Just because disorder is so spectacular in public life, it is easy to confuse causes with symptoms.  I am all for political reform, but our decline cannot be cured just by better policies, strategies, candidates, inventions, or techniques, for its ultimate causes are moral and spiritual.

A conservative is someone who wants to censor obscenity but not opinion.  A progressive is someone who wants to censor opinion but not obscenity.

I overheard a bit of conversation last week.

One woman mentioned to another that a block from where she lived, on two consecutive days, a man was shot in the neck and a woman and child were taken hostage.  “I’m very upset that the Austin city council voted to defund the police,” she said.

The other woman replied, “But we need to spend more on mental health!”

You’ve heard the slogan:  “Information wants to be free.”  Not so long ago the internet was hailed as a way to break media monopolies, escape government censorship, and give total liberty to the expression of diverse ideas and arguments.  In fact its results have been --

"Why don't you call me?"  The young have never communicated with their elders as much as their elders have wished that they would.  Lately, though, the generational schism has widened.  Oldsters who don’t keep up with the electronic fads of the young are excommunicated with a shrug.

“I keep up with my friends through Facebook, Ma."