George Ford Smith

Following World War II, President Truman helped produce the modern national security state by creating the Central Intelligence Agency. Only later did Truman regret what he did, as the CIA turned into a monster that could never be tamed.

America recently celebrated Independence Day, but Americans were too quick to abandon their own individual freedoms and individual sovereignty and submit to the state.

Perhaps no publication contributed more to the Colonials' drive for independence from Great Britain than Thomas Paine's pamphlet "Common Sense." But what if he had tried to get the Continental Congress to publish it, instead? The following debate might have occurred.