David Mamet: The Secret Knowledge

Mailer, Norman

Malthus, Thomas

Mamet, David

childhood of

schooling of

in turn from Liberal to Conservative

Mamet, Henry

Mamet, Jack

Mamet, Noah

Manchester, William

Mao Zedong

Marie Antoinette

marriage

Marshall Plan

Marx, Karl

Marxism

media

merit pay

Michener, James

Milch, Erhard

military

Mill, J. S.

misogyny

money

monogamy

Monroe, Marilyn

Monty Hall problem

Moses

MoveOn.org

Moyo, Dambisa

Mr. Dooley in the Hearts of His Countrymen (Dunne)

Muhammad, Elijah

multiculturalism

Myths and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict (Bard)

NAACP

Nadab

Nader, Ralph

Napoleon I, Emperor of the French

National Recovery Act (1933)

Native Americans

natural resources

Nazis

Neue Freie Presse

New Deal

New Economy

Nixon, Richard

Noble Savages

North Korea

November (Mamet)

nuclear power

Oakton Manor

Obama, Barack

apologies by

health care plan of

predatory lending denounced by

rhetoric of

on wealth

Obama, Michelle

Obamacare

offshore drilling

oil

One-Worldism

On Liberty (Mill)

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (Darwin)

OSHA

overpopulation

Pale of Settlement

Palestinians

Palin, Sarah

Palliser series

patriotism

pay

penicillin

personal computer

Phillips, Melanie

Phineas Farm (Trollope)

Playboy Building

Pledge of Allegiance

Plimer, Ian

pogroms

Poland

polar bears

Political Pilgrims (Hollander)

Potemkin villages

Potok, Noma

poverty

P.O.W. camps

Prager, Dennis

predatory lending

procreation

production

profligate son

property

Proverbs

psychoanalysis

Puritans

rabbis

racialism

racial tension

racism

Radford, R. A.

radio

“Rape of Jenin”

Rashi

Reform Judaism

religion

founding myths of

Religious Right

reparations

Republican Party

retirement plans

rights

roads

Road to Serfdom, The (Hayek)

Rock, Chris

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

Rosenberg, Julius and Ethel

ROTC

Royal Air Force

Rubinstein, Helena

Rudd, Mark

Rules for Radicals (Alinsky)

Rumpelstiltskin

Russia

Rutan, Burt

salvation

same-sex marriage

San Francisco, Calif.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

Sauk Indians

Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States

school boards

school shootings

school vouchers

SCLC

SDS

Secrets, Lies, and Democracy (Chom-sky)

Selma, Ala.

semantics

September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks

sex education

Sexual Perversity in Chicago (Mamet)

sexual relations

Shakespeare, William

Sharks Don’t Get Cancer (Lane)

Sharpton, Al

Shlaes, Amity

Shuster, Joe

Shute, Nevil

Siegel, Jerry

Sierra Club

single motherhood

slavery

Founders and

Jews in

legacy of

Socialism and Leftism as

U.S. eradication of

Slide Rule (Shute)

snow removal

social Darwinism

social eugenicism

Socialism

in Europe

social justice

social oppression

social safety net

Social Security

Some Thoughts (Sontag)

Sontag, Susan

Sotomayor, Sonia

South Shore Country Club

Soviet Union

Sowell, Thomas

Spanish Prisoner

Stalin, Joseph

Statism

Steele, Shelby

Stein, Gertrude

Steinem, Gloria

stocks, stock market

Stranger, The (Kipling)

Streetcar Named Desire, A (Williams)

Styron, William

Superego

Superman

Supreme Court, U.S.

synagogues

Syria

Taliban

Talmud

Taney, Roger

taxes

Taylor, Mitchell

teachers unions

television

Ten Commandments

Tesla, Nikola

thalidomide

Theory of the Leisure Class (Veblen)

Thomas, Clarence

Thomson, Lord

Tolstoy, Leo

Torah

totalitarianism

trade

tragic view of life

free market and

U.S. Constitution based on

Trilogy of Desire, The (Dreiser)

Trobriand Islanders

Trollope, Anthony

True Believer, The (Hoffer)

Truman, Harry S.

turkeys

unconstrained world-view

United Nations

urban planning

urban renewal

urban sprawl

utopias

Veblen, Thorstein

Vickers Ltd.

Victoria, Queen of England

Vietnam War

Village Voice

Voting Rights Act

Waiting for Godot (Beckett)

war

War and Peace (Tolstoy)

War on Poverty

War Powers Act

Washington, George

Washington Post

Water Engine (Mamet)

Watson, Paul Joseph

wealth, redistribution of

Weathermen

welfare

West Germany

“What Is the People” (Hazlitt)

What Went Wrong (Lewis)

White Guilt (Steele)

Whitman, Meg

“Why I Am No Longer a Brain-Dead Liberal” (Mamet)

Wikileaks

Wisconsin

Women-in-Jeopardy films

work

World Turned Upside Down, The (Phillips)

World War

Wright, Frank Lloyd

Wright brothers

xenophobia

Y2K scare

Yellowstone Park

Yiddish

youth

Zionist Conference

1

I do not think I am naïve. I have been supporting myself for quite a while, and, as a young man, took every job I could get. I was very glad to have them, but my happiness was neither gratitude toward my employers, nor insensitivity to the various slights, uncertainties, and thefts to which the unskilled, myself among them, were all subject. I was glad to have the money, and looked (and look) for any opportunity to earn more with less expenditure of effort and in more congenial circumstances. This attitude, I believe, is fairly widely shared, cutting across even the most deeply riven political lines.

2

See the educative outpouring of admiration, after September 11, for the police and firefighters, and the military—for those of our fellow Americans actually involved in the legitmate operation of Government. See also, per contra, Government’s affection for privatization—of the Chicago parking system, of various national prisons, of toll roads, of the care and feeding of troops. These among the few, legitimate enterprises of Government have in common a benefit to the citizenry greater through government oversight than would be delivered by the Free Market competition. Privatization is called “outsourcing,” but it is merely sale by incumbents of the property which is the people’s. Can anyone believe that any franchise has ever been sold by any government anywhere other than with the accrual of some personal benefit to the executives and legislators involved in the sale?

3

President Obama said, “The individual at some point, must be able to say, ‘I have enough money.’ ” But will Mr. Obama, out of office, say this of himself, and of the vast riches he will enjoy? One must doubt it.

4

The Right and the Left, I saw, differ not about programs, but about goals—the goal of the Left is a Government-run country and that of the Right the freedom of the individual from Government. These goals are difficult to reconcile, as the Left cannot be brought either to actually state its intentions, nor to honestly evaluate the results of its actions.