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.
Oct 062015
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?
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.
Jun 112015
Unduly harsh sentences indicate not law and order, but its opposite: that almost no one gets caught.
Jun 102015
Hate speech, n. Speech you hate.
Jun 032015
The bore is the tyrant of private life.