"We" will not be forced. Who is this "we"? You speak as if you own the whole USA.

Many of you, people of faith, believe that homosexual acts are wrong. Why should that belief of yours determine what my rights are? I don't share your faith and I reject the idea homosexuality is abnormal and homosexual acts wrong. As I have said before on Ricochet, my sexual orientation is normal and natural for me and millions of other gay people. I defend your right to live your lives as you wish; please allow me to do the same. But I can't live my life as I wish unless I have legal recognition of my relationship, as you do. Although for Christians (including gay Christians) marriage is a sacrament, marriage as a social and legal institution is not historically a religious but a secular institution. No church should be obliged to marry same-sex couples, but same-sex couples must have the right to marry, and those churches that wish to do so should have the right to marry them. Equality before the law is a basic human right and the fight for that equality is indeed a fight for civil rights.

So Cathy Ashton was charmed by a suave Iranian? Cathy Ashton would be charmed by a chipmunk in a tuxedo.

I suppose I'd laugh a little more freely if I didn't suspect that some of those held responsible for the launch failure were in the process of being tortured to death.

Mea culpa: When I wrote that Mali still had institutionalised slavery, I was confusing Mali with Mauretania - inexcuseable, because I do know the difference between those two countries. My apologies.

The rest of what I said may well be nonsense too.

I do still think it's a good thing Gaddafi has gone.

Algeria have dealt ruthlessly with Islamists over the years. The al-Quaeda group who have moved into Mali are small in number. The Tuareg rebellion has been going on for ages. The men cover their faces because they ride camels in the desert. The women don't, but are also veiled. It doesn't make them Islamists. It makes no sense at all for the Tuareg to roll over and let al-Quaeda control the territory they have been fighting for for so long.

Like Saddam, Gaddafi had to go.

And I don't take at face value *anything* that the French do or say in or about Africa. 'Perfide' is the word for them.

Maybe so. When you get rid of a dictator like Saddam or Gaddafi, you create massive instability. It's the price you pay. Except that the people who actually pay are the ones who were paying while those monsters were in power.

From what I read this morning, the Tuareg rebels (who have been in rebellion for years) are not Islamists, and are putting up a fight against al-Quaeda (for it is they, and they have been in Algeria all this time, regrouping, without us apparently being terribly bothered).

Yes, it is bad that a democratically elected government is ovetthrown by a military coup. But Mali has a long and troubled history, with slavery openly practised. The country hasn't been at peace. If the Tuareg carve out a territory for themselves, that isn't the end of the world. Having fought all these years, I can't see them just handing it over to al-Quaeda. Let's see what happens.

I think the writer of this piece is a snob. Where is the evidence (for he adduces none) that there is a positive correlation between level of education and sensible voting decisions? And anyway, who decides what's sensible? One might equally argue that our rulers are in general over-educated and lacking in common sense. As for the internet and mass media: they change the way the game is played, the most important aspect being that information that was once the preserve of the highly literate is now widely and openly available. That's a good thing. I can't speak for the US, but in general I think (and of course this is only my view) that the UK electorate has shown itself to be pretty sensible in recent years, in two ways: voting out incompetent governments, and resisting the blandishments of political extremists - which is why we are all, across party lines, so upset by George Galloway's bye-election win in Bradford West.

I don't accept we have weak policing or sentencing and I don't want to get into that discussion. This thread is about the police raiding people's homes, and people getting shot. I'm saying that in the UK the problem of innocent people getting shot by the police is far smaller. The reason, I surmise, is that your law enforcement agencies are out of control in a way that ours are not; and because so many Americans (citizens and police) have guns, more people get shot. I accept some (many?) of you believe the police have no right to raid your home in any circumstances and you have a right to shoot them if they do. I'm just saying that that means a lot of people get killed. Here, we prefer to do it differently. That's all.

In the UK if you brandish something that looks like a gun (e.g. a kid's toy gun), the police are entitled to assume it is a gun unless it's quite obvious that it isn't, and if you get shot, that's down to you. As you probably know, our police don't routinely carry firearms (a routine neighbourhood police patrol would never be armed) but guns are issued, and used, when necessary, and patrols can call for armed backup to an incident involving firearms. Every case where a gun is fired is investigated internally by the police, and if anyone is injured, even slightly, externally as well. We don't have armed cops knocking down doors and firing wildly, but if you show a gun, you may well get shot. Your gun will be held illegally - police know if guns are licensed.

See above. It's you who have a problem with trigger-happy police, not us.

It's extremely rare here for anyone to be shot dead by police. When it happens it's headline news. Police officers have been charged with murder. And searches require a warrant. It sounds like you could do with a bit more of what we have, not less.

And in every instance where a civilian is killed by a police officer, there is a full investigation by an independent review body.

Crazy, just crazy. Here in the UK, police knock down doors without warning if they need the element of surprise. If an occupant shoots at them (which rarely happens) the gun will almost certainly be held illegally. The police may be armed if they fear the occupants may be, but they won't use their weapons unless one is drawn on them. Things can get violent, but it is extremely rare that anyone is gravely injured, still less killed, in such a raid. I'm just horrified by the police behaviour you seem to be describing, and some of the reactions to it here.

I agree with UreyP3. If police act unlawfully or use excessive force or unnecessary intimidation, redress should lie through the courts. A householder should not be entitled to use force against police officers if he knows they are police, unless he has reasonable grounds for fearing imminent serious injury to someone in the house. And if the police are regularly abusing the right to enter people's homes, they will learn the error of their ways from the courts, who in an appropriate case can award punitive damages, i.e. take them to the cleaners.

A great book! I wonder if I still have a copy. If so, it may be time to re-read it. The bit I remember (I would, wouldn't I?) is him going to a club for the first time, catching two of the female bar staff snogging, and concluding that this had to be his world.