When poor and ordinary Americans who commit crimes are prosecuted and imprisoned, that is Justice. When the same thing is done to Washington elites, that is Ugly Retribution.

Arming domestic police forces with paramilitary weaponry will ensure their systematic use even in the absence of a terrorist attack on US soil; they will simply find other, increasingly permissive uses for those weapons.

There is thus little or no ability for an internet user to know when they are being covertly propagandized by their government, which is precisely what makes it so appealing to intelligence agencies, so powerful, and so dangerous.

The genius of America's endless war machine is that, learning from the unpleasantness of the Vietnam war protests, it has rendered the costs of war largely invisible.

Nobody has the right to shield any idea as so sacred it can’t be challenged. ... Almost all human progress is driven by people who stood up and said ‘I disagree’ with this idea that society at the time considered to be the most precious.’

I don't have a 'side'—I'm responsible for what I say and nothing else.

The second term of the Bush administration and first five years of the Obama presidency have been devoted to codifying and institutionalizing the vast and unchecked powers that are typically vested in leaders in the name of war. Those powers of secrecy, indefinite detention, mass surveillance, and due-process-free assassination are not going anywhere. They are now permanent fixtures not only in the US political system but, worse, in American political culture.