It Isn't Money Itself That Causes The

The Survival Of American Democracy Depends Less On The Size Of Its Armies Than On The Capacity Of Its Individual Citizens To Rely... On The Strength Of Their Own Thought.

Money Is Like Fire, An Element As Little Troubled By Moralizing As Earth, Air And Water. Men Can Employ It As A Tool Or They Can Dance Around It As If It Were The Incarnation Of A God. Money Votes Socialist Or Monarchist, Finds A Profit In Pornography Or Translations From The Bible, Commissions Rembrandt And Underwrites The Technology Of Auschwitz. It Acquires Its Meaning From The Uses To Which It Is Put.

Further Strengthenings Of The Self-centered Instinct For Survival Recruit Even Greater Numbers Of People Into Some Sort Of Ring Of Fellowship (church Or Gender, Red State Or Blue) By Populating The Terra Incognita Outside The Ring With Enough Barbarians To Verify The Existence Of A Civilization Within--to Define The Preferred Stock By What, As All Good People Agree, It Decidedly Is Not.

The Pose Of Innocence Is As Mandatory As The Ability To Eat Banquet Food And Endure The Scourging Of The Press.

I Sometimes Think That The American Story Is The One About The Reading Of The Will.