From the Summit of the Moral High Ground

Every society must decide how it cares for those who cannot care for themselves. Children. The elderly. The disabled. Those temporarily out of work. Those facing genuine hardship. No civilised society can ignore human suffering. The real question is not whether help should be given. It is who should provide it. For most of history, responsibility rested primarily with families, neighbours, religious organisations and voluntary charities. Government certainly existed, but it was rarely expected to become the principal source of support for everyday life. Over the past century that expectation has changed dramatically. Today, many people naturally turn first to government when confronted by difficulty. Healthcare. Education. Housing. Income support. Pensions. Childcare. Social care. Employment assistance. The list continues to grow. Some of these developments have undoubtedly improved lives. Many people have received assistance they desperately needed. Medical treatment has become more w...

Every society must answer one fundamental question. Who, or what, possesses ultimate authority? The answer shapes everything that follows. It determines where people look for justice. Where they seek moral guidance. Who educates their children. Who cares for the vulnerable. Who defines right and wrong. Throughout history the answer has rarely been government alone. Authority has been distributed among many institutions. Families. Churches. Local communities. Voluntary associations. Businesses. Guilds. Charities. Universities. Each exercised authority within its own sphere. Each limited the influence of the others. This distribution of authority acted as a safeguard against the concentration of power. No single institution possessed complete control over society. If government overreached, other institutions could resist. If a church became corrupt, families could challenge it. If families failed, communities could provide support. Liberty flourishes where authority is dispersed. It wea...

There was a time when caring for another human being rarely appeared in the national accounts. Parents raised children. Adult children cared for ageing parents. Neighbours looked after neighbours. Meals were cooked. Clothes were repaired. Homes were maintained. None of this counted towards Gross Domestic Product. It generated no invoices. It attracted no taxation. Yet society functioned. This raises an uncomfortable question. When politicians speak proudly of economic growth, are we always producing more wealth, or are we sometimes merely paying for activities that families once performed without charge? Suppose a mother stays at home to care for her own child. Economically, almost nothing happens. No wages are paid. No income tax is collected. No National Insurance contributions are made. No VAT is charged. The child receives care, but GDP barely notices. Now suppose that same mother returns to paid employment. The child enters professional childcare. The mother earns a salary. The ch...

When people discuss the institutions that shape society, they usually think of government. Some think of business. Others think of the courts. Few stop to consider the institution that, for thousands of years, formed the foundation of civilisation itself. The household. Today the word often means little more than the people who happen to live under the same roof. Historically it meant something far greater. The household was society's first government. It was the first school. It was the first welfare system. It was the first healthcare provider. It was the first pension scheme. It was the first childcare service. It was the first place where values, responsibilities and practical skills were passed from one generation to the next. Long before governments assumed these responsibilities, households performed them naturally. Children were educated by parents and extended family. The elderly were cared for by their relatives. Food was produced, preserved and prepared within the home. ...

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...

A formal complaint has been lodged against the Minister for Home Affairs alleging a failure to ensure independent and procedurally fair oversight of complaints concerning the States of Jersey Prison Service. The complaint, submitted under the Ministerial Code, argues that complaints concerning prison conduct and decision-making are routinely redirected back to the Prison Service itself, rather than being considered by an independent and impartial body. The complaint further argues that this creates a structural conflict of interest whereby the subject of complaints is effectively permitted to investigate itself. The issue is particularly significant because the Court of Appeal previously found that the Prison Service breached my human rights after I was forced to attend my father’s funeral in handcuffs following what the Court described as a flawed and unjustifiable risk assessment process. The case was reported by Bailiwick Express: https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/news/handcuffing-pr...

For a place like Jersey , the weakness of independent politics is not just fragmentation — it is vulnerability. An isolated States Member can be pressured, managed, delayed, exhausted or quietly neutralised by an entrenched civil service far more easily than a disciplined political party can. Political parties are not merely electoral machines. They are structures of accountability and collective resistance. A lone deputy who challenges the bureaucracy risks being isolated: denied influence, excluded from informal networks, overwhelmed with procedure, outmanoeuvred by institutional continuity, or gradually absorbed into the administrative culture they were elected to scrutinise. But a party changes the balance entirely. A party gives elected representatives: shared policy, shared research, collective discipline, institutional memory, and political consequences for betrayal or drift. Most importantly, parties create loyalty to voters and principles rather than dependenc...

Dr Ott’s Nine Veils: A Modern Reimagining of an Ancient Idea The concept of the Nine Veils to Perception , often attributed in modern discussion to Dr Ott, can be understood as a contemporary development built upon the earlier Eight Veils of Don Harkins, while also echoing far older ideas found in Gnostic Christianity—particularly the role of the Archons. Taken together, these frameworks attempt to answer a shared question: What are the layers that separate human beings from a fuller perception of reality—and why do they exist at all? Source of the Modern Formulation The modern nine-veil structure is most clearly articulated in A. True Ott’s article: 👉 The 9 Veils Placed On Every Human Soul This text builds on Harkins’ earlier work and sets out the expanded model, including the key principles that perception is limited, progression is rare, and those who move beyond early veils are often perceived as irrational by others. From Gnostic Cosmology to Modern F...

Understanding the Nine Veils 'Ninety percent of all humanity will live and die without having pierced the first veil.' ' D Harkins Nearly a decade ago, a dear friend and colleague of mine named Don Harkins authored a wonderfully thought-provoking piece entitled 'Slavery and the eight veils. Prior to Harkins' untimely death, we discussed this 'Eight-veils theory' for literally hours together ' and in the end, Don asked me to write a piece about this for his newspaper, 'The Idaho Observer.' He did this, because I had shared much of my research with Don, and we together came to the conclusion that in reality, there were actually NINE veils placed on the human soul (i.e. intelligence), and that spiritual progression and thus a full knowledge of TRUTH would require the piercing of these Nine Veils. ...