In the string of amazing decisions made during the first year of the Obama administration, nothing seems more like sheer insanity than the decision to try foreign terrorists, who have committed acts of war against the United States, in federal court, as if they were American citizens accused of crimes.

We are incessantly being told that the cost of medical care is “too high” — either absolutely or as a growing percentage of our incomes. But nothing that is being proposed by the government is likely to lower those costs, and much that is being proposed is almost certain to increase the costs.

Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official, not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate but simply one of the many “czars” appointed by the President, could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?

Back in the days of the Soviet Union, two Russian economists who had never lived in a country with a free market economy understood something about market economies that many others who have lived in such economies all their lives have never understood.

Recent videos of American children in school singing songs of praise for Barack Obama were a little much, especially for those of us old enough to remember pictures of children singing the praises of dictators like Hitler, Stalin and Mao.

Many people, including some conservatives, have been very impressed with how brainy the president and his advisers are. But that is not quite as reassuring as it might seem.

It is a good reflection on Americans that they tend to be on the side of the underdog. But it is often hard to tell who is in fact the underdog, or why.

The most important thing about what anyone says are not the words themselves but the credibility of the person who says them.

Many of the issues of our times are hard to understand without understanding the vision of the world that they are part of. Whether the particular issue is education, economics or medical care, the preferred explanation tends to be an external explanation — that is, something outside the control of the individuals directly involved.

Random thoughts on the passing scene:

Different people have very different reactions to President Barack Obama. Those who listen to his rhetoric are often inspired, while those who follow what he actually does are often appalled.

“Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.” We have heard that many times. What is also the price of freedom is the toleration of imperfections. If everything that is wrong with the world becomes a reason to turn more power over to some political savior, then freedom is going to erode away, while we are mindlessly repeating the catchwords of the hour, whether “change,” “universal health care” or “social justice.”

After many a disappointment with someone, and especially after a disaster, we may be able to look back at numerous clues that should have warned us that the person we trusted did not deserve our trust.

While the recent Supreme Court decision in the New Haven firefighters’ case will be welcome news to those who don’t think that a gross injustice is O.K. when those on the receiving end are white, the reasoning behind the 5 to 4 decision is a painful reminder that the law is still tangled in a web of assumptions, evasions and contradictions when it comes to racial issues.

Most political and media discussions of medical care have an air of unreality reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. There is an abundance of catch-phrases but remarkably few coherent arguments.

A Gallup poll last week showed that far more Americans describe themselves as “conservatives” than as “liberals.” Yet Republicans have been clobbered by the Democrats in both the 2008 elections and the 2006 elections.

Back when I was on the receiving end of racial discrimination, it was to me not simply a personal misfortune, or even the misfortune of a race. It was a moral outrage. But not everyone who went through such an experience sees it that way.

In an age that values cleverness over wisdom, it is not surprising that many superficial but clever books get more attention than a wise book like “The Character of Nations” by Angelo Codevilla, even though the latter has far more serious implications for the changing character of our own nation.

In Washington, the clearer a statement is, the more certain it is to be followed by a “clarification” when people realize what was said.

It is one of the signs of our times that so many in the media are focusing on the life story of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court of the United States.

One of the many signs of the degeneration of our times is how many serious, even life-and-death, issues are approached as talking points in a game of verbal fencing. Nothing illustrates this more than the fatuous, and even childish, controversy about “torturing” captured terrorists.

The great Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is not the kind of justice who would have been appointed under President Barack Obama’s criterion of “empathy” for certain groups.

It used to be said that self-preservation is the first law of nature. But much of what has been happening in recent times in the United States, and in Western civilization in general, suggests that survival is taking a back seat to the shibboleths of political correctness.

While the rest of us may be worried about violent Mexican drug gangs on our border, or about terrorists who are going to be released from Guantanamo, the Director of Homeland Security is worried about “right-wing extremists.”

China is the largest foreign holder of U.S. government bonds. But, instead of buying more of those bonds as our skyrocketing national debt leads to more bonds being issued, China has been selling some of its U.S. government bonds this year.

Someone once said that, for every rookie you have on your starting team in the National Football League, you will lose a game. Somewhere, at some time during the season, a rookie will make a mistake that will cost you a game.

Someone once said that Senator Hubert Humphrey, liberal icon of an earlier generation, had more solutions than there were problems.

Now that the federal government has decided to bail out homeowners in trouble, with mortgage loans up to $729,000, that raises some questions that ought to be asked, but are seldom being asked.

An increasing number of recent letters and emails from readers strike a note, not only of unhappiness with the way things are going in our society, but a note of despair.

From television specials to newspaper editorials, the media are pushing the idea that current economic problems were caused by the market and that only the government can rescue us.

Letters from parents often complain of a sense of futility in trying to argue with their own children, who have been fed a steady diet of the politically correct vision of the world, from elementary school to the university.