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

Someone once said that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. That may have been true when he said it, but today taxes are mostly the price we pay so that politicians can play Santa Claus and get reelected.

Too much of what is called 'education' is little more than an expensive isolation from reality.

What the political left, even in democratic countries, share is the notion that knowledgeable and virtuous people like themselves have both a right and a duty to use the power of government to impose their superior knowledge and virtue on others.

Our fate is matched by the total freedom we have to react to our fate. It is as if we were dealt a hand of card. Once we have them, we are free to play them as we choose.

Weighing benefits against costs is the way most people make decisions - and the way most businesses make decisions, if they want to stay in business. Only in government is any benefit, however small, considered to be worth any cost, however large.

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