av Lars Österman - Hufvudstadsbladet, debattsektionen, 19.1.2002. Länkar tillaggda av 100777.com

Flera insändarskribenter har ohämmat lovordat den påstådda demokratin i USA. Frågan är dock ytterst komplex.  Att folket har en i grundlagen tryggad rösträtt, och kan rösta fram ett nytt ansikte till Vita Huset vid missnöje över politiken, är i sig bara en petitess. En helt annan sak är att varken folket eller demokratin äger några medel med vilka man kan få inblick i det gråa eminensgarde som de facto styr landet genom att påverka presidentinstitutioner och dess oparlamentariskt sammansatta administration-regeringen. Detta sker i praktiken genom t.ex. rådgivare, vicerådgivare, diverse kommitteer, s.k. think tanks (CFR, TC [Trilateral Comission], Bilderberggruppen) och ett otal andra semipolitiska sällskap med en påtalat hemlig agenda.

America is such a wonderfully free country that I thoroughly understand why the Bush administration, like the Clinton administration before it, is so eager to take our freedoms and spread them across the globe. 

Without the U.S government, backwards peoples will have to labor on in their own delusions, never understanding what true liberty is all about.

I am so free. If I want to paint my house, or build a deck out back, or install a new air-conditioning system, I am free to call the building inspector and get his approval first. If I want to put a new toilet in the bathroom, I am free to buy only the low-flow toilets the government approves 

I am free to buy a property near the beach, provided the government Coastal Commission approves whatever I want to do with that property. That approval might take decades, and the final thing that I build will be what the commissioners want there, not what I want, but I am free nonetheless. I know I am free because this is America. And America is a free country - the best one in the whole darned world. If you don't like our freedoms, you should move somewhere else.

Any other questions?

Unlike those pathetic souls in other less-free and non-free countries, I am free to open my own business, provided I pay my employees the minimum salary demanded by the government, and give them overtime in the exact proportion stated by the government, and offer them breaks that conform exactly to the standards set by government. I can operate my business in complete freedom, provided that I meet every one of the hundreds of pages of air-quality standards promulgated by the state and federal governments.