From the Summit of the Moral High Ground

There is another biblical story which has been occupying my thoughts. It is the story of Jonah and Nineveh. Unlike Abraham, Jonah is not negotiating with God over how many righteous people might be found within a wicked society. Jonah is given a much simpler task. He is told to go to Nineveh and warn its people that destruction is coming. Jonah does not want to do it. He runs away. But eventually Jonah finds himself back on the path that God has chosen for him, and he goes to Nineveh. He delivers the message. The city is going to be destroyed. And then something remarkable happens. The people listen. They recognise what they have been doing. They repent. And God does not destroy them. The Purpose of a Warning There is something important about this story which is very easily overlooked. If destruction had been the only objective, there would have been no need for Jonah. There would have been no need for a warning. There would have been no need for ...

There is an old biblical question which has occupied my thoughts for some time. How many good people does it take to save a society? The question appears most famously in the story of Abraham and Sodom. Abraham stands before God and questions the justice of destroying an entire city. What if there are fifty righteous people within it? Would it really be right to destroy the righteous along with the wicked? God agrees that He would spare the city for the sake of the fifty. But Abraham continues. What about forty-five? Forty? Thirty? Twenty? Ten? And so Abraham gradually negotiates the number down, each time asking whether the existence of a smaller number of righteous people would be sufficient reason for the city to be spared. It is a remarkable conversation. It suggests that the moral character of a society cannot simply be separated from the actions of the individuals within it. The existence of goodness matters. The existence of people who are prepared to s...

Every journey must eventually return to its beginning. This series began with a simple proposition. Every power creates opportunities for abuse. That principle has guided every article that followed. We have examined the growth of government. The decline of the household. The marketisation of care. The changing relationship between citizens and the state. The quiet effects of inflation. The immense authority exercised by the justice system. And the gradual transfer of society's expectations towards government itself. The purpose has never been to argue that government is evil. It is not. Nor has the purpose been to suggest that government is unnecessary. It clearly is. Civilisation requires laws. It requires courts. It requires police. It requires national defence. It requires public institutions capable of performing tasks that individuals cannot accomplish alone. The question has never been whether government should exist. The question has always been where its limits should lie....

Every civilisation places its ultimate trust somewhere. Throughout history, many societies looked first to family. Others looked to tribe. Many looked to religion. In the Western world, Christianity taught that ultimate authority belonged to God. Kings possessed authority. Governments possessed authority. Judges possessed authority. Parents possessed authority. Yet every earthly authority remained limited. Each answered to something higher. This principle shaped the civilisation that emerged over many centuries. It reminded rulers that they were not supreme. It reminded citizens that obedience was not unlimited. It reminded society that no human institution should ever become absolute. Whether one accepts the religious belief itself is, in many respects, beside the point. The political consequence was profound. Government was never expected to become everything. Over time, however, something remarkable has happened. As many traditional institutions have weakened, government has steadil...

No institution possesses greater authority over the individual than the justice system. It can arrest. It can search. It can seize property. It can prosecute. It can imprison. In some countries, it can even take life. These are extraordinary powers. They exist because society cannot function without law. Without courts, disputes remain unresolved. Without police, criminal violence flourishes. Without prisons, dangerous offenders remain free. Justice is one of the essential functions of any civilised society. Yet that is precisely why it deserves the closest scrutiny. The greater the power, the greater the opportunity for abuse. This principle does not begin with distrust of the police, the courts or prosecutors. It begins with a recognition of human nature. Judges are human. Police officers are human. Prosecutors are human. Witnesses are human. Complainants are human. Defendants are human. Jurors are human. Every participant possesses the same strengths and weaknesses found throughout ...

Most people understand taxation. Governments announce new tax rates. Parliament debates them. Citizens complain about them. They are visible. Inflation is different. Almost everyone notices rising prices. Far fewer stop to ask why their money buys less than it once did. A loaf of bread costs more. Electricity becomes more expensive. Fuel prices rise. A weekly shop costs noticeably more than it did only a few years earlier. The usual explanation is simple. Prices have gone up. Yet that is only half the story. The other half is that the purchasing power of money has gone down. A pound still bears the same name. It simply buys less. The result is subtle. No new tax bill arrives through the letterbox. No parliamentary vote announces that your savings have lost value. Yet the effect is real. Every pound you have earned over many years purchases slightly less than it once did. Those who have spent years building savings discover that the value of those savings quietly diminishes. Those livin...

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...