The same ideas are used to exonerate the guilty and to punish the innocent.
Nov 022015
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?
Oct 272015
The government that robs Peter to pay Paul can surprisingly often rely on the support of Peter.
Oct 192015
All disputes over process are in fact over policy.
Oct 062015
The tyrant concerned for his historical reputation must concentrate his fire on the inarticulate, who don’t leave pesky memoirs behind. Kill peasants, not Jews.
Sep 142015
Ideas rule the world — the ideas of the people who rule the world.
Jul 272015
Last to the meeting is most powerful, and apotheosis consists in not showing up at all.
Jul 242015
Religion attenuates as crime is punished.
Jul 172015
Popular government demands that the people play all roles at once: oppressor and oppressed, ruler and ruled, disenfranchised by vote, silenced by cacophony.
Jul 142015
Stupidity at an immense age becomes instrumental rationality, just as crime on an immense scale becomes statecraft.
Jul 062015
The best one can ever say for a policy is that it has not been obviously ruinous.