The strength of ideas rests on their relationship to reality. MacKinnon’s unrealistic fulminations against a phantom patriarchy exist in the arid arena of pure thought.

Thus evidence that contradicts the global warming theory, climate Chicken Littles enlist as evidence for the correctness of their theory; every permutation in weather patterns — warm or cold — is said to be a consequence of that warming or proof of it.

A silly society is a youth-obsessed society: To the Chinese, who appreciate the value of experience, the greater the ratio in a team of grey 'hairs and no-hairs' to 'black hairs' the faster and better a task will be completed. The opposite assumption obtains in the youth-obsessed U.S.

Cognitive consonance is what writing in the Age of the idiot is all about. The key to success in the scribbling profession is to strike the right balance of mediocrity in writing and thinking, which invariably entails echoing one of two party lines, poorly.

The nice men in periwigs who came up with the Fourth Amendment were recklessly naive to imagine that branches of a government, each of whose power is enhanced when the power of the other branches grows, would serve to check one another.

Certain bedrock principles - arguably a true conservative mindset - dictate a respect for life. A life-conserving sensibility means that guns are meant for self-defense, not for needless killing. [...] This gun owner is no gun nut; but a right-to-self-defense fanatic.

In the bureaucracy, incentives will forever be inverted. Failure results in success: in more funds, more training, more time off.