During the 1930s, some of the leading intellectuals in America condemned our economic system and pointed to the centrally planned Soviet economy as a model -- all this at a time when literally millions of people were starving to death in the Soviet Union, from a famine in a country with some of the richest farmland in Europe and historically a large exporter of food.

Trade-offs have been with us ever since the late unpleasantness in the Garden of Eden.

Wishful thinking is not idealism. It is self-indulgence at best and self-exaltation at worst. In either case, it is usually at the expense of others. In other words, it is the opposite of idealism.

Welfare states on both sides of the Atlantic have discovered that largesse to losers does not reduce their hostility to society, but only increases it. Far from producing gratitude, generosity is seen as an admission of guilt, and the reparations as inadequate compensations for injustices - leading to worsening behavior by the recipients.

France has never gotten over the fact that it was once a great power and is now just a great nuisance.

Although the big word on the left is 'compassion,' the big agenda on the left is dependency.

The only thing better than "hands-on" experience is hands-off experience - enough experience to understand that some things will turn out better if left alone.