Why does an iPhone cost only a couple hundred dollars? Because, as the stage performer Mike Daisey depicted in an arresting one-man show called 'The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,' Apple's shiniest products are made by a shadowy company in China called Foxconn.

You want to defend citizenship? Don't persecute or isolate those without papers. Just live like a citizen. That'd be a first-class way to be American.

Six decades ago, as Mao's Communists seized power, the question in Washington was, 'Who lost China?' Now, as his capitalist descendants stand astride the world stage and Washington worries about decline, it seems to be, 'Who lost America?'

The strongest streak in the American character is a fierce pragmatism that mistrust blind ideology of every stripe and insists on finding what really works.

True patriots believe that freedom from responsibility is selfishness, freedom from sacrifice is cowardice, freedom from tolerance is prejudice, freedom from stewardship is exploitation, and freedom from compassion is cruelty.

A basic assumption shapes most Americans’ mindset about labor: the belief that the death of unions isn’t my problem because I’m not in a union. That assumption is wrong. Even if you aren’t a member, your pay is influenced by the strength or weakness of organized labor. The presence of unions sets off a wage race to the top. Their absence sets off a race to the bottom.

As it stands now, those of us who are lucky enough to be citizens by birth don't have to do much. Very little is asked of us.