I like that you've put some thought into your opinions. You make some good points. We disagree for a number of reasons. I’m not going to go point by point because my reply is too long already but I’ll address a few.

On the subject of states’s rights, historically, he’s correct. Most regulation was and should be handled by the state. It keeps the regulatory structure smaller and more responsive to the voters. By moving the regulation infrastructure to the federal level we've created a monstrosity that sucks up over a third of the GDP and funnels it through 500 odd elected officials. That's a recipe for corruption. One of the reasons we've got so much corporate influence in politics is because this system encourages it. It gives large corporations a single large bureaucracy to work with.

If the states handled their own regulation we'd have more test cases. We'd be able to see what works and what doesn't. You say that some people can't afford to move. That may be true but enough can that it becomes a factor. Look at the large number of people that started moving out of California because of their high taxes.

On public schools, If the majority of people in Oklahoma are stupid enough to mandate creationism in the public schools, so what? My kids go to public school. They've been taught many inaccuracies. When I was a child in grade school they were still teaching that Christopher Columbus sailed to prove that the world was flat. My kids were thought that Abraham Lincoln fought the Civil War to free the slaves.

When we talk about what they learned at school I try to correct the inaccuracies. More importantly, I try to teach my children not to believe anything they're told even by me. They need to think about it, do their own research and come to their own conclusions. I don't care if the school teaches creationism. It's easy to correct. The school can't brainwash my kids. The kids you have to worry about are the one's whose parents are doing the brainwashing. You can’t fix that without restricting people’s basic freedom to teach their children their own beliefs.

Even that situation is a temporary problem. With the widespread use of the internet, even those kids are being exposed to more viewpoints. That's why religion is such a small factor to the youth of today. In a generation, the religious influence in America will cease to be a problem.

Now let’s talk about the FDA. You feel that without it, there would be no control as if people have no way of keeping themselves informed without a national bureaucracy watching out for them. I take nutritional supplements for a number of age related issues. I only take something if there are peer reviewed scientific studies that indicate that there is an actual benefit. Since most of the supplements are categorized as food not as drugs, the FDA cannot regulate them as drugs. They'd like to. Do I want them to? Hell no! I feel there are plenty of sources of information so I can make an informed decision myself. If the FDA did start regulating nutritional supplements I think the drug companies would influence the FDA to remove supplements that compete with their drugs. I think they would do more to restrict my informed choices than any level of protection they provide.

And what about the FDA's failures? Do you know what the most dangerous over the counter medicine is? Tylenol. Does the FDA warn you about that? Well, yes. But not until January of 2011 decades after the dangers were known.

What about the potentially lifesaving treatments that are unavailable because the FDA hasn't approved them? If I'm dying and there's a chance that something may prolong my life, shouldn't I and my doctor be the ones making that choice? Do I really need to be protected from potential side effects when I'm definitely going to die without the treatment?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are a lot of downsides to centralized control. The armed FDA raid of Rawsome Foods in California is one example. The drug war you mentioned is another. The violation of privacy rights by the federal government is another. The corrupting corporate influence in government is another.

You may be right that the system we have might be better than one where the states have more control. I don’t think so. I think that overall the states could do a better job in most cases than our current centralized system. We'll probably never know for certain because I see no way of ever reining in the federal bureaucracy.