Recession-resistant development produces things people need. Unsustainable growth churns out tinsel products that consumers have to be seduced into buying - until times get tough, when they quickly give them up.

Smart development builds on a region's own skills, resources and local businesses. Dumb growth invites a big corporation in, surrenders control and profits to a distant headquarters, undercuts local manufacturers, and risks layoffs without warning.

Smart development invests in insulation, efficient cars, and ever-renewed sources of energy. Dumb growth crashes around looking for more oil.

Relative to most of the energy and material flows on Earth, the machinations of humankind are puny. The planet's powers are much, much bigger than our own. But in a few sensitive places, we're making an impact on a planetary scale, and that impact is not a good one.

When you are subverting the power of government, that's a fundamentally dangerous thing to democracy.

Democracy requires information. Plato knew that informed decision-making requires knowledge.

The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.

Our rights come from God - not man, not a monarch, not a government.