“Being raped in Iraq by Halliburton.” Why not harp on the fact that Halliburton was in every way shape and form enabled for (accurate or inaccurate) better or worse, by the government? Finding common ground isn’t the same as being moderate or compromising. It’s finding a starting point at a place of less resistance.

I just reread about 100 pages in Atlas Shrugged. There is one example of government malfeasance, and about a dozen examples of self imposed corporate anti-market problems. Adding it together, it would seem that the government helping corporations would be the biggest sin of all. (at least in the first 100 pages, she doesn’t attack people for wanting subsidized services for their relatives with alzheimers, but then, there are about a million pages left, so who knows)

I agree with your point on schools, too. A few years ago, this older guy told stories about being a 10 year old running all over brooklyn throughout the day, and the thought crossed my mind that he was probably infinitely prepared to deal with danger than someone who had never encountered a less than 100% supportive adult.

I’ll agree with “bunch of little savages” but not “increasingly.” It’s pretty clear that the opposite is true. Headlines about school shootings and the occasional psycho cheerleader story on Drudge notwithstanding (and remember, EVERYTHING seems to be recorded on someone’s cell phone video and posted on Youtube these days), the rates of essentially all types of violence in schools have plummeted in the last 20 years. The basic stuff of recess from back in the day would get kids suspended or expelled these days. When my wife was nine she got a Swiss Army knife for Christmas and brought it to school (openly, on a belt holster) every day for a long time after that. Do that today and you get expelled and given a “special test” as the old Steve Martin bit said.

Kids, like American society in general, are far less violent than they were in the past. And if anything, there’s an *excess* of rules and structure in kids lives today that can get in the way of constructive problem solving, understanding consequences, etc.