Goat Notes

It would be a happier world if the human condition didn't extend to the ability to fail on both counts at once!  For the record, I think that love of war is by far our most intractable present problem of the two, especially - and here is the part that touches today - belligerence by conceited or cowardly persons who consider themselves only as legitimate authors of war, never as its participants or legitimate targets.

I do not want to hear a howl for war from anybody who has not just about broken their back and heart trying the alternatives.  Yes, sometimes the tree of liberty may well need watering with the blood of tyrants - but one of the best tests for a tyrant is whether all milder means of irrigation, such as taking the piss out of them, have ceased to be practical. 

And I fancy some extension of that rule might often apply across borders.