As Citizens Of A Free Society, We

I Can Still Boss People Around. I Can Still Write. I Can Still Read. I Can Still Eat, And I Can Still Have Very Strong Views.

There Is Nothing To Be Said For Being Crippled. You Don't See The World Better Or Clearer, Nor Do You Develop Some Special Set Of Skills By Way Of Compensation.

We Need To Learn... How War Brutalises And Degrades Winners And Losers Alike And What Happens To Us When, Having Heedlessly Waged War For No Good Reason, We Are Encouraged To Inflate And Demonise Our Enemies In Order To Justify That War's Indefinite Continuance.

If Active Or Concerned Citizens Forfeit Politics, They Thereby Abandon Their Society To Its Most Mediocre And Venal Public Servants

I Worry That We Have Forgotten That The De-ideologized, De-politicized, Uncontentious Public Space Of The Last 50 Years As Europeans Have Experienced It Is Not The Normal Human Condition. We Shall Be Sorry To Have Abandoned A Little Too Quickly The Institutions That Were Set Up By Our Parents And Grandparents To Protect Themselves Against A Return Of The Bad Old World. Because The Bad Old World Can Still Come Back To Haunt You.