Threats and Blood

You moderate enforcer and eulogizer of moderation. You are one of those bloody and deceitful people who affect modesty in words and appearance, but who meanwhile breathe out threats and blood.

-Martin Luther, from Against Latomus, pg. 142 of Luther's Works, Vol. 32
(courtesy of the Lutheran Insulter)

Projectors

[C]ertain persons went up to Laputa [a floating city of mathematicians and musicians - COB], either upon business or diversion, and, after five months continuance, came back with a very little smattering of mathematics, but full of volatile spirits acquired in that airy region: that these people, upon their return, began to dislike the management of every thing below, and fell into schemes of putting all arts, sciences, languages, and mechanics, upon a new foot. To this end, they procured a royal patent for erecting an academy of projectors in Lagado [the capital city - COB]; and the humour prevailed so strongly among the people, that there is not a town of any consequence in the kingdom without such an academy. In these colleges the professors contrive new rules and methods of agriculture and building, and new instruments, and tools for all trades and manufactures; whereby, as they undertake, one man shall do the work of ten; a palace may be built in a week, of materials so durable as to last for ever without repairing. All the fruits of the earth shall come to maturity at whatever season we think fit to choose, and increase a hundred fold more than they do at present; with innumerable other happy proposals. The only inconvenience is that none of these projects are yet brought to perfection; and in the meantime, the whole country lies miserably waste, the houses in ruins, and people without food or clothes. By all which, instead of being discouraged, they are fifty times more bent on prosecuting their schemes, driven equally on by hope and despair

- Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

Are people ends, or just the means used by politically powerful "projectors" to pursue their particular dreams? The Declaration of Independence says the former, but Detroit and California (at least) are following the latter path.

Cumulative Impact

Every law or regulation that's enacted is the most restrictive law or regulation in the history of America. Full repeals are the only exception, but we won't have to worry about that any time soon on any front.