Lee Thomas It is always interesting to watch ones political transformation take place on the pages of either print or a blog. Michael Merrit has learned in his early years what many of us took generations to learn. That is honor, integrity and a sense of accomplishment are much more then any hand out the government could ever give one. While certainly handouts are needed and I do not advocate the removal of social safety nets from our society this generation of legislators thru decades of setting us up to fail in our schools and colleges has gone to excessive extremes in order to turn America socialist. To do so one must constantly assault the American psyche of hard work, determination, effort, and a dependence upon ones own hands and a faith in a supreme being. All of those must go. It is what every communist country takes from their citizens. It is what progressives want to take from us today....and make no mistake this is not BS I am making up. The following is taken as a direct and unedited quote from the progressive magazine. The voice of the progressive movement. Nationalism is the egg that hatches fascism. And patriotism is but the father of nationalism. Patriotism is not something to play with. It’s highly toxic. When ingested, it corrodes the rational faculties. It gulls people into believing their leaders. It masks those who benefit most from state policy. And it destroys the ability of people to get together, within the United States and across boundaries, to take on those with the most power: the multinational corporation.........Mathew Rothschild. The editor of the progressive magazine....the voice for the progressive movement. Honor? There is no honor in the progressive world it seems. Only disdain for anything that smacks of standing on your own two feet and standing proud that your an American. The old collective must go. Replaced by a new collective dictated by the state with the pretense that it is actually the people in power. Hogwash. Its just a new set of Task masters telling us what to eat, when to eat it and how much methane my cows can fart before meat is banned from the diet of Americans.