“If money go before, all ways do lie open.” – William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor 2.2
Category: Politics & Law
“At the outset of the North African campaign, on 13 November 1942, President Roosevelt declared: ‘No one will go hungry, or without the means of livelihood in any territory occupied by the United Nations, if it is humanly possible within our power to make supplies available to them.’ This announcement heralded the beginning of a civilian supply problem that was to complicate the work of military logisticians immensely. It was not just a matter of humanitarian concern as the President’s announcement might suggest, but one of military necessity. Disease and disorder in rear areas or lack of co-operation from local governments could easily disrupt lines of communications and endanger the success of military operations.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “The Army and Civilian Supply – I,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945
“The person who either acquires, or succeeds to a great fortune, does not necessarily acquire or succeed to any political power, either civil or military. His fortune may, perhaps, afford him the means of acquiring both, but the mere possession of that fortune does not necessarily convey to him either. The power which that possession immediately and directly conveys to him, is the power of purchasing.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“Presidential elections in the United States are the dash for the cash. News outlets large and small suddenly open up their wallets and shovel out money for words, photos, video, anything that grabs eyes and ears. TOTAL COVERAGE! If you’re a freelancer, presidential elections are a gift from the news gods because it means a few months of steady paychecks, a fattened Rolodex, maybe a staff gig with juicy benefits or a sweetheart book deal.” – Dominic Gwinn, “2024 From The Back Of Dom’s Van,” December 31, 2024, Wonkette (emphasis in original)
“America’s a hustle.” – Noelle Valdivia, “Bliss,” The Penguin
“Politicians are not the most remarkable men in the world for probity and punctuality. Ambassadors from different nations are still less so.” – Adam Smith, Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms
“Surprise from above is never as shocking as one from below.” – Dan Gilroy, “The Axe Forgets,” Andor
“Sadopopulism: a politics that works not because all benefit but because some learn to take pleasure in the greater suffering of others. Deportations have to be understood in this light: they are a spectacle of the suffering of others. So does mass incarceration. A test for this, as we have been recently reminded, is health. Persuading people that it is normal to pay for shorter lives is the litmus test of sadopopulism. In America, we do in fact pay exorbitant amounts of money to harmful middlemen who kill us by denying us care that we could afford if their scam did not exist. (It is a sign of our cultural problem that we say ‘insurance’ or ‘health care’ when we mean ‘death grift.’) – Timothy Snyder, “Class War or Culture War?”, Thinking about…, December 19, 2024
“Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.” – Tony Gilroy, “Rix Road,” Andor
“If there was one institution that left an indelible mark on the Late Roman and Byzantine way of life, that was surely taxation. The imposition of regular and extraordinary levies—in kind upon the farmer and in money upon the merchant and artisan—was meant to be equitable; in fact, it hit the agricultural population harder than the urban, the poor much more than the rich.” – Cyril Mango, Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome
“If the slave was generally absent from the rural landscape, the tenant farmer (colonus) was an important feature of it. A man of degraded and anomalous status, the colonus was theoretically free, but in practice tied to his plot. He was, as a law of [AD] 393 puts it, ‘a slave of the land’. His condition was hereditary, his freedom to marry restricted, and he could not even join the army. The master of his land collected his taxes and was empowered to put him in chains if he tried to run away. It was openly admitted by the government that there was little difference between the status of a slave and that of a colonus. The authorities, of course, were not animated by pure sadism in curbing the liberties of the tenant farmer; their primary concern was the collection of tax.” – Cyril Mango, Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome
“They well deserve to have that know the strong’st and surest way to get.” – William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King Richard II 3.3
“If you and the other guy are serving chocolate pies, and the other guy’s pie is actually made of poop, the solution is not to add poop to your own pie. You can try to warn everybody about that pie, but sometimes E. coli has to be its own teacher.” – Marcie Jones, “Democratic State Leaders Prepare The Resistance,” Wonkette, November 11, 2024
“Let us sit upon the ground, and tell sad stories of the death of kings:—how some have been depos’d; some slain in war; some haunted by the ghosts they have depos’d; some poison’d by their wives; some sleeping kill’d; all murder’d:—for within the hollow crown that rounds the mortal temples of a king keeps Death his court.” – William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King Richard II 3.2
“When law can do no right, let it be lawful that law bar no wrong.” – William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King John 3.1
“Once on a time near Gnossus, the royal seat of Phaestia, there was a man called Ligdus, a modest freedman, simple and unknown, nor was his wealth enough to make him famous; his one distinction—he kept out of jail.” – Ovid: The Metamorphoses, trans. Horace Gregory
“It cannot be stressed enough that without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.” – Zbigniew Brzezenski (quoted by Tim Judah in “Ukraine on the Brink”)
“In my experience it is quite normal to refuse to believe that you are about to be engulfed by a cataclysm that will change your life forever—or kill you.” – Tim Judah, “Ukraine on the Brink”
“The load that Soldiers carry is an important planning consideration. How much Soldiers carry, how far, and in what configuration are critical mission considerations requiring command emphasis and inspection. Historical experience and research show that Soldiers can carry 30 percent of their body weight and retain much of their agility, stamina, alertness, and mobility.” – Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, ADP 3-90, Offense and Defense
“Surveillance is a systematic collection of information. It should be continuous, and it involves active and passive activities.” – Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, ADP 3-90, Offense and Defense
“Bold decisions that are adequately informed give the best promise of success.” – Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, ADP 3-90, Offense and Defense
“Success during operations depends on a willingness to embrace risk as opportunity rather than treating it as something to avoid. The best COA [course of action] may be the one with the greatest risk.” – Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, ADP 3-90, Offense and Defense
“In a democracy it is the duty of every citizen to think.” – James Russell Lowell, The Atlantic Monthly
“A marked tendency to overstate successes has been a consistent feature of Russian intelligence and military BDA [Battle Damage Assessments] and planning cycles during the period leading up to and then during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. This is an almost unavoidable consequence of the way that the Russian political system works, where reporting what seniors wish to hear, reinforcing their previous decisions and inflating successes, is an absolute prerequisite for promotion to higher rank.” – Justin Bronk, et al., “The Russian Air War and Ukrainian Requirements for Air Defense”
“Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed.” – Abraham Lincoln, 1858
“Because one’s right to retreat into his or her home without unreasonable government interference is a core principle of the fourth amendment (Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 31, 121 S. Ct. 2038, 150 L. Ed. 2d 94 (2001)), law enforcement officers generally may not enter, much less search, a person’s home without a warrant absent exigent circumstances.” – Justice Burke, Appellate Court of Illinois, Second District, The People v. Slavin, 964 N.E.2d 150 (2011)
“Amongst the acts done by permission of the law, for the advancement of public justice, may be reckoned those of the officer who in the execution of his office, either in a civil or criminal case, kills a person who assaults or resists him. The resistance will justify the officer in proceeding to the last extremity. So that in all cases, whether civil or criminal, where persons have a right to arrest and imprison, and using the proper means for that purpose, are resisted, in so doing they may repel force with force, and need not give back, and, if the party making resistance is unavoidably killed in the struggle, this homicide is justifiable.” – Justice Craig, Supreme Court of Illinois, Lynn v. People, 170 Ill. 527 (1897)
“It is impossible to kill 7,000 to 8,000 people in the space of one week without methodical planning and substantial resources. Soldiers have to be mobilized to guard the prisoners, to move them from holding locations to execution sites, and to shoot them. Multiple locations to hold the prisoners and to execute them need to be identified and secured. Thousands of rounds of ammunition to shoot the prisoners need to be supplied. Numerous vehicles and hundreds of litres of fuel need to be commandeered to move the prisoners. A number of bulldozers and excavators need to be commissioned to dig their graves. During a state of war mobilizing such resources cannot be done at the whim of a few crazy soldiers. It needs to be ordered and authorized by commanders at high-levels.” – International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, “Facts about Srebrenica”
“Those who act out of revenge, or call on it in order to justify crimes, are dealing a blow to the rule of law, and thus to civilization itself.” – International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, “Facts about Srebrenica”
“Woe to that land that’s govern’d by a child!” – William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King Richard III 2.3