we allowed the bullyboys of the republican army to go to florida and strongarm the electoral process without anything more than a weak shout of "hey!" and a rationalization of 'well, so what if bush ends up president wrongly, how much damage can he do, anyway?" frankly, we're lucky it didn't end up worse. i hate to bring up the cliche, but hitler was "democratically elected".

'Spontaneous' Republican Riot at the Florida election office, 2000:
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Key to personnel in photo:
1. Tom Pyle, policy analyst, office of House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.).
2. Garry Malphrus, majority chief counsel and staff director, House Judiciary subcommittee on criminal justice.
3. Rory Cooper, political division staff member at the National Republican Congressional Committee.
4. Kevin Smith, former House Republican conference analyst and more recently of Voter.com.
5. Steven Brophy, former aide to Sen. Fred D. Thompson (R-Tenn.), now working at the consulting firm KPMG.
6. Matt Schlapp, former chief of staff for Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), now on the Bush campaign staff in Austin.
7. Roger Morse, aide to Rep. Van Hilleary (R-Tenn.).
8. Duane Gibson, aide to Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska) of the House Resources Committee.
9. Chuck Royal, legislative assistant to Rep. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).
10. Layna McConkey, former legislative assistant to former Rep. Jim Ross Lightfoot (R-Iowa), now at Steelman Health Strategies.

So nice to see that all these good nonresident-in-Florida folks were so worked up about the Florida election, they individually decided to take a leave from their good Republican jobs and fly down on those planes Enron so kindly provided to spontaneously demonstrate.

face it; human society, like nature, puts a huge premium on sheer raw aggression. that's what we've been fighting for 10,000 years and it's not about to change just because of wishful thinking that we've defeated it.