The Little Brown Reader

And every four years, we hold back from emphasizing the true benefits, the real impact, the better times that characterize the changes we want to make and the society we want to build. We undersell ourselves. We limit ourselves to asking for the American people's support in ending government's most egregious abuses or blocking its most dangerous new initiatives, instead of offering them the genuine article -- a real vision of a better, safer, freer world.

We do this in the name of realism, but what's really underneath it all is a subtle cowardice -- a fear of promising too much, lest we be written off as silly or unrealistic.

But who's being unrealistic?

Our opponents want the American people to believe that, after nearly a century of abject failure, "victory" in the war on drugs is "just around the corner" -- that a few more laws and few more hundreds of thousands of Americans in prison will do the trick.

Our opponents want the American people to believe that we can tax ourselves into prosperity -- that punishing innovation, suppressing profit and regulating industry will somehow magically create more wealth and distribute it more equitably.

Our opponents want the American people to believe that security can be obtained by disarming ourselves at home and provoking fights abroad.

Our opponents want the American people to believe that universal health care is a simple matter of enslaving the doctors, stealing the drugs and giving everyone a card entitling them to stand in line and wait.