It's true that most people find it far more comfortable to trust an authority than to have their faith questioned.

President Johnson put destroyers in harm's way in the Tonkin Gulf not only once, but several times, with the, with a lot of his people hoping that it would lead to a confrontation and claiming that it had. And could have resulted in the lost of many lives in the course of it.

If monarchy is corrupting - and it is - wait till you see what overt empire does to us.

In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago.

For an American to be patriotic is to be loyal to the principles of our Constitution, and the First Amendment. The truth is that the policies of the government is sometimes in conflict with that. In our country, patriotism should not be defined as obedience to an authority.

We were young, we were foolish, we were arrogant, but we were right.

Look, all administrations, all governments lie, all officials lie and nothing they say is to be believed. That's a pretty good rule.