Judith Miller and David Samuels contend that it is not Islam but Islamic heretic extremists who are our enemies. Are they really saying that they know Islam better than the millions of Muslims who follow the Koran's injunctions regarding the infidel? Can they cite any influential non-jihadi imams who have publicly condemned the "extremists"? Have they read the Koran?

When the George W. Bush administration decided to unilaterally invade Iraq based on a falsehood, we also acted as an extremist group, killing thousands of innocents.

Governments should pursue the common good so that public order prevails despite differing opinion, even on theological issues.

In the U.S., one such issue is availability of abortion, shaped by the religious views of a minority who dismiss factors that should guide public policy.

It seems to be of little concern to them that the number of abortion-related injuries would increase by making abortion less available.

On the contrary, we ought to base law on good public policy and shame those who would use religious coercion to try to get legislators to do otherwise.

Ah, the joys of the "let the marketplace take care of itself" school of government. About 22 million Americans are suffering with the H1N1 virus, and one-third of the nation's workers don't have paid sick days. In other words, the sick must come to work or lose pay and be disciplined.

A vomiting food and beverage concierge was docked and disciplined by the Disneyland Hotel for leaving her shift early. I will never, ever set foot in that place again. I hope thousands of other people feel the same after reading this.

That the Disneyland Hotel would deny sick days to its employees is not just morally reprehensible, it should also be criminal.

Regarding your editorial, what I would like to see Obama propose in the debate on how to pay for healthcare is a transfer of money from U.S. warfare to U.S. healthcare.

I am having trouble connecting the dots. You have folks who support the right of the state to kill people (death penalty) but are up in arms, literally (according a recent Times article about ammo purchases), when it comes to that same state providing healthcare to its citizens?

The most realistic approach to reforming our current healthcare system would be to attack its biggest problem: cost. Find its components and tear them down. In the meantime, we can simply make it illegal to deny or cancel coverage.

Socialism? Perhaps. But how else can you combat abusive capitalism?

The president finally said the words he needed to say: Healthcare for all is a moral issue. It kind of makes you proud to be an American.

Socialists meddle in the free market and try to manipulate it through laws and politics.  When the results are bad, they claim capitalism has failed and that we need to push even harder for socialism.

The current political and economic situation was created, not by the free market, but by government meddling with the free market.

The bureaucrats perpetuate the problem by refusing to allow the market to correct itself.

• Providing a good or service that other people find useful enough they will pay for it.
• Producing enough children to at least replace yourself when you can no longer provide that good or service.
• Spending less money than you make so that you can not only pay your bills, but save, invest, and insure.  This means not buying things you can’t afford, looking for a bargain, considering your investments carefully, and being diverse in your investments.  If all of your money is in real estate, that’s a problem – but it shouldn’t be mine.  If all of your money is in stocks, that is a problem – but it shouldn’t be mine.

But by taking on a movement rather than a government, the United States has confronted unprecedented legal and procedural challenges that continue to haunt it -- and will do so long after a new president takes power, particularly if the current occupant of the Oval Office has his way.

In recent months, the Bush administration has been reaffirming its wartime powers by inserting language in legislation, rewriting intelligence procedures and changing regulations. For example, the New York Times reports that the administration added a provision to a proposal for hearing legal appeals from detainees at Guantanamo Bay that asks Congress to "acknowledge again and explicitly" that the U.S. is at war with Al Qaeda, the Taliban and related movements.

Bush doesn't need such declarations in order to continue the war in Afghanistan; that was authorized by Congress on Sept. 14, 2001. Rather, he seems to be trying to solidify the legal justification for some of his administration's most questionable policies, such as holding detainees indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay or carrying out wiretapping operations on Americans without a court order.

Should we consider our conflict with terrorists a war or a police action?

Preventing another attack on the homeland isn't a war, it's a security challenge.

The consequences of our war footing are not only restrictions on our freedom and privacy that would never be tolerated under ordinary circumstances, but the expenditure of billions of dollars on measures that may not be justified.

As just one example, is the degree of danger posed by the theoretical possibility that terrorists might put a "dirty bomb" in a shipping container really great enough to justify the amount we're spending to prevent it from happening?

Bush argues that the measures he has put in place are the reason the United States hasn't suffered a major terrorist attack on its soil since 9/11. Maybe that's true. Or maybe the threat just wasn't as great as the administration has made it out to be.

What has proved false is the neoconservative claim that this single threat now defines the whole pattern of world politics; that, as Norman Podhoretz puts it, the struggle against Islamofascism is World War IV.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs predict that by 2040, Brazil, China, India, Mexico and Russia will have a larger combined economic output than today's G-7.

At the same time, worldwide economic development based on the free movement of goods, capital and services (a.k.a. globalization) is exacerbating a whole set of trans- national problems.

Carbon dioxide emissions that accelerate climate change,

mass migration,

the risk of pandemics

Power is diffused to too many competing states, many of them illiberal, as well as elusive networks such as Al Qaeda.

Russia and China are not simply great powers challenging the West. They also represent two alternative versions of authoritarian capitalism, or capitalist authoritarianism. Here is the biggest potential ideological competitor to liberal democratic capitalism since the end of communism.

Radical Islamism may appeal to millions of Muslims, but it cannot reach beyond the faithful, except by conversion.

Should Pinochet be remembered merely as a tyrant who became an international symbol of repression, or as an economic reformer who turned Chile into a global success; and to what extent did the U.S. government bring about his dictatorship?