On November 11

In reflecting on this Veterans Day, it occurs to me that one of the most important differences between the left and the right in American these days is that conservatives worship violence, real and imagined—everything from fantasies about killing civil servants or elected officials, to bullying, to wars of choice. That isn't just a spectacularly wrong attitude, it is pathological.

And since defending such an attitude usually involves shameless lying in public, it is doubly pathological.

I have hope that the Occupy movement marks a turning point for us as a nation, that we are on the way to recovering our humanity.

I dread to think of the alternative.