The truth that we must finally confront is that Islam contains specific notions of martyrdom and jihad that fully explain the character of Muslim violence.

Indeed, what is startling about the notion of a victimless crime is that even when the behavior in question is genuinely victimless, its criminality is still affirmed by those who are eager to punish it. It is in such cases that the true genius lurking behind many of our laws stands revealed. The idea of a victimless crime is nothing more than a judicial reprise of the Christian notion of sin.

I am one of the few people I know of who has argued in print that torture may be an ethical necessity in our war on terror.

You can learn something about a person by the company she keeps.

Death is, in some ways, unacceptable. It's just an astonishing fact of our being here that we die; but I think worse than that is if we live long enough, we lose everyone we love in this world. I mean people die and disappear, and we're left with this stark mystery: just the sheer not knowing of what happened to them.

It is as though a portal in time has opened, and the Christians of the 14th century are pouring into our world.

The wealthiest Americans often live as though they and their children had nothing to gain from investments in education, infrastructure, clean-energy, and scientific research.