I write a syndicated column for The Washington Post that goes to about 200, 250 papers.

[Madness] happened so frequently. I think what I was most maddest about - and it's in the book [Speaking Freely: A Memoir] - when the House and the Senate, back in 1984, were debating a bill that would - at least delay and maybe stop some of the ex - summary execution of disabled children - infants. And the Down syndrome kids and other kids had been, in some cases, routinely let die, to use the euphemism.

That term was used with hyperbole about the parts of the health care bill where doctors are mandated, if people are on Medicare and of a certain age or in serious physical condition, to counsel them on their end-of-life alternatives. I don't believe that was a death panel.

My parents were Orthodox Jews but not very regular Orthodox Jews. I was bar mitzvahed and all that. But God was hardly ever mentioned in my family. Franklin D. Roosevelt was.

Max Askeli was a very courageous, principled man up to a point. He had left Italy before he was thrown in jail by [Francesco] Mussolini.

Those who created this country chose freedom. With all of its dangers. And do you know the riskiest part of that choice they made? They actually believed that we could be trusted to make up our own minds in the whirl of differing ideas. That we could be trusted to remain free, even when there were very, very seductive voices - taking advantage of our freedom of speech - who were trying to turn this country into the kind of place where the government could tell you what you can and cannot do.

A.J. [Muste] was a - as he likes to say, a radical pacifist.