The strongest continuous thread in America's political tradition is skepticism about government.

According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.

Modern Americans travel light, with little philosophic baggage other than a fervent belief in their right to the pursuit of happiness.

Corporations do not pay taxes, they collect them, passing the burden to consumers as a cost of production. And corporate taxation is a feast of rent-seeking - a cornucopia of credits, exemptions and other subsidies conferred by the political class on favored, and grateful, corporations.

Government has the role of suiting people for freedom. People aren't made for freedom spontaneously. There's sort of a 19-year race between when people are born and when they become adults. And government has a role in making them, at the end of 19 years, suited to be upright, trustworthy repositories of popular sovereignty.

The First Amendment...begins with the five loveliest words in the English language: 'Congress shall make no law'.

The best use of history is as an inoculation against radical expectations, and hence against embittering disappointments.