Gyroscopic Investing

...This process was brutal. Whether it was the Romans in Britain or the British in India, pacification could be just as bloody as the savagery it stamped out. Yet despite the Hitlers, Stalins and Maos, over 10,000 years, war made states, and states made peace.

American attitudes toward government are therefore not just some Beltway debate; they matter to everyone on Earth. “Government,”? Ronald Reagan assured Americans in his first inaugural address, “is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”? Reagan’s great fear — that bloated government would stifle individual freedom — shows just how far the continuing debates over the merits of big and small government have taken us from the horrors that worried Hobbes. “The 10 most dangerous words in the English language,”? Reagan said on another occasion, “are ‘Hi, I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’ ”? As Hobbes could have told him, in reality the 10 scariest words are, “There is no government and I’m here to kill you.”?