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.

Imagine what things would be like if the news media actually sided with civilization.

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.

I can think of no better reason to vote against Obama than the prospect of an administration where any criticism of the President is treated as racism.

That's the thing about conspiracy theories: in a comforting sort of way, they give rise to the feeling that someone, somewhere, knows what's going on.

As I have said, the best Bush strategy is to put Congress on TV as often as possible.

I'd actually love to think that I could trust Kerry on national security. But the only way I could do that, at this point, would be via self-delusion.