Action at the gentlemen’s club

Following another in a public-pleasing string of military victories, U.S. naval officer Stephan Decatur boasted, “Our country right or wrong.” G.K. Chesterton’s riposte: “My mother drunk or sober.”

Axial man

Many are willing and even eager to die for their country, but a country is not the truth. Where is the man who knows the truth and is willing to die for it?

War and rumours of war

The world is as it is because we are as we are.

Between furies and flags

Whereas intelligence is featureless, detached and not easy to discern, ignorance is blazingly obvious.

Drawing my sword

The more beliefs I have, the more often I will be required to decide something. The word decide comes from the Latin for ‘cut off.’ The sword is a manly bit of business.