Over at Australia’s Quadrant, the skeptical doctor contemplates modern-day democratic dissatisfaction, the growth in the power and arrogance of our bureaucrats, and the political climate in Britain, France, and the USA.

Dissatisfaction being the permanent condition of mankind, it behoves us to put our dissatisfactions into some kind of perspective. If we do not, we shall mistake inconveniences for tragedies and, what is perhaps worse, tragedies for inconveniences. Without any knowledge of history, or even appreciation that history is important, it is impossible to achieve perspective; and one should never forget that it is easier to effect change for the worse than for the better.