Bean-counting government bureaucrats are free to take race, ethnicity and gender into account when doling out public funds to non-white-male contractors. But God help law enforcement officers, air marshals and border agents who try to use those same factors to combat terrorism and protect American lives.

The most dangerous lechers and creeps are not drunks wearing rags on the street, but respectable men wearing hairspray, pinstripes, and wedding rings who lurk in the halls of power.

Nothing symbolizes American strength and vigor more than another unaccountable Washington bureaucrat.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan spurned the opportunity to condemn thousands of Wisconsin public school teachers for lying about being 'sick' and shutting down at least eight school districts across the state to attend capitol protests (many of whom dragged their students on a social justice field trip with them). Instead, Duncan defended teachers for 'doing probably the most important work in society.' Only striking government teachers could win federal praise for not doing their jobs.

Environmentalists hate sprawl - except when it comes to the size of their expansive pet legislation on Capitol Hill.

During the summer of 2009, conservative activists turned up the heat on Democratic politicians to protest the innovation-destroying, liberty-usurping Obamacare mandate. In the summer of 2012, it's squishy Republican politicians who deserve the grassroots flames.

What our country deserves from everyone who enjoys its fruits and freedoms is a little more gratitude - and a lot less greed.