Every policy has both seen and unseen consequences, and what is unseen dwarfs what is seen.
Jun 192023
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?
May 262023
The voting will continue until results improve.
Apr 072023
Judicial restraint is legislative license.
Feb 102023
It is the moral equivalent of war, not war, that is the health of the state. Actual war is too messy and dangerous.
Jan 052023
Tyranny is never frank, even with no reason to be anything else. It is forever wheedling, patronizing, solicitous, half high-school vice-principal and half kindergarten crossing-guard.
Dec 222022
Communism and anarchism are natural allies: one proposes to punish what is best in human nature, the other not to punish what is worst.
Dec 162022
To lose a war is sometimes a disaster; to fight one on your own turf always is.
Dec 082022
Policy has most of the force of law and none of the inconvenience. Once assured that it is a policy, people will put up with nearly anything.
Dec 062022
Of rulers’ vices, corruption is not the worst, merely the tackiest.
Nov 032022
Every society is ruled by its high-status beliefs; if you don’t like them, your only recourse is to lower their status.