Anarchist feminist Emma Goldman famously said that she did not want to be part of any revolution that would not allow dancing. Likewise, not only men but quite a few women women want no part of a feminist revolution if it bans innocent compliments and silly off-color jokes.

In Russia, Stalinphilia is a grass-roots phenomenon, fueled by anger at Russia's humiliation and fantasies of national greatness.

In academia or in Internet discussions, feminists who pounce on the most trivial offense in European or American society turn timid when it comes to true patriarchal horrors elsewhere.

Betty Friedan didn't necessarily have the right answers -- she was, for instance, a strong advocate of institutional, government-subsidized day care -- but she raised the right questions.

Online vigilantism can become the mirror image of online misconduct -- as irresponsible and as damaging.

An Obama ad featuring Lena Dunham practically validates conservative claims that the Democrats' pitch to women is the state as a substitute husband.

The real war is within the Islamic world itself, between those who favor modernity and those seeking to uphold the traditional social and religious order. And America provides a convenient target for modernization anxieties.

After Iraq, few can champion the dangerous arrogance of "nation-building" abroad. But that doesn't mean we should avoid more limited, and more humble, actions to win friends and encourage social modernization in countries struggling to find their own path.

For whatever historical and cultural reasons, virulent intolerance in Islam today exists on a far larger scale than in any other major religion.

Opposing feminist excesses often puts one in the company of people whose rhetoric reeks of bona fide misogyny.

Great insights can come from flawed thinkers. Rand's anti-altruism tirades often turn their target into a straw man, but she is right that the knee-jerk habit of treating altruistic goals as noble has aided evil.

The question thrown at fan fiction writers such as E.L. James -- "Why don't you create your own characters?" -- would have baffled ancient Greek dramatists whose plays were populated with mythological characters.

The prosecution of three punk rockers who sang a protest song in a church represents a new low in political repression in post-Soviet Russia. But it is also a cautionary tale about the entanglement of church and state.

The reaction to the Chick-fil-A controversy shows that many Americans who sympathize with gay rights are nonetheless uncomfortable with demonizing the opposition.

Even if a total ban on the sale and possession of firearms were enacted, it's doubtful it could be enforced with an estimated 270 million guns already in circulation.

While business could not exist without a government infrastructure, government is sustained by business-generated wealth.

In a free and diverse society, "unity" is a fantasy except in extreme circumstances. We would be far better off with more realistic goals, such as compromise and a more civil variety of disagreement.

Can the workplace be restructured to make it easier to combine work and family? Yes. But someone who gives nearly all of his or her time and energy to work will, all else being equal, achieve more at work than someone who gives much less.

Concerns about bigotry are justified. But they should not deter legitimate debate about problems in modern Islam.

Discrimination, conscious or not, does exist and influences workplace decisions. But the Paycheck Fairness Act is far too blunt an instrument to address it.