I actually do read books. Many many books. I average a couple of books a day, actually. I've read more historical books in my lifetime than I dare imagine most of the people in the comments section have read in their lifetime. My father has written countless historical books and my grandfather was a historian.

So I say with all the sincerity in the world that none of you in this comments section have an original thought in your head. You are saying nothing that William Lloyd Garrison or Thaddeus Stevens said at the start of the sectional crisis or that Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn spent decades saying. You are saying nothing that hasn't been regurgiated by The Nation or Harper's dozens of times before and always with the same slant. And after more tha n two hundred years you still seem to see why no one realizes how brilliant you are.

You know, if you and your peers were truly as smart as your noxious prose and self-righteous words make it clear, if you had the practical brilliace that your incredible vocabulary seems to indicate, you might realize that maybe taking a position that participation in the politcal process is not only beneath you but in fact all real Americans and that those who participate in the system have corrupted themselves to the point that they can't solve the problem, that you now argue that even to suggest that you are wrong is a crime itself., you might realize that the problem MIGHT not be with everybody in society who doesn't agree with your views 100 percent. I saw someone argue about the way the left finds itself adrift these days and I had to laugh. Adrift is all you and the left ever do. You're so sure of what the rest of us our doing wrong that you don't want to associate with us mere mortals. You drift because no one wants to hang out with you. You drift because you're waiting for us to realize how brilliant you are and come to you. You drift because you don't want to actually engage.

So yes I read books. I also register to vote and do so in every election, something to be clear all of you seem unwilling to commit to and are often proud not to. I participate. I get involved. What do you do because shout into the wind?