"No government could stand a moment, if it could be blown down with any thing so loose and indefinite as an opinion of 'misconduct.' They who led at the Revolution grounded the virtual abdication of King James upon no such light and uncertain principle. They charged him with nothing less than a design, confirmed by a multitude of illegal overt acts ( Read more... )

"The difficulty of applying the most extreme and brutal methods against the criminals who endanger the state lies not least in the uncertainty of our judgment of the inner motives or causes of such contemporary phenomena." -- Adolph Hitler, "Mein Kampf"

"Chess, which exists predominantly in two dimensions, is one of the world's most difficult games. Three-dimensional chess is an invitation to insanity. But human relationships, even of the simplest order, are like a kind of four-dimensional chess, a game whose pieces and positions change subtly and inexorably between moves, ( Read more... )

A November 13-16. 2008 Gallup poll asked the question, "Over the next few years, would you like to see the Republican Party and its candidates move in a more conservative direction, a less conservative direction, or stay about the same?"

59% of respondents who identified Republican polled "more conservative," and 20% polled "stay the same," but ( Read more... )

I've been trying to map out all of the ways that Christianity as a religion could potentially impact the ideologies of politically minded men, no matter how crazy or conspiratorial it sounds. Here's what I've come up with so far.

1) God's Chosen. The strain surviving from Jewish times, where the values system is identified with nation-building. ( Read more... )

If you yearn for a paean,
speak thou the GAEAN.

God is the unknown.
Anything is relevant.
Everything is related.
Anyone is relatable.
Nouns are redoubtable.

"The South Vietnamese fled in panic, a badly defeated army, and they did so in front of the cameras. Many soldiers seized bandages from wounded colleagues and, with their feigned injuries, were among the first to be evacuated. Word of such malingering passed quickly among the American helicopter crews and medical personnel, and they reacted badly.  ( Read more... )

"One former NSC staff memebr who in 1969 worked very closely with Kissinger recalls that at the beginning Kissinger had 'a real hesitancy' about being involved in Middle East negotiations. [...] [S]ignificant was his instinctive reluctance to get involved in a negotiation he did not believe in. 'He just didn't see how it was going to work,' the ( Read more... )

"The most common false conclusions of men are these: a thing exists, therefore it is legitimate. Here one is concluding functionality from viability, and legitimacy from functionality."

-- F.N., "Human, All Too Human"

"Murder is not morally justifiable. Assassination can seldom be employed with a clear conscience. Persons who are morally squeamish should not attempt it."

-- "A Study of Assassination," CIA Guatemala Communiques

What the CIA here ignores is that all morals are not created equally. A man may often, in the heat of a robbery, slay a man with complete ( Read more... )