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?
There have been historically four ways of dealing with conquered people, corresponding to the four stages of civilization: kill them; enslave them; tax them; and supply them with money, weapons, military training, and ample reason for resentment, then leave.
Every vote is in favor of the election, every abstention is opposed.
Official authorities wonder endlessly why they are reviled and distrusted without ever arriving at the notion that they may be vile and untrustworthy.
Sane people throw themselves into politics only when the state has made normal life impossible, and by then it is too late.
Anything announced as voluntary is mandatory.
When making an example, always choose an innocent man: this cows innocent and guilty alike.
None rule by force alone.
Punishment deters less the few who suffer it than the many who fear that they might.
Institutions are never repaired, only replaced.
Every great racket begins as a business, becomes a movement, and eventually degenerates into a cause.