That's good...

I can't but nod at a classical reference such as this, and your analogy is apt... more so than you may know.

Your concerns about the long-term effects of Obama's "change" are legitimate, and I hope I didn't make it seem like it wasn't. I know you have mountains of issues with even as "institutional" a program as Social Security, and far too many people today forget that SSI was once simply a "liberal" program instituted to provide for the "health and welfare" of America's older generations in addition to their established retirement plans (which back then were mainly pension funds implemented by large companies).

The actual quote (from a work I have read at least a dozen times and have no fewer than 4 translations of) is "... and eternal I will endure. All hope abandon, ye who enter here!" This quote is even more apt, since it touches on the permanence that such liberal programs and welfare institutions might maintain. When I mentioned in previous posts the "flip-flop" policies of both Jefferson and Madison at the dawn of the 19th Century, I think those are good examples of the establishment of "precedents" that might not always have been used (by later CICs) in as noble or just a purpose as those two did in making their controversial determinations.

Far too much of what a President does while in office becomes "precedent" to be followed by later Presidents, even when the circumstances and context of earlier policies, programs and actions are ignored or slanted to suit contemporary ones.

Hell... the more I write like this, the more I am beginning to think like Ryan and agree with him that Obama might just have the ability to drastically alter the face of Federal government in this nation. That's not good, is it?