State formation has been a brutal project, with many hideous consequences. But the results exist, and their pernicious aspects should be overcome.

There's a tremendous gap between public opinion and public policy.

There certainly are those who worship the state much as divinities are worshipped. Not just the state but even leaders.

If you accept the institutional lunacy, then the policies are rational.

Ontological questions are generally beside the point, hardly more than a form of harassment.

There's a very committed effort to convert the US into something resembling a Third World society, where a few people have enormous wealth and a lot of others have no security.

At the beginning of his administration, Reagan tried set the basis for American military intervention in El Salvador - which is about what Kennedy did when he came into office in regard to Vietnam. Well, when Kennedy tried it in Vietnam, it just worked like a dream. Virtually nobody opposed American bombing of South Vietnam in 1962. It was not an issue. But when Reagan began to talk of involving American forces in El Salvador there was a huge popular uproar. And he had to choose a much more indirect way of supporting the collection of gangsters in power there. He had to back off.