States do not have rights. People have rights. And the purpose of federalism is to protect those rights.

It has been more than fifteen years since the People's Liberation Army crushed the prodemocracy rallies in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, killing hundreds of students and workers and wounding thousands more. Since then, although stifling political dissent, China has continued to liberalize its economy and is rapidly becoming an economic superpower. Will the explosion of new wealth in China lead to new pressures for democratic reform? And just what is the legacy of Tiananmen? Peter Robinson speaks with William McGurn and Orville Schell.

A half-century ago, the ideology of the American political establishment was liberal—the New Deal was still new and big government was getting bigger. Today, after a political revolution that began with Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, it may be argued that conservativism has become the dominant ideological force in American politics. But what does conservativism mean today? And if it is ascendant, how long can it remain so? Peter Robinson speaks with Clark S. Judge and John Micklethwait.

Each time I see the African American community preparing to vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic presidential candidate, I recall the warm Washington spring forty years ago when a craggy-faced septuagenarian named Everett McKinley Dirksen convinced his Republican senate colleagues to back cloture on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which broke the southern Democratic filibuster and ensured passage of legislation triggering the "Second Reconstruction."