Social and political issues in general seem to me fairly simple; the effort to obfuscate them in esoteric and generally vacuous theory is one of the contributions of the intelligentsia to enhancing their own power and the power of those they serve.

I agree with Bill Clinton that US forces should not be sent to Haiti, but not for his reasons.

Half the population hold that the government is run by a few big interests looking out for themselves, as polls regularly show.

George Kennan is another extreme case. He was the American consul in Berlin until the war between Germany and the United States broke out in December 1941. And until then he was writing pretty supportive statements back stressing that we shouldn't be so hard on the Nazis if they were doing something we didn't agree with - basically repeating the idea that they were people we could do business with.

So Marxism, Freudianism: any one of these things I think is an irrational cult. They're theology, so they're whatever you think of theology; I don't think much of it. In fact, in my view that's exactly the right analogy: notions like Marxism and Freudianism belong to the history of organized religion.

Judge Afiuni has suffered enough. She has been subject to acts of violence and humiliations to undermine her human dignity. I am convinced that she must be set free.

Suppose that the US really is trying to get rid of drugs in Colombia. Does Colombia then have the right to fumigate tobacco farms in Kentucky? They are producing a lethal substance far more dangerous than cocaine. More Colombians die from tobacco-related illnesses than Americans die from cocaine. Of course, Colombia has no right to do that.