There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity.

Arbitrary laws have to be enforced with disproportionate punishments. Reasonable laws are based in common sense and exist for everyone’s benefit. Reasonable laws are enforced with proportionate punishments. Why? Because people follow reasonable laws for their own benefit. A man doesn’t drive 100 miles an hour on the interstate for two reasons: first, because he will get a ticket and second, because it is dangerous to drive that fast. The fact it is dangerous means he follows the law for his own good.

Arbitrary laws are attended by disproportionate punishments, though, because no one feels their life is naturally and obviously better by following those laws. The punishment for breaking arbitrary laws must be awesome, baffling, for people have no good reason to keep them otherwise.

In lectures and articles for CiRCE, I have often mentioned Nicolas Gomez Davila, and lately been asked where to start with his philosophy.

Sadly, very little of Davila’s work has been translated into English. I first encountered Davila on the recommendation of a friend, yet he recommended I begin with Davila’s Goodreads quote page, which is more or less where I have remained for the last year. There is, by my count, just one book in English credited to his name on Amazon, and that book currently sells (used) for nearly a hundred dollars.

It seems the Germans have a huge affection for him. Many of his works are available in German. However, English speaking people seem to have been very slow to catch on to his merits.

Is Earth the best place to be human?

Maybe not, according to scientists at Washington State University, who have lately identified “superhabitable” planets that are “warmer and wetter than Earth.”

More habitable. Warmer and wetter.

It is baffling to me why reasonable men who are well-read in the Scriptures persist in using the axiom, “If all men were angels, no government would be necessary,” to defend their thoughts on politics.

Before the creation of mankind, when there were only angels, government nonetheless existed. There are many orders of angels, some more glorious than others, hence the difference between angels and archangels. What is more, in the original society of angels, one-third proved rebels, and rebellion presupposes the existence of a government.

In brief, Scripture is rather clear that societies of angels do actually exist, that they are not arranged democratically, but hierarchically, and that government should not be viewed as a thing which is necessary, but as a good in itself because God has ordained it.

This is the rather conventional conservative approach to government, though. When Burke defended the English monarchy against the encroachments of French Revolutionary ideas, he did not give any sort of priority to the idea of “limited government.”

The idea that power corrupts and should thus be spread as broadly and thinly across as many people as possible segues rather neatly into communism. The desire to liquidate and redistribute power that was popular in the late 18th century naturally gave way to Marxism just fifty years later.

A more venerable form of conservatism holds that money and power become increasingly meaningless as they become diffuse. One man can do more with a million dollars than a million men can do with a dollar each. The same is true of political power.

I don’t understand why progressives are complaining that the rich have gotten richer during the pandemic. If you give poor people and middle class people five trillion dollars of free money and tell them to spend it immediately, a good portion of that money is going to end up in the pockets of the rich. The rich sell things that the poor and middle class want.

Giving the poor and middle class free money will always mean the rich get richer. You can take money from the rich and give it to the poor, but the poor are always just going to give it back to the rich.