RicktheVet,

Thankyou for your post.  I rather think we'd find we agree on so much that the rest would be miniscule.  As hard as it can be at times to tolerate the opinions of others, the very reason the USA constitution exists is because men lived under the horror of being punished by the state for their personal beliefs and opinions.  What may seem so reasonable to us can seem absurd to others, and does any of us want to have someone with a Monopoly on the Use of Force coming down on our heads, robbing us, imprisoning us, abusing us, making life difficult, because our opinion was different?

The consitution was written to give freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the rights to one's own body and what that body produced.  We respected other's autonomy and thereby guaranteed our own.  To do so, we limited the powers of government, and it was to use its power to protect its citizens from those who who prey on them, from their neighbors to a foreign invador.

If we cannot respect our neighbor's opinion which we find unreasonable, will ours be respected when others find it absurd?  To allow government to seize great power may seem ok when our opnion is the one respected, but I can assure you your opinion will one day be in conflict with those in power.  What then?   I don't believe that there are any angels among men, not even those with stunning quantities of hair and handsome faces, so they should never ever be given dictatorial powers.  I think a certian brutalized reporter and old native woman would agree with me.