We must be ruthless with ideas, but gentle with people.

[There is] a strange split in thinking common to those on the religious left, who are quick to denounce the profit motive and commercialism. Yet, they seem to think that the key to happiness is giving people more stuff - by enlisting the coercive power of government. This perverse way of thinking holds that 'social justice' demands that we take money from those who have earned it and give it to those who have less of it. That's not social justice; that's materialism.

Here in the United States, we've seen the failure of mass programs of redistribution and the fiscal crises to which they give rise. And yet many continue to defend and promote them.

I'm particularly struck by the neo-socialist concern for the well-being of plants, animals, lakes and rivers, rain forests and deserts - particularly when the concern for the environment appears far more intense than the concern for the human family.

We must be ruthless with ideas, but gentle with people.