Good government tends to be dull, and thus rarely preferred to bad.
Jan 052024
Ruling
In ’37 Stalin made a hash
Of party loyalists and army brass.
Decimation: One in ten are shot.
What’s the word when one in ten are not?
Jan 032024
The progress-monger gorges on revolution, and dines on legislation
Dec 222023
The demagogue wields power by denouncing it.
Dec 202023
To abstain is human; to vote, supine.
Dec 182023
The Deep State is in fact shallow, but wide.
Dec 052023
Voters who go mad in national elections often recover their sanity in local ones.
Nov 292023
Official corruption is always friction where the regime is honest, and usually lubrication where it’s not.
Nov 132023
What sort of instruction is best depends on who is being taught, and what sort of government is best depends on who is being ruled.
Nov 082023
The cardinal separation of powers is sovereignty from mass opinion, and everything that goes under the name is a halting means to that end.
Oct 172023
Every despotic power, especially a majority, tends to become absolute.