"The United States today is like a cruise ship on the Niagara River upstream of the most spectacular falls in North America. A few people on board have begun to pick up a slight hiss in the background, to observe a faint haze of mist in the air or on...

"Now, one of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle; and while he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this...

"It is the responsibility of the patriot to protect his country from its government." -- Thomas Paine

Those who founded this country knew quite well that every citizen must remain vigilant or freedom would be lost. This is the true nature of a patriot -- one who sounds the clarion...

"There is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children, either independent of their right to direct the upbringing and education of their children or encompassed by it. We also hold that parents have no due process or privacy right...

"Although it is hard to predict where the drone infrastructure will grow, if other defense contracting projects are a reliable guide, the drone-ification of America will probably continue until there is a drone aerodrome in every state and a drone degree program to go with it."--Richard Wheeler, Wired...

"Money doesn't talk, it swears." -- Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan's not an easy man to pin down. He confounds the public, at one moment a sage and a prophet decrying materialism and war, and the next an eccentric aging musician doing gigs for Victoria's Secret. His music is equally unpredictable,...

It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it. -- George Carlin

"There's a reason education sucks, and it's the same reason it will never, ever, ever be fixed," said comedian/social commentator George Carlin in 2005. That's because, according to Carlin, "the owners of this...

"Unless we teach the ideas that make America a miracle of government, it will go away in your kids' lifetimes, and we will be a fable. You have to find the time and creativity to teach it in schools, and if you don't, you will lose it. You will lose...

Drove from Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton, Talking in our beds for a week. The newspaper said, "Say what you doing in bed?" I said, "We're only trying to get us some peace." --John Lennon, "The Ballad of John and Yoko" (1969)

It was 1969, and the Vietnam War was...

"It is indispensable to our success in this war that those we ask to fight it know that in the discharge of their dangerous responsibilities to their country they are never expected to forget that they are Americans, and the valiant defenders of a sacred idea of how nations should...

I think people who truly can live a life in music are telling the world, 'You can have my love, you can have my smiles. Forget the bad parts, you don't need them. Just take the music, the goodness, because it's the very best, and it's the part I give...

"The child is not the mere creature of the state." -- United States Supreme Court, Pierce v. Society of Sisters

On March 1, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Alford v. Greene, the first major case involving Child Protective Services...

"Everything's perverted in a different way, isn't it?"--Alfred Hitchcock

Do you ever wonder why some of the greatest performers and directors of all time have never won an Oscar? It certainly has nothing to do with lack of talent. For example, the man considered the greatest director of all time,...

"The minute the FBI begins making recommendations on what should be done with its information, it becomes a Gestapo."--J. Edgar Hoover

The history of the FBI is the history of how America -- once a nation that abided by the rule of law and held the government accountable for its...

"We end up punishing honor students to send a message to bad kids. But the data indicate that the bad kids are not getting the message." -- Professor Russell Skiba

What we are witnessing, thanks in large part to zero tolerance policies that were intended to make schools safer by...

"The Super Bowl is one of the largest human trafficking events in the United States." -- Greg Abbott, Texas Attorney General

The wildly popular Super Bowl, with its revelry of sex, drugs and alcohol, invariably imparts a Bacchanalian aura to whatever city plays host to it, and Super...

Of course, there is no doubt that if we lived in a police state, it would be easier to catch terrorists. If we lived in a country that allowed the police to search your home at any time for any reason; if we lived in a country that allowed the...

"I have begun the struggle and I can't turn back. I have reached the point of no return." -- Martin Luther King Jr.

The white leadership had done everything possible to stem the boycott of their segregated bus system by the black citizens of Montgomery, Alabama. Inevitably, the city leaders...

"Well, since my baby left me,
Well, I found a new place to dwell.
Well, it's down at the end of Lonely Street
At Heartbreak Hotel."
-- Elvis Presley, "Heartbreak Hotel"

Sometime in 1955, I was jolted by a song I heard on the radio, "Maybelline"...

"Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together... As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must...