Mr. Lukacs is known for taking contrarian positions, and he had recently floated

two such, which he explicates and defends on this show: that the United States' fear of the Soviet Union is outdated--what we should be fearing is Third World immigration; and that the United States is ceasing to be a democracy and becoming a "bureaucracy." The conversation (particularly between Mr. Lukacs and fellow contrarian Ernest van den Haag) seldom quite clicks, but there are some good moments: EvdH: "The one thing we know about history is that present trends hardly ever continue." JL: "The American people are very unpredictable, thank God. That bad thing is that so many institutions want to make them predictable."