"I remember that when I was a boy my teacher asked if anybody knew what laissez faire meant. I didn’t realize it was a French phrase. I thought it meant the government was 'lazy' and 'fair.' And it certainly worked well for Hong Kong under British rule."

Martin Lee in CATO Policy Report Vol. XXI, #6 (Nov./Dec. 1999)

In my latest National Post column I say Israelis should be proud, and others impressed, that a bribery scandal proves no one in Israel including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is above the law, in stark contrast to its unhappy neighbours.

"no rational creature can be supposed to change his condition with an intention to be worse"

John Locke The Second Treatise of Government

In some sense the French Revolution was “the black desperate battle of Men against their whole Condition and Environment, - a battle, alas, withal, against the Sin and Darkness that was in themselves as in others: this is the Reign of Terror."

Thomas Carlyle The French Revolution