It's often been observed that the first casualty of war is the truth. But that's a lie, too, in its way. The reality is that, for most wars to begin, the truth has to have been sacrificed a long time in advance.

What happened in America in the 1860s was a war of secession, a war of independence, no different in principle from what happened in America in the 1770s and 1780s.

People in the mass media tend more and more every day to look and act like elected and appointed officials.

There's a big difference between keeping the peace, which is something folks do pretty well themselves, and enforcing the law, which is another thing altogether.

Imagine how a Teddy Kennedy or a Bill Clinton would take the news that one woman in ten, say, has the power to resist his blandishments by deadly force, and you'll get a perfect idea of how a Charles Schumer or a George Bush feels about armed taxpayers.

Each day, it seemed, another law was passed to impoverish and diminish them, punishing them for whatever success they achieved and rewarding their less competent and industrious neighbors.

Know when to give up a lost cause. Anyone who needs to be persuaded to be free, doesn't deserve to be.