Most of the enlistees in a struggle against oppression regard it merely as a struggle for spoils; the rest are insane.
Jan 022017
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?
Dec 202016
Democracies are apt to take office for power, semblance for substance.
Dec 162016
In politics: We need X, therefore we must do Y. With equal logic, and more truth: We need to do Y, therefore X must become necessary.
Dec 152016
Good governance is when the populace makes most of its own misery.
Dec 052016
Caligula wished that the people of Rome had but one neck: in modern terms, he had a passion for equality.
Nov 302016
We elect such hideous candidates, and we are all such lovely people.
Nov 242016
Aristocracies die with the disappearance of their duties, not their privileges.
Oct 312016
Populism is the theory that your inferiors should have a say, and authoritarianism is the theory that it should be at your expense.
Oct 272016
Where books are burned, they are taken seriously.
Oct 172016
The government can be a great deal worse than the populace, but no better.