Wit & Whim

Author's Note: what you are about to read is a draft that I am publishing after 9+ years on ice. I have not taken the time to complete it, so you have my leave to think of it as my 'Dead Souls' of blogging. I believe that a fair few of you may be somewhat familiar with an American film classic called "My Fair Lady." A fine movie. Damn fine. I could spend a paragraph trying to explain and make excuses for why I have not written in so long, but I will let Rex Harrison do that for me. If you really need an explanation, his character has a fine little song staged in his library about halfway through the film that says it all. Trust me, you will know it when you hear it. In truth, I have come back to my blog a dozen times since the last piece I completed, and each time got part way through, only to be drawn away by some distraction. My distraction has become increasingly insistent of late that I should get back to writing something. Since these instructions are n...

 Machiavellian 'virtu' and real virtue are a world apart. Not to dunk upon Machiavelli, because the Prince was clearly a work of necessity and the disourses on Titus Livy are the real deal. But Real Politik and the desire of men to be hard rather than good christians is getting tired. The history of the world is full of men who are powerful: excellent in their own regard. They have panache. They say things that sound right. They do things that look right. But they are ultimately evil, and behave in ways that are true to their internal evil, and the evil of the peoples that they stemmed from. They delight in the exercise of power, and the exercise of their power is not for righteousness. Leonidas and Trump (who I will likely wind up voting for) are poster children. Molon Labe. Come and take, says the spartan king, who eats of the bread made by slaves, on grain grown by slaves, upholding his evil government that relies on the work of brutally surpressed slaves, their raped wives,...