Most young people have tremendous respect for older people's views.

I believe that the levels of taxation advocated by liberals render those taxes a veiled form of theft. 'Give me more than half of your honestly earned money or you will be arrested' is legalized thievery.

In attempting to understand 9/11, the first question asked by the world's elites - as exemplified by leading media and academics - was, 'What did America do to provoke such hatred?' Ten years later, the same people are still asking the same question. And it is as morally repulsive now as it was then. It was always on par with 'What did the Jews do to antagonize the Germans? Or 'What did blacks do to enrage lynch mobs?'

Until the Left took over American public education in the second half of the 20th century, it was generally excellent - look at the high level of eighth-grade exams from early in the 20th century and you will weep. The more money the Left has gotten for education - America now spends more per student than any country in the world - the worse the academic results. And the Left has removed God and dress codes from schools - with socially disastrous results.

America will nurture a new Muslim - one who can believe in Muhammad and the Quran but who abandons belief in a Shariah-based state and affirms the primary American value of individual liberty, which has not been a normative Islamic value.

That said, I have come to believe that the more committed one is to leftism, the more likely one is to become meaner.

Also, when you escape a Communist regime, you treasure liberty and you understand that as government and state expand, liberty must contract.