Politics is a romantic search for the good and the true and the beautiful.

Clearly, I am not an anarchist. Philosophically, I might be, but I think in practical terms.

America is perhaps excessively mobile in the sense that there is sometimes not enough stability in communities. Dynamism in the economy is not necessarily the be all and end all.

Liberals have lost the soul. We haven't recognized the necessity of defending our own system at the level of ideas. We have to get people to treat the idea of a free society as a civic religion or a faith. We need to fight for that faith.

If politicians get money to spend and don't have to be responsible for taxation, then of course that will bias their attitude toward more spending as opposed to cutting back on spending.

People share a universal behavioural trait: if there are profits to be made, the effort to get that money will attract investment. This is true in the private sector, the market sector, as well as the public sector.

We want to limit the exploitation of the fiscal capacity of the richer regions by keeping down the rate of immigration to a level that would be meaningful and efficient. One way to do that is to have a scheme of equalization which essential bribes people to stay in the poorer regions.