The problem with saying that it'll take a decade to produce an oil is that the argument it was used over 10 years ago when they were debating it then. If we had chosen to allow drilling back then, we would be able to use the oil now and reap the benefits of it now.

I also don't understand why people say gas will only go down by pennies. Wouldn't oil be worth less if we had more of it based on the rules of supply and demand? The speculators will also see that the future of our oil will be better if we can rely less on foreign oil and more on domestic oil, and that will also lower the price of oil.

While I believe in theory socialism is really great, I have to side with capitalism. Capitalist societies seem to have very powerful economies. The U.S. has only been a country for 232 years, and has become a superpower. One huge reason is because of the great freedom, but capitalism has definitely helped. The GDP of the U.S. far exceeds that of any other individual country.

People like to say that capitalism doesn't work well because of greed. I'll agree that is one of the negative points of capitalism, but it's also one of the positive ones as well. In capitalistic societies, companies compete in a free market. They are of course greedy, but because of greed they fight to gain more customers. Competition almost always benefits the consumer because they are reaping the benefits of having amazing products or services.

Honestly I believe Socialism is better in theory. How could you go wrong with getting pretty much everything you need? I'd love for the government to provide me with all the necessities in life. Sadly in Anarchy their is no law or order, and chaos would ensue.

Great job, I agree with you fully. I've got another quote to add, also by Jefferson, "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

I think it is a great show and it brings light to a lot of issues. I don't agree with them on everything, but for the most part I do.

In theory, the best form of government is Communism. In a communist society everyone is equal under the law. Everyone gets everything they need: a job, food, money, etc. The government can provide everything for the people, which in theory is all a great idea.

The only reason it doesn't work is because of human nature. Humans naturally want to be greater then their fellow man. They are also greedy and corrupt. It is also very difficult for the government to keep on providing services for the people indefinitely. These are only a couple reasons why Communism is doomed to fail.

The main argument for why a pirate would win is because pirates have guns. What people fail to realize is that you can't shoot what you can't see. A group of ninjas could easily sneak on a pirate ship and kill them all before anyone could realize that the ninjas were on board. The only chance a pirate would have is if they somehow knew the attack was coming.

Ninjas are also way cooler in my opinion. You might see a pirate having all the girls and fun, but when will you just plain SEE a ninja? Ninjas also rely on strategy and stealth. Pirates rely on brute force and blowing people up with cannons. That strategy doesn't take much effort to do, unlike the ninja way.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -George Santayana

While a lot of things in science can't necessarily be "proven", evolution and other theories have a lot of strong evidence to support them. A scientific theory is not like other theories. Gravity is considered a theory. It can't be proven to be 100% true, but there is clearly enough evidence that support it for it to be taken as truth.

Evolution is in the same boat. There are some undeniable evidence of evolution that exists. We have seen species adapt to the environment and change over time. You can't deny that part of evolution. I wish people would stop assuming that a scientific theory means that its a way that someone thinks and has no real evidence.

I can't think of any real reason why we still have our troops over there. The countries in Europe have there own military to use in case of an attack. Their is no real imminent threat of attack or anything that would justify having troops over their. It costs us a lot of money to keep troops in foreign nations. We also are spreading our forces out way too much and don't have nearly enough to defend our own country.

I don't believe in the death penalty at all, even in the case of homicide. The 8th amendment says " Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." I consider death to be a cruel punishment. I do think we should punish criminals for what they do, but not with death.

Death is considered to be the ultimate punishment for a crime. I can somewhat understand the argument that murderers deserve death because they actually took someone's life, but how can you justify murder on someone who hasn't even committed murder themselves.

The United States is supposed to be a civilized country and

above the use of horrible act of torture. Shouldn't we also be above the use of murder as a punishment? How are we any better then they are if we murder them, especially when they didn't even murder anyone?

Not to condescend any other beliefs, but I consider my opinion to be a bit more sensible, because I believe in a compromise. We should devote our resources into discovering a replacement for oil as fuel as much as we can. While we are doing this, we should remove the drilling restrictions so that the pain at the pump can be eased until we find a viable alternative.

You can argue that it will barely lower gas prices, but it shows a lack of understanding about how speculation works. The drilling will increase our domestic oil supply, which will decrease our high foreign dependence. They will notice this is happening and the price will decrease, since the outlook will be more positive with us being able to have a higher amount of domestic oil. In 1982 and 1983, when gas was very cheap, we imported only 28% of our oi. Now we import at least 60% of our oil.

We definitely need an alternative to oil, which isn't a fossil fuel. In the mean time we should relieve some of the pain at the pump and allow offshore drilling.

I consider myself to be a Christian. I'm not a hardcore Christian by any means, but I do believe in God. I also believe science has taught us a lot about the world and that the evidence it gives us on a lot of things, like natural selection/evolution and gravity, are true. I don't get why people think that just because you are a certain religion means you can only believe what it says, and nothing said by any other religion or by science.

The Mac is like a tricycle. It will never fall on it's side. Nobody dies on a Mac, you always have steady speed and it does not let you customize so you don't ruin it. Anyone can drive a Mac

The PC is like a motorcycle. It has unlimited choices. It's hard to drive, but if you learn how to do it, you'll easily reach 150 mph in a few seconds. Many people die in them because it's hard to handle. You can customize it anyway you like. Only people capable of driving transmission at insane speeds with nothing to protect them from falling manage to see it's full potential. The rest of the people die out due to natural selection or quit and buy Macs.

I'll admit it makes me a bit biased, but I'm a gamer and all my games work great on my PC. Most of my games don't have a Mac version.

Definition of militia according to Princeton's WordNet: civilians trained as soldiers but not part of the regular army.

The first part of the second amendment (and the only part you cite) says "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state." This basically says an army of civilians trained to like soldiers, but not actual soldiers, is necessary for our security. It's true, we should have civilians trained in the art of using weapons there for our security, instead of only relying on the police force or military our government provides us with.

The second part of the second amendment (the part you don't cite) says "The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." This part says clear as day that we as people, have the right to not just keep our arms, but to also bear or use them. This goes hand in hand with the first part because a militia of citizens can't be armed without this second part.

If you read some quotes from the founding fathers, then you can see for yourselves just how they felt about owning guns.

"The Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms." - Samuel Adams

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." -Thomas Jefferson

"A free people ought to be armed." - George Washington

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -Thomas Jefferson

How could you possibly be ok with these things seeing through your clothes? First of all it's just plain creepy. Another thing is that it could easily be abuses and we could be seeing these pictures being leaked.

This is also just another useless security measure. None of these measures have been shown to really increase airport security. All it does is create inconveniences for people and causes them to barely make it to their flights or even miss them altogether.

Every time the government interferes with a program originally run by the free market, the quality of the program decreases. Before the government started to interfere with health care, the U.S. had a health care system that was the envy of the world. It was cheap, and for those who couldn't pay for it the doctors would still see them regardless or private organizations were willing to help out.

Now that the government is interfering with health care, we have seen insurance rates and prices skyrocket and they say the only solution is more government interference. The only solution is to have the government back off completely and allow the free market to return to controlling health care and we will see the quality increase dramatically.

Gun control laws simply don't work. Just look at the violent crime rates of areas with strict gun control laws, such as Washington D.C. and the U.K. (both of which have gun bans). Then compare it to areas with less gun control laws, such as Texas and Arizona (where concealed carry permits are fairly easy to obtain). The difference is huge because criminals are far less likely to commit a crime if they think that the victim could be armed.

Their was also a study (I don't have the link handy) that showed that the majority of violent crimes involving guns, the gun that was used by the criminal was obtained illegally. That's what criminals do, they break the law. If someone is really going to commit a crime with a gun, then why would they choose to obey any gun control laws?

I believe that Thomas Jefferson said it best when he said, "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

Prohibition has been unsuccessful many times in history, just look at what happened during alcohol prohibition. It causes crime to go up because of the fact that it is illegal. The black market profits go way up because you can't legally obtain it, which causes violent crime to increase because of the existence of the black market. Prohibiting drugs also makes it "forbidden fruit" and taboo, which is a big reason a high number of teenagers and young adults use drugs.

Doing drugs is a victimless crime and it should be a person's choice what they put in their own body, not the government's choice.