poor bargain. I also agree that Ron Paul's rhetoric on wars, and in fact on many rights issues, is properly conservative. I'm not a conservative myself, but am Independent, and I draw good ideas from wherever they come. The tricky part about Ron Paul is that his basic message is "If elected, I'll stay hands off." That works for things that Government has done too much of, but it's not so good for things Government has done too little of. Overall, I think it makes him a dangerous choice to actually consider electing, though I appreciate his voice in the discussion on certain matters, like the one you cite. An additional source of thought I might have cited, as I'm sure I've done on my blog, is the Powell Doctrine [see Wikipedia], which goes to the issue of whether there is an hour of danger or a permanent danger. Powell meant it for wars, but if you're going to have a war on drugs or terror or whatever, asking those same questions yields interesting insights, particularly for questions 2 and 5: Do we have a clear attainable objective? Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement? You might also want to read about the proposed Enemy Expatriation Act [see Wikipedia], which proposes a legal dodge to some of the issues you've discussed. Hopefully it wouldn't pass but it's always hard to say with these things. I wouldn't have expected the Patriot Act to pass, but I guess the