“I went to the police like a good American. The two boys were arrested. They were brought to trial. The evidence was overwhelming and they pleaded guilty. The judge sentenced them to three years in prison and suspended the sentence. They went free that very day. I stood in the courtroom like a fool and those bastards smiled at me. And then I said to my wife: ‘We must go to Don Corleone for justice.’ ” - Amerigo Bonasera, The Godfather - Mario Puzo

"What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." - Francis Fukuyama The End of History and the Last Man

​The biggest criticism of democracy is that people are too ignorant and stupid to know how to govern. So sayeth the wealthy elite who insist that only they, the natural aristocracy, can rule and that they are the leaders, and we are the followers. The dynastical scions of the landed gentry will puff out their chests and point to their Ivy League credentials and gold plated resumes as irrefutable proof that the ordinary person is too stupid to have a say in how things go. 

One of the most deeply embedded arguments against left wing politics is that it somehow doesn’t understand economics. Taxation is theft. The state is coercion. You’re robbing Peter to pay Paul. Won’t anyone think of the innovators? Socialism is great until you run out of other peoples’ money.

Cui bono - for whose benefit?

Our world is different to that of our parents. While they were the first generation to pioneer the internet and begin the information era, we were born citizens. While they were the generation that maintained tradition, we are increasingly challenging old ideas. Ideas about what constitutes love, what constitutes marriage, and even ideas about what constitutes ownership.   ​