America is simultaneously the most attractive and most repulsive place on the planet. It is most loved and most hated.

In reality, at the end of World War II, America imposed democracy at the point of a bayonet on Japan and Germany, and it has proved a resounding success in both countries. The problem with liberals is that they never give bayonets a chance.

Obama gets his identity and his ideology from his father.

I'm an immigrant to the U.S., and I've constantly been thinking about America both from the inside and from the outside. And I've come to believe that we're living at a critical time when the American Dream is in jeopardy and this American Era which began after World War II might be winding down.

Christianity enhanced the notion of political and social accountability by providing a new model: that of servant leadership. In ancient Greece and Rome no one would have dreamed of considering political leaders anyone's servants. The job of the leader was to lead. But Christ invented the notion that the way to lead is by serving the needs of others, especially those who are the most needy.

In the Sixties, there was a big resistance to the Vietnam War. People began reinterpreting all American history as a series of misadventures and crimes and oppressions visited upon the innocent, the poor, the defenseless, the minorities, and so on. This created a new narrative in America. Let's call it, "America the inexcusable." And this narrative has been drummed into the minds of our young people. A whole generation of Americans has been taught that theirs is a bad country. And it's then very difficult for them to figure out how one can one be a good citizen in a bad country.

...Slavery appears such a relatively mild business that one begins to wonder why Frederick Douglass and so many others ever tried to escape.