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.

You can't be halfhearted in a revolution. Values that serve well in a civil society don't work in a state of nature.

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

But remember: All this talk of tolerance and diversity is basically just a way for one group of white people to pursue power over other groups of white people. It's not about actually helping anyone.

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

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.

[B]ipartisanship means tarring and feathering politicans from both major parties.