If the truth is boring, civilization is irksome. The constraints inherent in civilized living are frustrating in innumerable ways. Yet those with the vision of the anointed often see these constraints as only arbitrary impositions, things from which they-and we all-can be 'liberated.' The social disintegration which has followed in the wake of such liberation has seldom provoked any serious reconsideration of the whole set of assumptions-the vision-which led to such disasters. That vision is too well insulated from feedback.

A recently reprinted memoir by Frederick Douglass has footnotes explaining what words like 'arraigned,' 'curried' and 'exculpate' meant, and explaining who Job was. In other words, this man who was born a slave and never went to school educated himself to the point where his words now have to be explained to today's expensively under-educated generation.

High tax rates that people don't actually pay do not bring the government as much revenue as lower tax rates that they do pay.

Benedict Arnold was a war hero, wounded in battle--before he turned against his country. Hitler was likewise a decorated and wounded veteran of the First World War. Being a war hero is not a lifetime...exempt[ion]...from responsibility for what you do thereafter.

The more people who are dependent on government handouts, the more votes the left can depend on for an ever-expanding welfare state.

One of the consequences of such notions as ‘entitlements’ is that people who have contributed nothing to society feel that society owes them something, apparently just for being nice enough to grace us with their presence.

Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric.