From the Summit of the Moral High Ground

If every government power creates opportunities for abuse, one might expect governments to exercise great restraint before assuming new responsibilities. History suggests the opposite. Modern governments have grown steadily in size, scope and influence. They regulate more activities than previous generations could have imagined. They collect more information, levy more taxes, administer more services and influence more aspects of daily life. Why? The obvious answer is that governments seek power for its own sake. Sometimes that may be true. More often, however, I believe government grows for a far simpler reason. Every problem creates a demand for action. When crime rises, people demand tougher laws. When businesses fail, people demand financial assistance. When housing becomes expensive, people demand regulation. When inflation rises, people demand intervention. When people lose their jobs, they demand support. When healthcare struggles, they demand additional funding. Politicians res...

Most political arguments begin by asking what government should do. I believe they begin with the wrong question. Before deciding what powers a government should possess, we must first ask a more fundamental question: What assumptions should we make about power itself? My answer is simple. Every power granted by government will create opportunities for abuse. Notice carefully what I am not saying. I am not claiming that every public servant is corrupt. I am not claiming that every government programme is harmful. Nor am I suggesting that every exercise of governmental authority results in injustice. Rather, I begin with an observation about human nature. Human beings are imperfect. Some are honest. Some are selfish. Some are compassionate. Some are malicious. Most are simply ordinary people responding to incentives, pressures and opportunities. Government does not change human nature. It merely places ordinary people in positions where they can exercise extraordinary authority over ot...

Twenty years is a long time. When I published the first articles on this blog back in 2005, I genuinely believed that politics could make the world a better place. Like many people entering public life for the first time, I believed that if enough honest people became involved, if enough good ideas were debated, and if enough poor decisions were challenged, then society could gradually be improved. Looking back, I smile at that optimism. It is one of the privileges of youth to believe that problems are simple, that institutions exist to fulfil the purposes for which they were created, and that those entrusted with public office are motivated principally by a desire to serve the public. Experience has a habit of challenging comfortable assumptions. Over the past twenty years this blog has wandered across many different subjects. There have been articles about economics, taxation, constitutional reform, libertarian philosophy, civil liberties, Jersey politics, government policy and the o...

There are thoughts that arise from reason.  There are impulses born from fear, desire, anxiety and emotion. And then, occasionally, there is something else. A deeper knowing. Not a sentence formed in language. Not a chain of conscious logic. Not the emotional turbulence that so often disguises itself as intuition. But a still and profound apprehension that seems to emerge from somewhere beyond the isolated self. I have come to think of this as Auscultation of the Ether . The phrase itself is important. Auscultation is a clinical term. A physician auscultates the body with a stethoscope, listening beneath the surface for hidden rhythms — the beating of the heart, the movement of the lungs, the subtle signs of disorder or vitality that cannot be seen directly with the eye. To auscultate is not merely to hear. It is to listen attentively and with discipline. The Ether , meanwhile, is an ancient concept: the unseen medium once believed to permeate all things, the subtle field...

Translated into English Gnosis in an Age of Madness Back in 2020, when much of the world seemed gripped by a kind of irrational mass hysteria, I found myself craving something increasingly rare in modern life: silence. Not merely physical silence, but intellectual silence. Space away from the noise of governments, media cycles, social conformity, and the endless pressure to think collectively rather than individually. I wanted solitude because I wanted clarity. I wanted to think. More importantly, I wanted to experience true gnosis . English is a curious language, perhaps because we have developed a habit of hollowing out words and reshaping them until their original meanings become obscured. The word gnosis comes from the Greek and simply means “to know.” Not to speculate. Not to believe. Not to repeat fashionable opinions. But to know through direct understanding and experience. Today, if one searches for “Gnosticism,” one is immediately directed toward discussions of obscure ea...

Challenging the Illusion: Why Society Must Be Questioned There is a quiet pressure in modern society to conform. We are encouraged to accept prevailing narratives, obey established systems, and remain within carefully defined cultural boundaries. Those who question the dominant consensus are often dismissed as disruptive, dangerous, or unreasonable. Yet history repeatedly demonstrates that progress has always depended upon individuals willing to challenge the accepted order. The importance of questioning societal constructs is not merely political or philosophical — it is deeply personal. To challenge the assumptions of society is to begin the process of genuine self-discovery. The Path to Personal Growth From childhood, people are assigned labels, expectations, and roles. Society tells individuals who they should be, what success looks like, what beliefs are acceptable, and which ambitions are considered respectable. Many people spend their entire lives operating within frameworks the...