Day Off

     I need some downtime. This old age stuff is wearing. Back tomorrow, I hope. Meanwhile, pray for Scott Adams: that he depart peacefully from this life, and that his soul find its way into God's arms.

This Greenland Thing

     Greenland in the news! Contention over Greenland! NATO roiled by tensions over Greenland! War threatens! Film at eleven!

     I know, I know: you’ve been there. Actually, for those with short memories, I too have been there, and if the tune is the same, the words differ somewhat:

     President Donald Trump and his top officials have framed their drive for Greenland — a semi-autonomous Danish territory — as all about U.S. national security, broader NATO footprints in the increasingly competitive Arctic and grabbing critical minerals.
     This is a somewhat thin justification. The U.S. has for many decades had a defense agreement with Copenhagen to keep a military presence in Greenland.
     Plus, much of the concern plaguing Europe for the last year is built on a fear of the U.S. pulling away from the continent — not committing more American troops to a region NATO is desperate to safeguard against growing Russian and Chinese influence.

     Please read the rest. It’s not bad for a Newsweek article. But most of the salient points are already part of public discourse.

     There’s a strange feel to President Trump’s desire that Greenland become a part of the U.S. Since this is the second time around for this initiative, I have to wonder whether America’s national interests are his real reasons for pursuing it.

     A few things that Greenland is not:

• It’s not arable.
• It’s not “living space.”
• It’s not easily exploitable.

     I’m told it’s valuable for military purposes. I’ll accept that; many harsh places stand guard over strategic travel routes, and the North Atlantic is forever full of vessels, both surface and subsurface, that bear watching. But the U.S. already has military bases on Greenland. Denmark, which claims sovereignty over Greenland, has expressed willingness that American military exploitation of Greenland should increase.

     I’m also told that Greenland is rich in natural resources. That may be so, but again, the Danish government has been accommodating toward commercial exploitation of Greenland’s resources. We must ask why the formal acquisition of Greenland – its transfer from Denmark’s jurisdiction to ours – matters so greatly to President Trump.

     The simplest explanation may be the correct one: Trump’s a real-estate man. Any real-estate man would rather own than lease. And there are possible advantages in not having to bargain with another power for the use of Greenland. But responsibility for the people of Greenland would come with it.

     Another, somewhat darker explanation, would be that contention over Greenland makes an ideal lever by which to pull the U.S. out of NATO. NATO is the conduit through which American resources are pulled into Europe. The drain NATO places on American military power and funding was the original reason that President Nixon ended the redeemability of the dollar in gold. Fomenting discord over Greenland might be an indirect method for ending NATO, an alliance long overdue for dissolution.

     There’s been talk about a morphing of the Monroe Doctrine into a “Donroe Doctrine,” under which American authority and responsibility for the Western Hemisphere would justify enfolding Greenland. That’s a bit thin. Greenland isn’t really part of the Western Hemisphere, and as previously stated, our military is already there.

     A minor possibility is that the matter is ego-driven: President Trump may envision American acquisition of Greenland as securing his place in the history books. It would be America’s largest territorial acquisition, edging out the Louisiana Purchase. That would be an impressive enlargement of the U.S., but in practical terms it would change almost nothing. Anyway, President Trump’s place in the books is already secure for other reasons, and I’m sure he knows it.

     Finally, there’s this: Back in the days of the Plantagenets, it was a common practice for the king to “give” a province to a brother or son. If President Trump is thinking of Greenland as a college-graduation gift for Barron, I’d suggest a snowglobe instead. Young men don’t often cherish such gifts for long. They thank Dad for them, but soon enough they stick them in the back of the closet and forget them. There they languish until their wives-to-be decree a “cleanup” that sees them left at the curb for the recyclers. No one would want to see Greenland suffer that fate. Especially the Greenlanders.

     Anyway, I still think if we’re going to go national-real-estate shopping, we should buy Canada. The National Hockey League Hall Of Fame really belongs in America, don’t you think?

The Baptism Of Jesus

     According to Matthew the Evangelist:

     Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?
     And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him.
     And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

     [Matthew 3:13-17]

     It’s a curious episode: the Son of God submitting himself to baptism by a mortal! Why? What made it necessary, or appropriate?

     This morning’s Mass celebrant offered his thesis, which for all I know may be official Church teaching: that by accepting baptism by John, Jesus was validating Baptism as a sacrament. As Catholics believe that sacramental Baptism cleanses the new Christian of the burden of original sin, that has some weight. But it might not be a complete explanation.

     For further insight, let’s look at Jesus’s lifelong adoption of lowliness.

     Jesus was born to two poor travelers, who were far from their home. He spent his earliest hours in a manger. He spent his youth laboring alongside his father. When he undertook his ministry, he traveled Judea as a mortal, in the humblest of all modes of travel: on foot, without any money, luggage or “extra” possessions. He depended upon the generosity of those he visited for his sustenance and his shelter. He would die in the most torturous and ignominious manner of that time – and between two petty thieves!

     Accepting baptism by John was fully consistent with Jesus’s adoption of other lowly practices. Only in his miracles, most of all his Resurrection, did he display divine power and status.

     There’s a lot to ponder in there, especially in light of what Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen had to say about him:

     When God came to Earth, there was no room in the inn, but there was room in the stable. What lesson is hidden behind the inn and the stable?

     What is an inn, but the gathering-place of public opinion, the focal point of the world’s moods, the residence of the worldly, the rallying place of the fashionable and those who count in the management of the world’s affairs? What is a stable, but the place of outcasts, the refuge of beasts, and the shelter of the valueless, and therefore the symbol of those who in the eyes of public opinion do not count and hence may be ignored as of no great value or moment? Anyone in the world would have expected to find Divinity in an inn, but no one would have expected to have found it in a stable….

     If, in those days, the stars of the heavens by some magic touch had folded themselves together as silver words and announced the birth of the Expected of the Nations, where would the world have gone in search of Him?

     The world would have searched for the Babe in some palace by the Tiber, or in some gilded house of Athens, or in some inn of a great city where gathered the rich, the mighty, and the powerful ones of Earth. They would not have been the least surprised to have found the newborn King of Kings stretched out on a cradle of gold and surrounded by kings and philosophers paying Him their tribute and obeisance.

     But they would have been surprised to have discovered Him in a manger, laid on coarse straw and warmed by the breath of oxen, as if in atonement for the coldness of the hearts of men. No one would have expected that the One whose fingers could stop the turning of Arcturus would be smaller than the head of an ox; that He who could hurl the ball of fire into the heavens would one day be warmed by the breath of beasts; that He who could make a canopy of stars would be shielded from a stormy sky by the roof of a stable; or that He who made the Earth as His future home would be homeless at home. No one would have expected to find Divinity in such a condition; but that is because Divinity is always where you least expect to find it….

     The world has always sought Divinity in the power of a Babel, but never in the weakness of a Bethlehem. It has searched for it in the inns of popular opinion, but never in the stable of the ignored. It has looked for it in the cradles of gold, but never in the cribs of straw – always in power, but never in weakness.

     The Jews of First Century Judea believed that their Messiah would be a temporal leader, a warlord who would cast off the yoke of Rome and lead them to glory among the nations. They got a man in a simple robe and sandals, who sought neither power nor status. He accepted baptism from a crude wilderness figure, and went on to preach gentleness, simplicity, and repentance. Is it any wonder that so many failed to accept him?

     May God bless and keep you all.

What Is "The Law Of Nations?"

     This piece and the many others that have been written since American forces deposed Nicolas Maduro have excited questions about “international law.” The phrase is portentous but misleading. If we take as our template “law” as it comes about in parliaments and is enforced by armed agents of the State, we find ourselves unable to grapple with “laws” never legislated nor backed by specific enforcers. To give “international law” appreciable meaning, we must seek guidance elsewhere.

     Article I Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States includes this provision:

     The Congress shall have power… To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

     When the Constitution was written, “the Law of Nations” was taken to mean the body of proscriptions commonly recognized and enforced throughout those nations from which the peoples of the original thirteen states held as their heritage. Two above others were paramount:

• “Thou shalt not kill.”
• “Thou shalt not steal.”

     Despite the political departure the Constitution represented, the Founders recognized the key legal commonality between America and its Old World roots: the laws against forcible predation. Thus, they empowered Congress to define those acts as punishable outside as well as inside our national borders. Other national laws were omitted from consideration, or deemed unenforceable “on the high Seas.” At the time there was no consideration of laws such as today’s forbiddings of various drugs. Smuggling laws enforced at the nation’s border were outside the “high Seas” scope of the provision.

     Today “the Law of Nations” is more extensive than in 1787. For example, there’s a general agreement among civilized nations that the international transport of certain drugs, and the unauthorized transport of weapons, should be forbidden. No world legislature passed laws against those things; it’s simply a commonality among the great majority of nations. So it became first a matter of tacit international agreement, later confirmed by various treaties and United Nations “conventions.” (It’s also a criterion for recognizing a “rogue state” or a “failed state.”)

     Mind you, such agreements, implicit or explicit, are agreements between States. States do such things to benefit themselves, not their subjects or neighbor States. Were the U.S. to rescind all its laws against traffic in fentanyl, for example, the existing agreements against international traffic would remain. The other nations would continue to enforce them to the extent possible… which, with America subtracted from the equation, would be considerably less.

     Just this morning, “The Pour Over,” a newsletter I get regularly, put forth its own take on “international law:”

     That’s not a bad abstract treatment of the subject, though it doesn’t delve into the history of the thing. As regards enforcement, it’s a bit simplistic in leaning upon “sanctions.” Clearly those are not the only instruments at a nation’s disposal, as the U.S. demonstrated by sinking several drug-smuggling boats in international waters.

     There were, of course, protests against those sinkings. Google’s AI summarizes those reactions, including those from outside the U.S.:

     International criticism of the U.S. strikes came from various sources:

• United Nations and Human Rights Bodies: The UN human rights chief suggested the strikes might constitute unlawful extrajudicial killings, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights voiced "deep concern," requesting investigations.
• Foreign Governments: Venezuela condemned the operations as aggression and violations of international law, filing a complaint with the UN Security Council. Colombian President Gustavo Petro called the strikes "extrajudicial executions". Brazil, China, France, Iran, Mexico, and Russia also stated the strikes violated international law.
• Non-Governmental Organizations and Activists: Human rights groups and legal experts, including the American Friends Service Committee, questioned the legality of the killings and the absence of public evidence.
• Public Protests: Protests against the U.S. actions occurred in locations like Rochester, New York, with demonstrators carrying signs such as "No War on Venezuela".

     The international negative reaction primarily focused on the U.S. military's use of lethal force in what were seen as law enforcement scenarios without publicly providing evidence for the "narco-terrorist" label, leading to concerns about legality under international law.

     But lethal force is the ultimate form of enforcement. It stands behind all other varieties of enforcement. The opinions of the protestors, individual or national, do not matter. The drugs and their transporters were offending against “the Law of Nations” as currently agreed among the States of the world. Moreover, they were doing so in very fast vessels designed to evade capture by the larger, slower vessels of blue-water navies. American aircraft destroyed them. As a character of mine once said, period fucking dot.

     This is not a moral defense nor a legitimization of the action. It’s what States do, and States are amoral. On net balance, I’d say it was a good thing, my opinions about the War on Drugs notwithstanding. It’s best for the potential consequences of an action to be clearly understood beforehand and plainly visible afterward.

     Let there be no misapprehensions: if there is to be a “Law of Nations,” it will be the great powers who will determine and enforce it. Indeed, there needn’t be a “Law of Nations” for that to be the case. The great powers will always enforce their will in No-Man’s Land. Consider low Earth orbit in this regard. Till now, the “Law of Nations” has barely brushed against it. That will change.

Design To Function

     I’ve done several kinds of design. They all have unique requirements and constraints. But they share a single universal imperative: the one in the title above.

     “What must this thing to do?” is the prime question of design. You must know and understand it. You must also know and understand that what you want it to do isn’t the only thing it will do. Quoth Marc Stiegler: “You can never do only one thing.” There will be side effects. It’s guaranteed that one or more won’t be pleasant.

     These days there’s a great deal of consternation over charity. That should surprise no one. The foofaurauw over how, when, and to whom to give has been raging since Christ walked the earth. Much of that rage is over the putative side effects, with this one in particular: the more money and effort is dedicated to charitable action, the more money and effort charitable action will demand.

     The great Cyril Northcote Parkinson understood it. He propounded his Second Law – “Expenditure rises to meet income, and tends to exceed it” – for that reason. That Law is broad in application, but it definitely covers charity.

     Money and effort put to meeting a particular demand reinforce that demand. Consider what happened to medical costs when governments got involved in paying for medical products and services. Providers raised their prices to absorb what had been budgeted and clamored for still more. It’s the same with charity: “Hey, look how much I got from them! Get over here and get in on it!”

     That didn’t happen when charitable giving was confined to the wills and wallets of private citizens. Their willingness to give of themselves was limited by firm constraints: their families’ needs and their recognition that there’s such a thing as unwise giving. The responsibilities and demands of living enforced the former; personal involvement with the recipients of charity persuaded them of the latter.

     Given that sad wisdom – and as it flows directly from human nature, it’s both sad and inevitable – how does one design a charitable organization?

     The short if brutal answer is: You don’t. Organized charities destroy the personal involvement that best serves to deter unwise and excessive giving. The closest possible approach to a sound charitable organization is something like a local food bank that vets those who want to partake of it. Even those will be plundered to some extent by the undeserving.

     Mega-charities such as the United Way are the best possible examples of unwisdom in giving. They absorb most of their receipts in organizational expenses; the fraction remaining isn’t guaranteed to reach the deserving needy. That’s not conjecture; they issue regular reports that make the problem starkly obvious. Jerry Pournelle would have told you so.

     Charity – the simple act of helping those who need and deserve help – is thus insusceptible to efficiency through organization. But if something that simple defies top-down control, what is there to say or do about the many thousands of other things for which we form and tolerate large organizations?

* * *

     There’s a quote from Herbert Spencer that comes to mind:

     “A blade which is designed both to shave and to carve, will certainly not shave so well as a razor or carve so well as a carving-knife. An academy of painting, which should also be a bank, would in all probability exhibit very bad pictures and discount very bad bills. A gas-company, which should also be an infant-school society, would, we apprehend, light the streets ill, and teach the children ill.” And if an institution undertakes, not two functions but a score; if a government, whose office it is to defend citizens against aggressors, foreign and domestic, engages also to disseminate Christianity, to administer charity, to teach children their lessons, to adjust prices of food, to inspect coal-mines, to regulate railways, to superintend house-building, to arrange cab-fares, to look into people’s stink-traps, to vaccinate their children, to send out emigrants, to prescribe hours of labor, to examine lodging-houses, to test the knowledge of mercantile captains, to provide public libraries, to read and authorize dramas, to inspect passenger-ships, to see that small dwellings are supplied with water, to regulate endless things from a banker’s issues down to the boat-fares on the Serpentine; is it not manifest that its primary duty must be ill-discharged in proportion to the multiplicity of affairs it busies itself with? Must not its time and energies be frittered away in schemes, and inquiries, and amendments, in discussions, and divisions, to the neglect of its essential business? And does not a glance over the debates make it clear that this is the fact? and that, while Parliament and public are alike occupied with these mischievous interferences, these Utopian hopes, the one thing needful is left almost undone?

     [Herbert Spencer, The Man Versus The State]

     Spencer was one of the greatest intellects of the Nineteenth Century, nor can anyone justly claim to have surpassed him. He saw clearly. He told us about what he saw forthrightly. And what was he saying in the above? Design to function! As straitly as possible, have your instrument do the thing for which it was fashioned, and nothing else. Even if we omit all abstract considerations of things such as freedom, justice, and the rights of men, there can be no profit in assigning a great many responsibilities to a single instrument.

     That is: except for the profit that accrues to those who loot it.

* * *

     Forgive me, Gentle Reader. The above is the consequence of having crossed the path of one who seemed a sincere liberal. His grail is “compassion in government.” He felt it as imperative as dispensing justice and protecting the nation from invasion. I could not sway him. Ultimately I had to conclude that for him, charity was a “design point:” something absolutely required of the State. The absurdity of an institution whose sole method is force undertaking to dispense the milk of human kindness did not reach him.

     Well, I suppose I should restrict my outreach efforts to those who can be persuaded. Now it’s back to fiction. This next novel will be special! Not only will it tell a gripping story that expresses deep truths about the human condition; it will also present and analyze an entirely new chess opening and include the C.S.O.’s twelve favorite cake recipes! Coming Soon to a website near you.

Sententious Sentiment About Sentience

     Forgive me for the title, Gentle Reader. It was an opportunity I couldn’t allow to pass. But here I am digressing before I’ve even begun.

     Consider this tweet from an impressive young woman:

“Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve”.
— Max Planck

Which makes me wonder: are we the explorers of the universe, or is the… pic.twitter.com/T6iqMeEEFt

— Taya (@travelingflying) January 8, 2026

     I was unfamiliar with the Planck quote before this. It called to mind something Professor John Lennox said:

     "Nonsense remains nonsense, even when it comes from the mouths of famous scientists."

     The nonsense is expressed in the phrase “solve the ultimate mystery of nature.” Who is trying to do any such thing? For that matter, what is “the ultimate mystery of nature?” Were I to ask a hundred randomly selected persons to explain that phrase, I’d expect a hundred different answers. (The C.S.O. just contributed this: “Two or three hundred, if they were Jewish.” She would know.)

     However, Taya’s addendum piqued my personal interest:

     “[A]re we the explorers of the universe, or is the universe exploring itself through us?”

     I stumbled near to that in what I believe to be my best novel, the one for which I’d like to be remembered:

     As they entered the great room that contained the wine vats, Ray pulled Larry aside and whispered “What are we about to see?”
     Larry shook his head. “I haven’t seen it myself.”
     “What additives and clarifying agents will you require?” Ottavio said as they walked past the vats.
     “None,” Fountain said.
     “Then what is your method?”
     “You will see.”
     The others hung back as Ottavio directed Fountain to the vat of unclarified Malbec. The Monti vats were made of aged wood bound in black iron bands. They were smaller than those at Broadhead. Their bases rested flat on the villa floor. The room was filled with the aromas of wine, yeast, and fermentation.
     Fountain imperceptibly took command of her host. She urged him close to the vat, took his hands and set them against its surface, moved to stand behind him, slid her arms around his chest, and rested her chin upon his shoulder. They stood thus in silence for perhaps half a minute. Within her embrace, Ottavio Monti trembled as if his strength were being tried to its limits.
     “What is it you feel?” she murmured against his cheek. “Tell me everything.”
     “Wood,” he said. “Rough, warm wood. And...the wine. And...” His voice dropped most of an octave. “And life.” He trembled in her embrace. “It is alive! But the vat is two hundred years old and the wine is grapes crushed to a sauce! How can this be?”
     “All things are alive,” Fountain whispered. “All things are aware. What else do you feel?”
     “I...” His tremor intensified.
     “Tell me, Ottavio Monti.” She squeezed him gently. “It is safe. It is right.”
     “Love,” he whispered incredulously. “Your love. And mine.”
     “All things know love,” she said in the voice of an oracle dispensing a mystical revelation. “And all things respond to love and return it in equal measure. Do you love the wine?”
     “Si, molto.”
     “Then tell it so,” Fountain said. She laid a hand over his heart. “From here, Ottavio. Use any words, any language you like, but tell it that you love it and listen for its answer.”
     The vintner of Villa Monti closed his eyes and bowed his head. Fountain held him snugly.
     Larry, Trish, and Domenico Monti stood transfixed. Ray murmured the Lord’s Prayer under his breath.
     “Gran Dio!” Ottavio whispered.
     He pulled his hands from the vat and dropped to his knees. Fountain released him, ascended the steps to the vat’s rim, took up the dipper that hung there, extracted a cup of wine, and descended. She knelt before Ottavio and offered him the dipper.
     “Taste it.”
     He did. His eyes brimmed over. He handed the dipper back to Fountain.
     “Now do you see?” she said.
     He smiled through his tears and nodded.
     She rose, brought the dipper to the others, and bade them taste it. They did, in turn.
     “Wow,” Larry said.
     “Oh my God,” Ray said.
     “As good as Broadhead’s, maybe even better,” Trish said.
     “Gloria a Dio,” Domenico said.
     Fountain nodded serenely.

     “All things are alive. All things are aware.” I’m not the first to explore that idea. Orson Scott Card did so in his Alvin Maker series. Perhaps others have done so as well.

     But is there even the slightest possibility that it’s true? Given what we know about life and consciousness, it seems impossible. But in all candor and humility, how much do we really know about those things?

     In his magnum opus Star Maker, Olaf Stapledon imagined the universe as an entity slowly evolving toward cosmic sentience, ultimately to mate with its Creator. It’s a grand vision, arguably the largest any science fiction writer has ever entertained, but it’s the reverse of the one Fountain expresses in my snippet: that even the tiniest things possess a form of sentience and responsiveness.

     Before we go any deeper into this morass, the above is a fictional premise. It’s not one I put my personal stock in. Besides, Fountain might have been overly broad, mightn’t she? For her to perform her miracles, only living things and things derived from them need the properties of which she speaks.

     Yet in a romantic way, that premise appeals to a yearning all men possess: the desire to be loved and valued, as widely and greatly as possible. If the whole universe were aware and could love you, whether in its tiniest bits or as a mighty whole, what would it be worth to you to have that love?

     What about the Figure behind the universe? He whose will causes and sustains all things? How much is it worth to you to have His love?

     Just an early-morning thought.

The State And I

     “I don't mean that a business politician won't steal; stealing is his business. But all politicians are nonproductive. The only commodity any politician has to offer is jawbone. His personal integrity – meaning, if he gives his word, can you rely on it? A successful business politician knows this and guards his reputation for sticking by his commitments – because he wants to stay in business-go on stealing, that is-not only this week but next year and years after that. So if he's smart enough to be successful at this very exacting trade, he can have the morals of a snapping turtle, but he performs in such a way as not to jeopardize the only thing he has to sell, his reputation for keeping promises.”

     [Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough For Love]

     “A man who doesn’t detest a bad government is a fool. And if there were such a thing as a good government on earth, it would be a great joy to serve it.”
     There we understood each other. “I know something of that joy,” I said.
     “Yes; so I judged.”

     [Ursula Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness]

     With the foofaurauw swirling around President Trump’s decision to depose Nicolas Maduro – which I find that I approve – I have a few reflections you might find relevant, or at least mildly entertaining.

     Evils come in many varieties. In particular, they’re not all the same size. The State is the largest organized agent of evil that we know of today. But States are not equal in size, nor in the evils they perpetrate.

     The view from 30,000 feet tends to make unequal things look closer to equal. But the differences remain. They’ll be acknowledged by those honest enough to see them plainly. So we weigh the evil of conscription against the evil of millions of lives being extinguished in gas chambers, and decide temporarily in favor of the former.

     Would I prefer that the United States have no government – i.e., that we become the Untied Anarchies? Why, yes. Can I bring that about? Sadly, no. Moreover, geopolitical reality dictates that it not be that way for the foreseeable future.

     A world partitioned into States is a world where the choice will always be among evils. That is the world we live in and must endure.

* * *

     From the available evidence, Nicolas Maduro was at the top of one of the most evil regimes in the history of Man. Worse, he sought to inflict harm on America and Americans. He oversaw both the smuggling of fentanyl and the migration of gangsters and other criminals into our country. He is, in other words, a very bad guy.

     President Donald Trump decreed that Maduro should fall. American armed forces went forth to see to it. Acting with a degree of precision altogether unprecedented in warfare, they captured Maduro and brought him to the United States to face trial. This both gives Venezuelans a chance to improve their lot and puts other socialist despots on notice that their futures are not assured.

     I approve. Indeed, I applaud. Our State did something to reduce the threats to Americans, and to reduce the amount of evil in the world. It did so because President Trump wanted it done. He is a good man who has arranged for a good thing to be done.

     I can disapprove of the institution of the State and hope that it will someday cease to exist, while acknowledging that it has done something of which I approve.

* * *

     Many theorists and commentators in the Right regard the State as a necessary evil. We’re all familiar with the concept and the justifications advanced in support of it. Probably the best of them conceives of the State as an instrument rather than an institution. If that instrument could be confined, somehow, to the protection of life, liberty, and property, then it would be an agent not of evil but of justice. It would be worthy of the support of good men.

     Of course, as is always the case, the most important word in the previous paragraph is if.

     Since early in the Twentieth Century, we have been unable to confine our State to justifiable activities. More recently, we’ve been given a chance to limit it somewhat. Confine it completely to its proper bounds? No. But the Trump Administration has striven in the direction of less coercion and greater freedom. It’s marching in the right direction. Freedom lovers can’t ask much more than that, circumstances being what they are.

     It’s petty and sour-mouthed to react to the capture of Maduro by saying “Well, yeah, but when are you going to do something about firearms rights, or regulatory overreach, or taxation?” A good deed should be applauded for itself. Yes, we want more. It’s understandable to clamor for still more pro-freedom actions. Don’t disparage other improvements, even if they seem small, simply because they aren’t what you were hoping for. The removal of Nicolas Maduro from power is an improvement.