Contempt for the things people choose of their own free will is, at its heart, contempt for free will.

The same people who accuse America of coddling dictators are sputtering with bilious fury because we actually deposed one.

Quietly scuttling Columbus Day sales doesn't mean they are opposed to 15th century Iberian seafarers; it just means They don't want protestors on the sales floor throwing blood on the Calvin Klein hosiery in the name of the anti-imperialistic cause.

The al-Qaida cell broken up near Buffalo, N.Y., contains some citizens who also found themselves in Afghanistan, training for the Great All-Around Satan Smiting. Treason? Oh, of course not. They were on a religious pilgrimage and got lost. Happens all the time. I knew a kid who went to Lutheran Bible Camp and turned up six years later in a Christian Identity compound with a shaved head and a Hitler mustache.

What unnerves so many liberals about talk radio? Simple: It's the unapologetic nature of the conversation, the unwavering sense of certainty. Where's the nuance? The shades of gray? We all know truth is a fragile butterfly dancing in and out of shadow and light, and these guys act as though truth is a rhino charging across a sunlit veldt.

We always ask where the time went. We never ask where it's coming from.

When your opponent sets up a straw man, set it on fire and kick the cinders around the stage. Don't worry about losing the Strawperson- American community vote.