I get all riled up every time I hear someone talk about America’s “innocence”. We lost our innocence (assuming we ever had any more of that quality than any other group of people, which I beg to doubt) around the time of the French and Indian Wars and have never gotten it back (assuming there was something to get back, which I beg to doubt).

All the talk after 9/11 that we had “lost our innocence” made my teeth ache.

We’re about as innocent as the Roman Empire. It’s called “realpolitik”.