<Also I need to add, just because it's annoying me now, I stated "everybody ought to have the right to own and carry a firearm of their choice" and according to my comp dictionary a "firearm" is - "fī(ə)rˌärm| noun a rifle, pistol, or other portable gun" and not a "tank" or a "nuclear weapon". >

Fair enough, and good point.. but I think you get what I was talking about - that there is a limit on the "freedom" to bear arms.

This post brings to mind an echo of an old one with a friend.. saying how "nice" religious people are the most dangerous, because they create the framework for extremism because they legitimate and preserve a destructive force (he is an atheist and very anti religion). I see parallels to your post in his statement...

I think there is a certain stigma to being actively changing things.. because often the most discernable change is effected by extremists.. but in a political sense, I think that is great.. as long as they pressure change rather than overwhelm the majority and revolutionize overnight. ..but as you say.. many moderates seem more "devoted to "order" than to justice"

I think we are lucky in Western Democracies. They (often but nor always ) give the individual the freedom to be non-conformists.. it is probably amazing how few people avail themselves of that opportunity.

Waleed Aly is on the executive committee of the Islamic Council of Victoria, with a background as a lawyer, he teaches political science at a Melbourne University. He is a very perceptive fellow who always grabs my attention. He appears often in the Media and I read a book by him called “People Like Us” which I found really interesting. Aly often writes and comments on politics. Last year he gave an interview where he said that politics is not longer the struggle of ideas and ideology. Sighting a recent Australian Federal Election, he observed a central issue was Interest Rates, which demonstrates that politics is a race between managers and managerial ideas rather than transforming social ones.; In the fight of Managerial Politics, moderates often have appeal.. and essentially begin to overlap.. the discourse on using politics to improve society seems in the fringe now. Even Obamas health reform can be seen as a exercise in Management rather than Social Transformation – especially as it was “delivered” from many angles..

What does all that have to do with freedom ? I guess I often here Freedom requires constant vigilance, action and bravery, and we don’t see those things in our leaders or our votes.

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right....