I really envy, in some respects, some of the people of faith I've known - A.J.[Muste], for example.
[A.J. Muste] was - he - I don't know what he finally came out believing in, but it was some kind of higher being.
[Søren ] Kierkegaard said it for me a long time ago. He said, `You can't really think yourself into a faith, into a religion. It's something you have to make a leap into faith.' And I've never been able to do that. I wish I could. Then maybe I could believe in an afterlife.
My father was pretty independent. He was - he was arrested once in Nashville when he was on one of his sales trips because he had a black - guy to lunch. So that took a fair amount of courage at the time.
I think at least two of [my kids] - and I'm - I better not speak them by name because I'm not sure where they are these days, but at least two of them believe in some kind of higher force. The - another is an atheist and the other is still pondering.
I don't like to feel intimidated by where I make a living.
I went to school at a place that also shaped my life, Boston Latin School.
If the American people have their health care paid for by the government, depending on their age and their condition, they will be subject to a health commission just like in England which will decide if their lives are worth living much longer.
[People] felt good even though they didn't really know much about [Barack Obama] and may have had some doubts.
At least they [people] showed the world we could elect a black president.
That [race] is still part of what [Barack Obama] is riding on. Except that, too, is diminishing.
In the recent Virginia election, the black vote diminished. Now why was that? I think a lot of black folks are wondering what this guy is really going to do, not only for them but for the country. If the country is injured, they will be injured. That may be sinking in.
This is a dishonest administration, because it is becoming clear that the unemployment statistics of the [Barack] Obama administration are not believable.
I can't think of a single area where [Barack] Obama is not destructive.
I spent a lot of time studying our Founders and people like Samuel Adams and the original Tea Party. What Adams and the Sons of Liberty did in Boston was spread the word about the abuses of the British. They had Committees of Correspondence that got the word out to the colonies. We need Committees of Correspondence now, and we are getting them.
That is what is happening with the Tea Parties. I wrote a column called "The Second American Revolution" about the fact that people are acting for themselves as it happened with the Sons of Liberty which spread throughout the colonies. That was a very important awakening in this country.
I have been in schools around the country, and I have written on education for years. Once, I was once doing a profile on Justice William Brennan and I was in his chambers, and Brennan asked, "How do we get the words of the Bill of Rights into the lives of the students?" Well, it is not difficult. You tell them stories.
We hear talk now about reforming public education. There are billions of dollars at stake for such a reform. But I have not heard Arne Duncan, who is the U.S. Education Secretary, mention once the civic illiteracy in the country.
I was lecturing at the Columbia Journalism School of Education. I asked them about what was happening to the Fourth Amendment. I said, "By the way, do you know what is in the Fourth Amendment?" One student responded, "Is that the right to bear arms?" It's hard to believe these are bright students.
[John] McCarthy's regime was ended by Senators who realized that he had gone too far. What we have now may be more insidious.
We have no idea how much the government knows and how much the CIA even knows about average citizens. The government is not supposed to be doing this in this country. They listen in on our phone calls. I am not exaggerating because I have studied this a long time.
A good many people voted for [Barack] Obama, and I'm not only talking about the black vote. A lot of people voted for Obama because of our history of racial discrimination in this country.
You see that in his foreign policy [Barack] Obama lacks a backbone - both a constitutional backbone and a personal backbone.
The present Stimulus Bill sets up the equivalent commission in the United States similar to that which is in England.
[Barack Obama to be] much worse [than George W. Bush].