Politics
A true patriot loves her country--but doesn't especially care whether or not others know it.
The patriot, like the captain of a sinking ship, does not give up her country until the precise moment arrives when no other course of action remains. The traitor is not nearly as particular.
The essence of conservatism is the defense of those least in need of it.
Politics matter; a man's politics speak to his basic character as well as anything.
We must love this damn country is spite of its Federal Government, its Central Intelligence Agency, its Federal Bureau of Investigation, it Department of Defense...
Widespread support of capital punishment is perhaps the surest sign that a society has given up on the problem of crime.
In time of war, it is the essential job of the politician to get people to do things they would never do themselves.
The Second Amendment threatens and alarms precisely those it was meant to threaten and alarm.
Patriotism should be like religion: a personal conviction discussed only when challenged.
The full citizen is one who can conceive of themselves--if the right circumstances arose--as a rebel.
Power belongs to those who take it; it is too often granted by the apathy of those who let them.
It isn't easy being free. In fact, there is only one thing even harder: staying free.
Only the poor truly understand economics.
Without the Second Amendment, the First would not be safe--or any of the others.
The honest civil libertarian should support the Second Amendment if only because of the futility of attempting to separate rights from what would ultimately guarantee them.
Enemies of human freedom usually do not respect the nonviolent, democratic measures taken against them. But this should not be a surprise.
The deliberate use of nonviolence in the face of violence is but a more sophisticated form of cowardice.
If we don't own our goverment, who does?
It is far easier to be enslaved than free.
True freedom truly understood is quite an unpleasant prospect.
Citizens should be able to trust that their government will be accountable to them--but be in the position to demand it if necessary.
Pacifism only works in a world consisting entirely of pacifists.
A free people cling fiercely to their contradictions.
In America, we love the idea of challenging auhority. We just despise those who actually do it.
Ironically, Nazism arose frm the same source as did Stalinism: the recurrent human desire to control the lives of others.
If, in a democracy, we want people to be free to do the right thing, we must also allow them the freedom to do the wrong thing.
Believing in the words "America--Right or Wrong" is like getting on an airplane and saying, "My pilot--sober or drunk."
Both State and citizen have certain responsibilities; being in perpetual accord is not one of them.
Political life in America is intolerable for one simple reason: Neither side will admit their motives.
The full citizen does--or should do--what government by its very design is incapable of: take the ideas of a democratic constitution to their logial and necessary conclusions.
War makes men into murderers as easily as it makes them into heroes.
The hero is not a hero because of what they do--those banal appeals to nationalism, patriotism--but because of why they do it.
All of our assorted ideologies exist because no one wants to simply indict humanity and leave it at that. That would be too easy.
The cynical politician can always be counted on to call for an end to cynicism.
Guns are guns; it's who has them that matters.
