Most problems are best solved privately, not through government. There's a problem of discourtesy in the world, which is best handled through social norms, which are indispensable. But you wouldn't want the government to be mandating courtesy.

I started to read as obsessively about Star Wars as I once did about Kant - and still do about behavioral economics and behavioral psychology.

Catholicism is a wide tent in terms of political and legal positions. We could have nine Catholics on the Supreme Court and a great deal of diversity toward the law.

My friend jewelry designer Courtney Crangi has been obsessed with Star Wars all her life and has seen the movies 150 times. When we first started talking about it, I was amazed that her knowledge made mine - which was even then pretty impressive - seem pathetic. And I think there are a couple of reasons for this. One is that the leader of the rebellion is Princess Leia. American theatergoers had never seen a princess like that. She's not a delicate flower, she's not passive, she's often the only one who has a clue.

Government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action.

It is even possible that desirable redistribution is more likely to occur through climate change policy than otherwise, or to be accomplished more effectively through climate policy than through direct foreign aid.

Probably, if we looked at Da Vinci or Michelangelo with care, we'd see a historical particularity that the work is not treated as having. It's certainly true of Shakespeare.