“The drones are a terrorist weapon; they not only kill targets but also terrorise other people.”

So slavery, for example, or other forms of tyranny, are inherently monstrous. The individuals participating in them may be the nicest guys you can imagine.

You have to have obedience; otherwise, the idea can spread that you don’t have to listen to the orders, and it can spread to important places.

Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.

That’s all accurate and of some importance, but of far more importance is the fact that elections just don’t take place, not in any meaningful sense of the term ‘election.’

In Kosovo, the U.S. has chosen a course of action that escalates atrocities and violence.

Some may remember, if you have good memories, that there used to be a concept in Anglo-American law called a presumption of innocence, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Rational discussion is useful only when there is a significant base of shared assumptions.

Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.

The United States and Britain loved him. He was supported until the last minute.

What happened in the missile crisis in October 1962 has been prettified to make it look as if acts of courage and thoughtfulness abounded.

It could be – and it has been argued, in my view rather plausibly, though neuroscientists don’t like it – that neuroscience for the last couple hundred years has been on the wrong track.

The invasion of Iraq, particularly, gave a big shot in the arm to the jihadi extremists.

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

I didn’t pay my taxes for years.

There’s very little dislike of Americans in the world, shown by repeated polls, and the dissatisfaction – that is, the hatred and the anger.

The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn’t pay his protection money.