I absolutely adore Thanksgiving. It's the only holiday I insist on making myself.
The United States established itself as a trustworthy new nation in its first two decades after the Revolutionary War by paying its debts even when many in the country believed it had no obligation to do so. Alexander Hamilton the founder of this newspaper insisted on it.
Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on.
If you are part of a religion that very strongly insists that you believe then to decide not to do that is quite a big hurdle to jump over. You never forget the thought process you went through. It becomes part of your whole intellectual picture.
If religion were true its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences.
The proper reply to right wing religiosity is not to insist that politics and religion don't mix. This is the stock response of the left.
The Vice-Presidency is sort of like the last cookie on the plate. Everybody insists he won't take it but somebody always does.
The end of poetry is not to create a physical condition which shall give pleasure to the mind... The end of poetry is not an after-effect not a pleasurable memory of itself but an immediate constant and even unpleasant insistence upon itself.
As this long and difficult war ends I would like to address a few special words to the American people: Your steadfastness in supporting our insistence on peace with honor has made peace with honor possible.
There is a fuzzy but real distinction that can and I believe should be made between patriotism which is attachment to a way of life and nationalism which is the insistence that your way of life deserves to rule over other ways of life.