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?
The distinguished Soviet geneticist Vavilov was unpersoned for refusing to reject heredity in favor of the neo-Lamarckism championed by Lysenko and Stalin, and I feel fortunate to live in a country where nothing like that could ever happen.
Petty laws embolden volunteer policemen.
The omnipotent state regards not the individual, but the family, as its most dangerous enemy. The individual it can use; the family it can do nothing with.
Every new law represents a new opportunity to report our neighbors anonymously to the authorities.
Censorship, under more competent rule, would indicate something worth reading.
Americans are ruled by a government that intrudes in every conceivable matter yet cannot count its population, its votes, or its dead.
The great trick of governance, as yet imperfectly mastered, is to loot without having to fight.
The lower your class, the more time and humiliation it costs you to collect your dole.
There are people who understand the power of speech, and people who oppose restrictions on speech, but rarely the same people.
Any country that allows its citizens to vote is at least obliged to make it difficult.