One reason that a lot of people see me as cheerful and optimistic is that my expectations are really rather low.

The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.

Where the U.N. is concerned, accountability is very thin on the ground in general.

I can't say I'm surprised: the grassroots antiwar movement keeps turning out to be MoveOn/A.N.S.W.E.R. astroturf.

The nannyism is partly to distract from the corruption — and partly just another opportunity to leverage it. A good general rule is that the more a government wants to run its citizens’ lives, the worse job it will do at the most basic tasks of government.

When people say things like "don't let this moment pass without acting on gun control," what they're really saying is our arguments are so unpersuasive that they can only succeed when people aren't thinking clearly.

Diplomacy has more to do with (credible) threats than with sweet reason. And threats from America are a lot more credible, nowadays.