Ahoy CG, the spinning spheres aren't concentric, it's just a sphere of denser liquid spinning within a less dense liquid. However, because some of the energy from the center will be lost as heat less than 100% will be used to impart motion to those slightly further away. You an also look at it from the outside and say that even though the denser material will tend to hold together it will also be dragging against the less dense and losing energy to it (as heat and motion). The fact that the liquid rotates around the axis slower as the distance from the center increases does mimic concentric spheres in some ways except a graph if the rpm vs distance would be smooth instead of stepped.

It is easy, I guess, for a constituent to write to his Congresscritter, although who actually writes and sends messages on actual physical media any more? People may also not know that ever since the anthrax scares some years ago all mail (letters and packages) destined for the legislative offices is opened and inspected for contaminants - resulting in a terrific delay in delivery. I don't think postcards suffer the same fate.

I have also heard that:
- a physical letter is weighted as representing the opinion of a large number of constituents
- a hand written physical letter counts more than a typed one because it's not a form letter
- a phone call to the office counts as the opinion of many constituents but I don't know how it ranks against letters.
- a fax counts less than a letter
- an email counts less than fax

I had heard that some congresscritters don't count emails at all because so many of them are generated by web sites. See, for example, how DownsizeDC.org and gunowners.org (GOA) both make it very, very easy for a constituent to send a msg that goes through the official's contact-me web page. Those web pages were initially designed to ensure real people were sending messages (as opposed to any group with 1 clever member who can generate hundreds of thousands of emails). But clever and persistent programmers designed systems that automate sending messages through the official web contact forms.

Without regard to the method of contact, this statement is troubling in its truthiness," if a politician's mail is running largely for or against something the politicians usually follow their constituents". That sounds great, especially when the majority agrees with ME, but in reality that describes a democracy. I'd rather live under a benevolent dictator than a democracy! If only we could all sleep tight with the knowledge that our elected federal servants were fighting tooth and nail every day to protect the Constitution. It's not perfect but it's lightyears ahead of anything that came before it, or since as far as I know. In our real world, the one that Objectvism demands we recognize, the federal House and Senate started breaking their oaths to defend the Constitution beginning with Congressional Session #1. For anyone who's interested and doesn't know the story, do a web search on Davey Crockett's run for re-election. A prominent farmer in his district put the fear of Zeus into him for one of the votes he cast.

The only reason "progressives" are in charge is that most "conservatives" in positions of power are anti-freedom on social issues and ineffectual compromisers on economic issues (witness Obamacare). This is not likely to change even if a Republican wins the White House this year.

A "conservative that closely matches our views" on what? Prosecuting victimless crimes? Outlawing gay marriage? Prohibiting abortion? Prayer in public schools? Supporting endless wars?

To say nothing of the fact that most of these "conservatives" sell out to the left at the first opportunity. Five years after Republicans re-took the House (and thus the purse strings) Obamacare is still alive and funded.

Are these the people we really want to rely on, and vote for, to preserve what's left of our freedom? At least third parties give us a means of protest and a place to go when both "major" parties betray our principles and our trust.

"Why?"
I don't know why they do they do. They give the appearance of representing people who are sacred and confused and willing to give up their money and rights to a gov't that assuages their fears.

There's a lot of interesting stuff here. I wish I had a diagram of the concentric spheres of spinning liquid of different densities being disrupted by a thin shaft.

The only part I have a significantly different take on is I think it's easy for the average citizen to write her congressman and senator in an intelligible way and that if a politician's mail is running largely for or against something the politicians usually follow their constituents.

Why?

"A Libertarian is justified in agreeing to incremental improvements in law and policy,"
Yes. Just keeping nominal gov't spending constant year-to-year would be a huge coup.

I suppose I am being taken over by my intense dislike of hillary

"None of the 3 remaining Democratic candidates want a smaller less intrusive government."
The short answer is the Republicans (unless Rand Paul gets the nomination) are worse.

What a comparison. You keep on restricting your thinking to the candidates that the statists want and you will get the enslavement you earn.

I just think that we all will be treated better by him than Hillary

Stop making excuses for Trump's unethical actions.
Trump has proven he will use government power unethically. Trump is scum, period. He has proven that he can't be trusted with power on behalf of others.
Vote for Trump and expect to be treated just like the private property owners he unethically acted to destroy.

He stood to benefit from the immoral law, true. But the law should be eliminated, instead of the supreme court validating the ability of communities to take private property.

I think we are all guilty of using government immoralities to our advantage. The government is into so many things, like using eminent domain to build roads that we all drive on, like developing drugs with tax money that we use (and dont even know about). What a mess. Trump was on the cutting edge of using immoral eminent domain laws, but i still say he would be better than Hillary.

Trump proves himself to be a looter with his use of the unethical law. He initiated the process to STEAL the land from an owner who did not want to sell at the price Trump offered using the power of the state. Trump could have negotiated in good faith with the seller and accepted the free market result, He did not.
THis is exactly what you can expect from the arrogant, hubrist, looter HRM Trump.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men vote for evil.

You might get your wish relative to Trump. I just read a news story pumping his attempt to influence one of the NJ government bodies to take over some old lady's house . Eventually the government lost the case anyway.

But the problem is that the government tried to sieze the property with the eminent domain laws (which are the real intrusion on private property). Trump did try to USE the law to his benefit, but the problem is not trump, but the law itself.

Hopefully you.

You are spot on! Most who call themselves conservative are really NEOCONS (big government, over-use of the military and support the growth of the Security State). In addition they also lean towards govt partnering with big business (crony-capitalism/market socialism).

Using labels accurately means that "true" conservatives are really Classical Liberals and NEOCONs and Liberal/Progressives are really the ones leading us towards the Brave New World of Huxley or 1984, etc. of Orwell.

Scary thought as to just how out of touch most Americans are as to their true political leanings!

just to add one more tidbit...
there will NEVER be a candidate that a voter will agree with 100% on every issue no matter what party i agree with conservatives on some issues and libertarians on other issues..... the lib isn't going to win anything third party right now so my vote will go to a conservative .... you need to win an election to bring change.... and at this point in history progressives need to be taken down and taken down hard.....
i would vote libertarian IF you show me one that has a chance of winning ..... as long as a progressive is in charge... we ALL lose

Catch 22. You demand that the 3rd party become a success or you will continue to vote for the evil statist party. They can't become successful BECAUSE you continue to ignore your principles and vote for evil statists. The statist party has rigged the election PROCESS so no 3rd party can succeed while conservatives support the supposed lesser evil. YOU and others like you who continue to ignore history, ignore reality of 30 years of Republican betrayal, are the reason no 3rd party succeeds. ONLY when conservative voters accept that their GOP votes are responsible for the expansion of the state and vote based on pro-liberty principles en mass consistently for the third party candidates will there be any viable 3rd party.
If you want liberty you have the choice: vote for the third party against the statists, or band together to stop the statists by force.