In my past 20 years of interaction with girls across the world I have found that girls live in fear and anxiety while growing up.

If we don't think that men and boys are part of the solution in this battle for gender equality for the balance between who we are as humans, we're undermining their minds and their spirits. They need to be part of the equation.

So, obviously, on International Women's Day, we are honoring the achievements of women, but gender equality and feminism cannot evolve in our humanity if we're not bringing our boys and men along.

Women's empowerment for me means knowing your rights, having the facts, knowing the truth about what is happening out there, here in our own country and the condition of women throughout the world.

I think government is serious business and important.

I was counsel on the full veterans committee, the first Vietnam veteran to serve as a full-committee counsel in Congress. It stunned me that there was a 600,000-case backlog of claims. During my time in the Senate, it became 900,000.

The media has brainwashed the electorate to expect the government to do something. The best economic policy of any government is to do nothing but reduce the size of the government, reduce the size of the laws, and reduce the size of regulations.

One of my most vivid memories from 1974 was the gas station at the foot of the hill below my Southern California high school - car lines snaking out into the street, heralding the failure of the government's price controls and lame ideas such as odd-even rationing.