We're still free individuals unless Bush keeps legislating away our rights. Which are not his to take.

I look at the "Wards of the State" issue a bit differently. Originally, people had families and extended families and neighbors. When disaster happened, families and neighbors stepped in to help. Your barn burn down? Neighbors arrived to help raise a new one. The family has disintegrated (not totally for all but totally for a lot of people) and the idea of neighbors helping neighbors went out almost a century ago. So the State steps up to help. Unfortunately, there are too many people who try to make a profit off others' misfortunes and then bureaucrats who don't know what the hell they're doing. Incompetence and bottom lines drive everything. It should be a simple matter of helping a person back on their feet and watch them then walk on their own. Then there are the ones who think the world owes them a living and get on the dole and never get off even if they can.