In the classical conservative and libertarian traditions values are private things. They must be left to individuals and to civil society to practice… - Ilana Mercer

South Africa's Constitution is descriptive, not prescriptive—full of pitch-perfect verbal obesities that provide little by way of recourse for those whose natural, individual rights are violated. As a protector of individual rights to life, liberty and property, it's worse than useless—a wordy and worthless document.

The problem with so many libertarian formulations is that they do not respect reality. Rather, they hold up the libertarian ideal, lament its unattainablility, and refuse to debate the issue until the ideal is achieved. That's intellectually lazy. It's also an affront to reality, the rational man's anchor.

Unite we Americans do over the state of our sovereign debt—it's bad! But not over what it means to be a sovereign people.