Think about it Josh, if you didn't have to pay your income tax, would you? Almost everyone would not pay it. I would not. Think about why you have to pay them - because they'll put you in jail if you don't, right? That's force. They are threatening force if you don't give them your money. This is basically theft, as anything instigated by the use of force is not consensual. You pay your taxes because of the threat to use force.

The US had it's civil war over a freaking tea tax. A tea tax! (An over-simplification, but accurate nonetheless). And now we have licenses, a pile of taxes and a massive tax code. Let's not forget, we have inflation, which is yet another hidden tax on top of everything else because it devalues the currency you already earned. The US was founded on the principles of liberty, yet today everyone puts up with all of these taxes and licenses... and they got you to believe it! They did a number on you Josh. I'm saddened by this.

Also, none of your income tax pays for things like roads and all the "basic services we take for granted." It does not. It pays the national debt. That's it. Read up on it.

I mean seriously Josh, they won if they got you to believe that someone like me is crazy. The difference between tyranny then and now is that they found a way to pull it off without most people knowing about it.

Do you think it's "good" to pay taxes? Do you think it's your duty? It isn't. You have the right to your life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. You are not obligated or are responsible for anyone else's affairs but your own. Yet, you pay taxes to help people on welfare, fight wars you may not believe in, bail out banks and wall street who deserved to fail, and pay off a national debt that you never created yourself.

Do you think they know better on how to fix the problems than you? Hahaha. They don't. They have no clue, and worse, sometimes they fully know what they are doing and how evil it is, and they do it anyway. The government now has the power to violate your rights, constitution be damned.

If you ask me, they are taking your money for things that don't even concern you at all. Do you really value the people in Iraq? Why should you? You probably can't even pronounce their names, let alone know what the money is going toward. How does giving them money to build a new iraq and take out their leader pursue your own happiness? It doesn't. In fact, it violates your right to property, and actually makes you less safe in your own country because of blow-back.

I'm sure you'd rather give your tax money to your wife who might be sick in the hospital, to your kids for college, a new car, or maybe just to invest it in gold for when the dollar becomes worthless (because it will). Things like these shoukd be your values, not some strangers on the other side of the planet.

The same principle applies to people on welfare. While it sucks that people are in really hard times, why is it your responsibility? So in the name of preventing homelessness, we should transfer the money from wealthier people to support the poor, which actually makes wealthier people poorer? Yeah, that's a great solution to creating wealth and prosperity! Where is the logic in that?!

When the money is gone from rent and food, what wealth was created in it's place? None basically. And in the meantime, you took capital away from people who earned it and could use it to produce more wealth.

Using evil to correct a problem does not bring about the good. It just brings more evil.

Hell, the reason so many people are on welfare or need food stamps is purely because the government messed things up so bad in the first place! Their "solutions" got us here, and will continue makes things even worse!

What about the debt? Why should you pay for a debt you never caused? Shouldn't your tax money go to your own debt from going to college, or taking out a business loan? Why does the nation's debt become one of your priorities for? This is absurd. So a bunch of stupid men and women in congress and senate spend more money than they actually have... and you pay for it?!

None of these things are just, and frankly, you should be opposed to them morally. It is in fact theft. I am not crazy. You are asked to be responsible for things that DO NOT CONCERN YOU at all. Our lives are complicated enough as it is, I don't need to be responsible for everyone on welfare, and financially support a war in Iraq I never wanted to fight, or pay off some debt that pure idiots caused.

The truth is, you *could* make more than enough money from taking a consensual, voluntary % out of all the business contracts in the country to pay for basic government services, like for them to protect our liberties and to have courts.

Doing this would absolutely be enough money to run government, and nobody would have to pay taxes at all. This would be 100% consensual. If you don't want your contracts backed by the courts, then you don't have to pay it. Of course, a lot of people would pay the 0.2% (as an example) to insure their contracts are lawfully upheld. If you didn't, then you're not protected and you can't use the legal government services. It's entirely fair and just. Problem solved.

What we have now is not justice, but it's theft and it's 100% immoral. I really don't think I'm wrong on this. I think they got everyone believing a lie as everything I said makes perfect sense. It doesn't sound crazy at all.

For your own learning and understanding, read something like Atlus Shrugged from Ayn Rand. She goes into pretty good introductory detail about what is good, what is evil, what is theft, etc. I guarantee your eyes will open up after reading it. Every person who desires freedom should read it.

Anyway, I'm not so crazy now, eh? There's a good deal of logically thinking behind what these people say.

If the majority wanted video surveillance in everyone's homes for their own safety to allow government to see what's going on, this is still not right. It doesn't matter if 99% of the people want. The 1% that don't want it and do not consent have their rights violated.

All the media has to do is convince 51% of the drones in the country that something is in their best interest, and that's it - 49% get their rights violated and the constitution be damned.

And let's not forget, most politicians in office don't do anything remotely close to what they said they were going to do when they are elected. Is obama really better than bush? No, he isn't.

To Powers - Too bad 99.9% of the people up for election are puppets, and the only people who actually want real change are blasted by the media machine, or dumb people who think he's stupid. The media machine is totally doing it's job right if they got you all convinced.

The entire series was set up as a way for the characters to grow past what they saw as their imperfections. It's about the growth of consciousness. The rest of it was clues and setting.

Sayid and Shannon made sense if you understand that every major character in Lost was Lost not because they crashed on an island but because they were attached to a false image of themselves. Sayid didn't get Nadia because it would have been a constant reminder of who he saw himself as- the torturer and killer. He needed to get past that and Shannon loved him regardless of his past- he would have never gotten that from Nadia.

Shannon needed to get over being the shallow slut. She had just gotten to that point when she was abruptly killed.

Likewise, Jack needed to fix something big because everything he had fixed in the past ended up more broken than before. He needed to prove to himself that he had worth beyond being his father's son [since destroying his father didn't give him that satisfaction].

Sawyer needed to get over his pain and need for vengeance but more importantly needed to learn how to trust and that he was bigger than the next con.

John Locke needed to understand that he was far more than his body.

But all of them really thought that all they needed to do to be happy was get off the Island.

But getting off the Island wasn't the panacea they thought it was because Jack quickly realized that getting himself off the Island wasn't going to help him find himself, only fixing the situation and getting everyone off the Island would.

So staying on the Island was a failure and running away from the Island was a failure. What was left? Destroying the Island so it never entered their lives! If only that would happen then everything would be perfect, right? So Jack changed his strategy trying to detonate Jughead to set everything right.

Jughead worked- Juliet said so. Because she saw that it gave the lostaways the ability to imagine life without the Island. Of course that led to another place where the lostaways still had their inner turmoil to deal with.

So staying on the Island, leaving the Island and "deconstructing" the Island resolved nothing. The lostaways were all lost in their personal dramas yet again, letting themselves be defined by their circumstances instead of using circumstances as a stage to do what they want.

Only Desmond and Eloise were fully awake in the sideways world/purgatory because they were the only ones who understood how to remember themselves thanks to the timeshifting that took place after the Hatch blew and they defined their lives by what was important to them. Eloise took a service to self path but got caught up in being famous/powerful.

On the other hand, Desmond took the service to others path by embracing the chance to be hero he couldn't be on the Island. He helped everyone to remember who they were so they could move on to the next adventures in their lives, even when it meant doing questionably moral things like running over John Locke.

Maybe this is a long way of saying it was about the characters, I'm not sure.

The problem with SVU is that the creators think the show is all about Olivia and Elliot.

Tamara Tunie and B.D Wong episodes are amazing, when they are allowed to shine.

Alex Cabot (2-5) and Casey Novak (5-9) were the centrepiece of the show, really. They had that awful Michaela McManus, Cabot back for two minutes and then Sharon Stone.

Remember the good old days where they had Angela Lansbury, Robin Williams and Cynthia Nixon come in and deliver knockout performances?

Totally agree about Sayid and Nadia. I think that the pain she recalled in him, of what he had done to her, meant that instead of simply loving her, Sayid felt compelled to love Nadia as a kind of redemptive action, to make up for what he had done to her. I think that love poisoned everything about him.

His relationship with Shannon, brief though it was, was cleaner, without baggage attached to it. And let's face it, a lot of the bile towards Sayid/Shannon came from the fact that Shannon wasn't the most likeable character. Doesn't mean Sayid couldn't have loved her. I've seen lots of people I couldn't stand happily married.

I love the irony of having almost everybody in the Pyramid sports arena (starting at 8:21 ) , a place where we are our most "alive", saluting the national himn the way we now pose our dead.
Nice creepy touch
just my 2 cents

"And does no one recall, WAYYYY back during Season 1, that the writers stated in an interview that the characters were "not in heaven or hell?" Well, I guess they didn't lie since it was "Purgatory." I call shenanigans!"

Yes, I do recall that. They weren't in purgatory at all in season 1. Or 2-5. The scenes in the 'alternate universe' in season 6 were in purgatory, but none of the other scenes were. All of the stuff on the island happened in 'reality'.

I generally agree with Jammer. As an atheist, I should be more bothered by the alternate universe resolution, but it was a fantasy show, and I can accept it on those terms. The finale overall was strong, with a big emotional heft, but having all of the alternate universe stuff being relegated to the afterlife does undercut the rest of season 6. Things like Sun (in the 'living universe') being given essentially nothing to do for over a season become bothersome.

Looking back over the whole 6 seasons, though, I still rate it as a fairly strong series.

If you don't like it, you can try to elect people who favor your view, or you can get out. Stomping your feet and complaining that everyone else is stupid for not seeing it your way just makes *you* look dumb.

It got me thinking about SO many things that they set up as though they were significant, then dropped completely. I could almost hear the writers in some scenes–

"Wow, this will be cool!"

"But what will it mean?"

"I dunno. We'll just kill somebody off to make the audience forget about it!"

Where the finale triumphs is actually feeling like it does these characters and their finales a decent service. It /felt/ right, even if it wasn't narratively satisfying on all levels.

I'd still rank Season 6 behind every previous one except maybe 3 as a whole, though. It had brilliant moments (the Richard flashback, most of the early episodes and, yes, the finale) but as a whole it just wasn't as a strong as I wanted it to be.

I did read a quote where Ron Moore said he was fairly confident the series would get renewed for a second season, but take that for what it's worth.

This movie pretty much sums up my problem with the show:

http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/05/25/lost-unanswered-questions-college-humor/