If so many Americans are looking for the government to save them, then it is hard to have a dignified search for a shepherd in chief.

Throughout history, politicians have used other people's property to buy themselves power. That is the primary achievement of the welfare state.

Once freedom is equated with a certain material standard of living, confiscation becomes the path to liberation.

People are so docile right now. It is almost as if good government means when the politicians lie to us for our own good, for the public good, and bad government is when politicians lie for their own selfish interests.

It is absurd to expect governments to descend gradually, step-by-step into barbarism - as if there was a train schedule to political hell and people could get off at any stop along the way.

Entire generations of Americans have come of age since the ancient time when the president's power was constrained by a duty of candor to the American people.

Today's citizen is obliged to find his freedom only in the narrow ruts pre-approved by his bureaucratic overlords. "Risk-free liberty" is the ideal of the Welfare State: citizens are permitted only liberties which have been declawed, defanged, neutered, certified and wrapped in benevolent restrictions.