When we talk about authoritarianism, we conjure up out-of-date visions from the 1930s. But we are no more likely to do authoritarian government the way they did in the 1930s then we're likely to address or talk or do any of our other business in the way they did it in the 1930s.

I think the single most important question is how do you maximize the number of children who grow up in stable two-parent households. We know in all kinds of ways it makes a huge difference to how kids come out and we are hardening into a caste society where some kids do better in all kinds of ways because they have two parents and others don't.

We've all been wrong- I certainly have- and we should thank those who set us right. Not always fun, but always best in the end.

Democracy is not about protests. Democracy is about meetings.

Partly because of the desperate economic situation in the country, what were once the leading institutions of conservatism are constrained.

We all have more at stake in the rules of the game than we do in the outcomes of the game. When that changes, that's when you begin to lose democracy.

Why should we not expect self-designated environmental leaders to practice what they preach?