if I'm boring anyone. I don't like having to set out the same facts over and over again either. It would be nice if a couple of them stuck.

If you contend that it is irrelevant who instigates and finances a widespread protest movement that is in opposition to our government, that is friggin' unbelievable. Not that such protests should be stopped, but it is relevant.

If a conservative march was found to be taking money and support from white supremacists, it would be the only topic of discussion in the media and elsewhere, and the entire movement would be utterly discredited.

I can't believe I have to waste time arguing the merits of capitalism and individual rights over collectivism and totalitarianism. The fact that you disregard F. A. Hayek, an economics and social philosophy teacher at the London School of Economics, and co-winner of the 1974 Nobel Prize in Economics,* is significant. Bet you've heard of Keynes.

And Hayek not being on the reading list at many modern schools of economics shouldn't surprise you any more than it does me.

Recommended reading: "The Road To Serfdom." Get a recent edition with the updated prefaces. If you really want philosophical and economic arguments, this is a good place to start.

As for Norway and others, if you think a mixed-economy kludge floating somewhere between freedom and slavery is the way to run a country, more power to you. I notice you don't have a lot of interest in living there. I prefer that our own nation doesn't end up there, or beyond, which is where the Left in this country is trying to push us.

I suspect--no evidence--that the political dog's breakfast generated by parliamentary systems with multiple parties all over the spectrum are what keep socialists--or anyone else--from obtaining the power they really would like.

The parties in Norway (and I have no idea of their politics. Sometimes the names can be misleading):

Progress Party
Socialist Left
Labour
Conservative
Christian People
Agrarians
Liberal Left

Sometimes I wonder what America would have been like with a parliament. Sure, there would be more communists in government, but there might be more libertarians too.

*Whatever the hell a Nobel Prize counts for any more.