People huddle together in doctrinaire herds, and the same jackasses who, without the slightest risk, now scream against racism are the same conformist personality types who would have carried torches in lynch mobs a century ago.

Beware of anyone who calls you bad names merely for asking honest questions. Beware of anyone who insists on reframing your sincere curiosity as a character defect. Beware of anyone who questions your motives while ignoring your facts. When someone calls you bad names merely for asking questions, it suggests they know the answer but are terrified to admit it.

I'm arrogant enough to tell you that I'm smart enough to have scored higher on my Scholastic Aptitude Test than any US president whose SAT score has been made public. I even scored higher than ex-presidential candidate Al Gore, whose SAT score was so high, it was deemed as potentially off-putting to voters.

The criticism that has most consistently bothered me is the allegation that I'm a schlockmeister whose only objective is to shock people.

One of the greatest pleasures I get from my measly professional career is confusing people. "Wait - he beats women and seems like a Nazi, but he has impeccable grammar and keen reasoning skills and sings country music and can, from time to time, say or do something really funny?" It absolutely doesn't compute for them. I enjoy that immensely.

My crazy parents and those crazy Catholic nuns didn't do a good job of forcing me to keep the Ten Commandments, but they kept me forever fixated on the very idea of a taboo.

If anything, I've probably tended more toward humor in my writing and veered more toward pleasure in my personal life.