenses to someone. I try a few places online, thinking I can circumvent the law, to no avail.

So, with our nanny government pandering to doctors' special interest groups, and screwing American businesses and consuemrs, I did what any good American would do... {singing} "Oh, Canada... Our home to buy contacts..." (you have to know the Canadian national anthem for that to be funny). I google search for a Canadian company that sells contact lenses online, and find one. I go to my safe, pull out my prescription, type the information in, and order my contacts. A little while later, they show up at my door, put them in, and I can see clearly now...