The Way In: Representation in our Parliament – Wesa Chau
— Organisation: Per Capita —“Everyone gets a fair go” is one of Australia’s most cherished values. We often pride ourselves on being a country where diversity is a strength and where anyone — with enough passion, hard work and persistence — can rise to leadership. But The Way In, Per Capita’s latest analysis of the 48th Parliament, reveals a more complicated truth. While we have taken meaningful steps forward, the pathways into federal politics remain narrow, elite, and far from reflective of the nation our parliamentarians are elected to serve.
Before diving into the findings, I’m reminded of a moment that crystallised the power of assumptions. When I was invited to speak at a leadership conference, I arrived at a venue hosting two events: one on leadership and the other on childcare. Other participants were asked which event they were attending – I wasn’t, staff directed me straight to childcare. It showed how assumptions about who looks like a leader still shape how people are seen and treated.
American Civil War II and its aftermath
— —Historians will, I predict, deem the current situation in the United States the American Civil War II.
This is a civil war instigated by the federal government when it began sending unnecessary and militarized forces into American cities. I date the start to the weekend of October 4, 2025 when Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth secretly ordered U.S. military troops to Chicago and Portland, Oregon, to aid and abet violence by federal agents against peaceful civilian populations. The militaristic federal invasion and occupation of Minneapolis is a continuation of this war.
Civil wars do not follow a template. Secession is not a necessary condition for an American civil war. In the current one, the American Democracy side and the Republican Fascist side are in existential disagreement over the following constitutional questions.
- Whether the executive branch of the federal government is constrained by the U.S. Constitution, laws passed by Congress, and judicial branch reiterations of either or both.
- Whether the executive branch may ignore the Constitutionally-defined sovereignty of states.
These are now live issues. The Trump regime has made them live by adopting the view that the federal executive branch is not constrained by the Constitution and relevant federal laws and using militaristic force against Americans in states whose voters have rejected this position and whose governors side with American Democracy.
What’s On Jan 19-25 2026
— Organisation: Free Palestine Melbourne —Burning homes and rising premiums: why fossil fuel companies must pay the bill
— Organisation: The Australia Institute —Just days after hundreds of homes were destroyed and tens of thousands of livestock died in Victoria’s bushfires, across the state hundreds more people were evacuated and multiple cars washed out to sea due to flash flooding following an intense storm.
Fossil fuel companies cause the climate change that turbocharges extreme weather events, but ordinary Australians are paying the price. It’s time that changed.
Global warming means extreme weather events like storms, floods, and bushfires are more frequent and more intense. But these disasters are still too often framed as tragic but unavoidable acts of nature, rather than the inevitable consequence of Australia being the third largest exporter of fossil fuels on Earth.
Gas, oil, and coal companies are let off the hook, while the true costs of climate-fueled disasters keep landing on the wrong people, again and again. It’s well past time Australia implemented a climate disaster levy on fossil fuel companies.
Because the costs of climate-fueled disasters are enormous. Homes and properties are destroyed. Businesses shut down. Cattle dead. Farms damaged. Local infrastructure – roads, power, water – wiped out in a matter of hours.
Following a string of major floods across the east coast of Australia in 2022, Australians claimed more than seven billion dollars on their home insurance – almost double the previous record.
No signs of heat going out of Coalition’s summer of discontent
— Organisation: The Australia Institute —Ley, and others in her increasingly small circle, mistook Josh Frydenberg’s win in forcing the Albanese government to call a royal commission into the events that led to Bondi as a personal victory.
It became obvious that was a mistake almost as soon as it happened. The Liberals may have found brief unity in a feverish lust of blaming the government, and anti-genocide protesters, for the actions of deranged terrorists, but that unity was never going to hold.
After losing the summer, Anthony Albanese is playing the long game. In throwing together a little of what everyone wanted into a bill no one wanted, he got to say he tried.
It is a well-worn Australian political tactic – wielding power through failure: “We tried to do something, and just couldn’t and that’s someone else’s fault” becomes the narrative, with the focus then shifting to who is not letting the government do as it wishes, rather than the government’s failure to find the support it needs to get it through.
In this case, Labor itself didn’t want the “something” it was attempting to do. It played a high stakes game with liberties to own the right, aided by the Greens, who saw the lay of the land and made the smart choice.
Now Ley must own the Coalition walking away from legislation it said it wanted, while the government gets to pretend it tried to meet its expectations.
In more crass terms, Ley f–ked around. Now she’s finding out.
What Trump Should Learn from Old Hickory’s Succession Plan
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —Almost immediately after he came down the golden escalator in 2015, Donald Trump was being compared to Andrew Jackson. From his anti-establishment tenor to his breaking of norms to his raucous times in office, media observers and even the president himself have highlighted their similarities. “It was during the Revolution that Jackson first confronted and defied an arrogant elite. Does that sound familiar to you?” Trump asked in 2017 during a speech marking Jackson’s 250th birthday.
But less discussed is the comparison between Jackson’s own revolution and Trump’s, particularly the endings. While this is understandable—Trump has in many respects served as America’s past, present, and political future for the last decade, and an ending to his time at the center of American life is difficult to fathom—as 2028 draws near, those who wish for Trump’s revolution to extend past his presidencies should look to how Jackson handled his own movement after he exited the White House.
Though Jackson left office in 1837, he did not leave the political scene. In fact, his political revolution was only half over. In managing the second half, Jackson would go on to become the most powerful former president in American history—and would see his revolution through to its conclusion.
What is a Woman?
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Media Release: Free Palestine Melbourne rejects Labor’s draconian bill
— Organisation: Free Palestine Melbourne —Grand Illusion - Read by Eunice Wong
— —This article is read by Eunice Wong, a Juilliard-trained actor, featured on Audible’s list of Best Women Narrators. Her work is on the annual Best Audiobooks lists of the New York Times, Audible, AudioFile, & Library Journal. www.eunicewong.actor
Text originally published January 8, 2026.
Senior Digital Engagement Officer
— Organisation: The Equality Trust —Title: Senior Digital Engagement OfficerHours: Full time (35 hours a week) – we are open to job shares and part time workSalary: £42,064.78 (3.1% inflationary pay increase from 1st April 2026)Location: London (Vauxhall) – we are open to hybrid working with at least 2 days per week working in personBenefits: closure between Christmas and New […]
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Trump, IVF, and the New Politics of Fertility
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —In February 2024, the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision on in vitro fertilization (IVF) reshaped the national debate around fertility and pushed both Democrats and Republicans to present themselves as champions of reproductive health. As President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris fought for the White House, IVF shifted from a niche medical issue to a test of how each side understood family, women’s health, and how far the “right” to have a child goes.
What began as a legal question—whether embryos created through IVF are considered human persons—quickly widened into a debate about rising infertility rates and whether the country should move beyond IVF to treat the root causes of infertility itself. During President Trump’s second term, he has unexpectedly found himself at the center of these debates.
The Ruling Heard Around the World
In many ways, the United States had been building toward this moment for decades. President George W. Bush’s Council on Bioethics (2001–2009) was one of the first political efforts to think seriously about the rights of and responsibilities owed to human embryos.
Operation of the Capital Gains Tax Discount inquiry submission
— Organisation: Prosper Australia —Submission to the Select Committee on the Operation of the Capital Gains Tax Discount Submitted by Prosper Australia, December 19, 2025. Prosper Australia advocates for a fairer and more efficient tax system that recognises the economic distinction between land, labour, and capital. We welcome the opportunity to contribute to this inquiry, particularly on the implications […]
The post Operation of the Capital Gains Tax Discount inquiry submission first appeared on Prosper Australia.Executive Power Could Be Making a Comeback
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —One of the core executive powers is that of prosecuting criminals. Article II of the Constitution assigns “the executive power”—all of it—to the president of the United States. In practice, the power to execute the laws against those who have violated them is delegated from the president to the attorney general, the Department of Justice which she heads, and the 93 U.S. attorneys spread across the country.
Yet since he took office for the second time last January, President Trump and his attorney general, Pam Bondi, have had a heck of a time getting their people in place. Of the roughly 50 U.S. attorney nominations the president has sent to the Senate, fewer than half—just 19—had been confirmed by December 15, and all of those but three were confirmed en masse in October, some 10 months after Trump took office. Although another 13 were confirmed en masse on December 18, 14 are still awaiting confirmation as we approach the one-year mark of Trump’s second term.
Event: Good Society Book Launch
— Organisation: The Equality Trust —Launching Professor Kate Pickett’s new book The Good Society with George Monbiot, Caroline Lucas and Baroness Ruth Lister Hear more about the barriers that hold our society back from achieving a good society and some thoughts on what can changes can be put in place to reduce inequality and increase standards of living. In her […]
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The Flotillas to Gaza Are the World’s Conscience
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Social Democrats of the North: William Irvine
— Publication: Perspectives Journal —Listen to the full conversation on the Perspectives Journal podcast, available to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, and all other major podcast platforms.
A Shining Mausoleum on a Hill
— —America is buried near a shining mausoleum on a hill.
Her grave is simple and white. She is surrounded by veterans of every war from the American Revolution to the Black Hawk Revolt to Vietnam. America lived in Illinois, which became a state when she was two. She died aged 53 in 1873, eight years after the Civil War ended. I wonder what she thought was coming.
The headstones surrounding America Myers are battered and worn. Some bear the scars of repair: patchwork tombs of broken remembrances. Others were long rendered indecipherable.
America is buried in Waterloo on a cliff overlooking the American Bottom.
The American Mind Podcast: The Roundtable Episode 300
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Spencer Klavan, and Mike Sabo devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.
Minnesota ICE (ft. Kyle Schideler) | The Roundtable Ep. 300
“Chaotic cruelty”: Trump administration escalating violence at home and abroad
— Organisation: The Australia Institute —On this episode of After America, Professor Elizabeth N Saunders from Columbia University joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss the “chaotic cruelty” of the Trump administration, its escalation of hostilities over Greenland and whether it will strike Iran.
This discussion was recorded on Tuesday 13 January (AEDT) 2026.
A time for Bravery: what happens when Australia chooses courage is available now via Australia Institute Press. Use the code ‘POD5’ to get $5 off.
Guest: Elizabeth N Sauders, Professor of Political Science, Columbia University // @profsaunders
Host: Emma Shortis, Director, International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @emmashortis
Show notes:
‘What happens now in Venezuela – and the world?’ by Elizabeth N Saunders, Good Authority (January 2026)
‘Imperial President at Home, Emperor Abroad’ by Elizabeth Saunders, Foreign Affairs (June 2025)
Deconstructing Trump's Gaza 'Peace' Plan (w/ Norman Finkelstein) | The Chris Hedges Report
— —This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.
Order Norm’s book, Gaza’s Gravediggers, now.
Lawlessness has been a common theme characterizing the events of the first weeks of the year. The kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the murder of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, the threat of bombing Iran by the Trump administration. Perhaps one of the worst violations of the law has slipped under the radar amidst the chaos — the continued genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the United Nations’ abetting of Israel and the U.S.’s efforts to ethnically cleanse the region.
AI Can Help Solve the Fraud Epidemic
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —For years, AI has been surrounded by extreme predictions of ushering in either catastrophe or paradise, with breakthroughs in machine intelligence repeatedly promised as imminent for well over a decade. Elon Musk has recently stated that artificial general intelligence, where AI matches or exceeds human-level capabilities across tasks, could arrive as early as later this year. A reasonable person might assume that’s optimistic, but it nevertheless merits a serious look at what that means for Americans and our politics.
Many on the Right are correctly concerned about what this transition could look like for our nation. As government spending at all levels exceeds 40% of GDP, the reality is that it will be a political issue with implications for both this year’s midterms and the 2028 presidential election. Figures like Steve Bannon and Ron DeSantis are staking out pro-regulatory positions on AI, emphasizing risk mitigation and regulations that could alter the development of this technology. The regulatory appetite will likely only increase as we see the impact on the economy grow—a fact that must be reckoned with.
We share a positive vision for the future AI may bring, where it dismantles bloated bureaucracies, unleashes economic growth, and rewards high-agency individuals to build the future we want to live in.
Current ScholarshipRedefining scientization: Central banks between science and politics
— Organisation: Just Money —Aurélien Goutsmedt & Francesco Sergi
More “Current Scholarship
Redefining scientization: Central banks between science and politics”
Understating Rising Quality Means Import Price Inflation Is Overstated
— Organisation: Federal Reserve Bank of New York — Publication: Liberty Street Economics —The Original Progressives Are No Guide for Today’s Conservatives
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —It has been a healthy development that parts of the conservative movement over the last decade or so have become increasingly skeptical of the Republican establishment’s slavish devotion to excessive individualism, indiscriminate immigration, and globalism.
In a recent First Things article, R.R. Reno pointed to America’s original Progressives—and to Woodrow Wilson in particular—as sources of inspiration for today’s conservative reassessment, because they too yearned for greater solidarity as they contended against the excesses of individualism. While I sympathize with Reno’s aims, Wilson and his fellow Progressive fathers of our modern state should not serve as guides to escaping our present mess—after all, they were the figures most responsible for bringing it upon us.
Conservatism is a divided movement today. But if we’re honest, it almost always has been, coming as it did out of the shotgun marriage of traditionalists and individualists. What united the diverse elements of the conservative movement, however, was their opposition to the collectivism and statism foisted on us by the likes of Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. It is a sign of just how precarious our times have become—and of just how badly establishment conservatism has fallen short—that sensible conservatives should now turn for inspiration to those whose principal mission was to overturn the American political tradition and replace it with the modern state.
Parliament returning early to debate new anti-hate & gun laws
— Organisation: The Australia Institute —On this episode of Follow the Money, Richard Denniss and Ebony Bennett discuss the political and policy response to devasting Bondi terrorist attacks, the cancellation of Adelaide Writers’ Week, Trump and the Australia-US alliance, and what to look out for in federal politics in 2026.
A time for Bravery: what happens when Australia chooses courage is available now via Australia Institute Press. Use the code ‘POD5’ at checkout to save $5 off the price – available for a limited time only.
Dead Centre: how political pragmatism is killing us by Richard Denniss is also available now.
Guest: Richard Denniss, co-Chief Executive Officer, the Australia Institute // @richarddenniss
Host: Ebony Bennett, Deputy Director, the Australia Institute // @ebonybennett
Show notes:
La Elite Narcotraficante Está Lista Para Dirigir a Venezuela (con Moe Tkacik) | The Chris Hedges Report
— —La historia, tal como se entiende en la mayoría de los países occidentales, a menudo omite capítulos importantes que dejan espacios cruciales en la historia del surgimiento de los países modernos. En Latinoamérica, en el siglo XX, se reconocen episodios de guerrillas y juntas militares, junto con representaciones de la guerra contra las drogas, generalmente representadas en la cultura popular.
Lo que se omite, sin embargo, es la participación clandestina de las agencias de inteligencia estadounidenses, incluidas la CIA y la DEA, y cómo sus operaciones de tráfico de drogas estaban íntimamente ligadas a las brigadas anticomunistas latinoamericanas financiadas por el capital occidental durante la Guerra Fría, y la liquidación a menudo brutal de la izquierda que llevaron a cabo estos narcoterroristas.
The UK bond market in 2022: the "Liz Truss moment" - Professor Scott Fullwiler
— Organisation: Modern Money Lab, YouTube —Protest Israel’s President! War Criminals NOT Welcome Here
— Organisation: Free Palestine Melbourne —Reforming the Capital Gains Tax Discount
— Organisation: Per Capita —Why reducing the 50 per cent discount would improve the tax system
Capital gains tax (CGT) was introduced in 1985 as part of reforms to broaden the income tax base and reduce the rate. CGT is leviable on the increase in the value of an asset, such as property or shares, and is levied when capital gains are realised (i.e. the asset is sold).
In 1999, the previous inflation adjustment was replaced with a flat 50 per cent discount, with the goal of stimulating investment in the share market.
The 50 per cent discount goes beyond the purpose the discount and undermines the progressive nature of Australia’s personal income tax system. The discount should be reduced to 25 per cent to improve equity and fund more effective ways to encourage productive investment.
Crying “Fascism!” and Its Consequences
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —The alternate reality Democrats have constructed is falling apart in real time. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the following when asked to comment on an ICE agent’s shooting of a woman in Minneapolis who was attempting to run over him with her car: “What we saw today was a criminal murder [of] a woman [who was shot] in the head while she was trying to escape and flee for her life.”
She then called “disgusting” the “editorializing” of those who argue that the ICE agent was in front of the car as it was accelerating, just before he fired. “Watch it for yourself, watch it for yourself,” she concluded, with supreme confidence that any viewer would see with the same skew of her own lenses.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey went even harder over the rhetorical cliff in responding to the shooting. He classified interpretations of the ICE officer’s action as self-defense as “bull***t” and demanded that ICE “get the f**k out of Minneapolis.” Mayor Mamdani in New York followed suit, calling the event a “murder” and a “horror.”
It is a stark bit of evidence of how American society has been warped by the twisted rhetoric of the radical Left regarding political conflict in our country.
Flawed Prophet
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —At the time of his death in the summer of 1987, James Burnham was falling into obscurity. Today, though, his work has surged rapidly in prominence on the Right, especially among some of Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters. The reasons for this merit close attention.
At one time, Burnham was widely known as one of America’s sharpest Marxist intellectuals. His most recent biographer, intellectual historian David T. Byrne, ably captures the young Burnham’s contradictions in James Burnham: An Intellectual Biography: a professor of philosophy at New York University, unapologetically bourgeois and completely in his element at black-tie dinner parties, he could respectfully engage Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Yet he was also a militant Marxist and a trusted protégé of Leon Trotsky, whom he met and befriended in the 1930s. Distraught over the mass unemployment that was then sweeping across the United States, he admired the ferocious determination of the Marxist revolutionaries who promised an overthrow of America’s supposedly irredeemable capitalist system. Byrne writes that he “loved the idea of violent revolution.”
International Central Bankers on the Statement by Federal Reserve Chair Powell on 11 January 2026
— Organisation: Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) —Snap Action 14 Jan 2026: Solidarity with the British hunger strikers
— Organisation: Free Palestine Melbourne —Disability in the Labor Market: Employment and Participation
— Organisation: Federal Reserve Bank of New York — Publication: Liberty Street Economics —America is a Gangster State - Read by Eunice Wong
— —This article is read by Eunice Wong, a Juilliard-trained actor, featured on Audible’s list of Best Women Narrators. Her work is on the annual Best Audiobooks lists of the New York Times, Audible, AudioFile, & Library Journal. www.eunicewong.actor
Text originally published January 3, 2026.
Our State Leaders Are Apparently Plotting With the White House
— —The Democrats’ Coup 2.0 Agenda Demands Accountability
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —“I think, in many ways, the uniformed military may help save us from this president.” – Senator Mark Warner on MS NOW
One of the reasons why civilians living in the Western world have comparatively high levels of public trust in their militaries is that their service members are taught to obey only lawful orders, the kind that satisfy basic moral and constitutional demands. That’s an important principle for most Americans, whose peace of mind relies on our military being under civilian control.
But what happens if a revolutionary movement works to divide the chain of command from elected lawmakers? Congressional Democrats, in partnership with mainstream media figures and establishment actors, have been running just such a play.
Judging by the War Department’s actions to capture cosplay Venezuelan “President” Nicolás Maduro and his wife, it seems that the latest attempts to cast Donald Trump as a dictator in the minds of America’s men and women in uniform have failed. Yet it would be a catastrophic mistake to dismiss the highly organized effort to turn the U.S. military against President Trump as more of the same partisan rhetorical games of the past. Had the Left succeeded, helicopters could have been hovering over the White House instead of a compound in Caracas. In their minds, that remains the desired outcome.
Disability in the Labor Market: Earnings
— Organisation: Federal Reserve Bank of New York — Publication: Liberty Street Economics —Ancient and Modern
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —Perhaps no group of scholars has investigated the principles of the American Founding more seriously than the students of Leo Strauss. The bicentennial celebrations of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution produced notable Straussian commentaries, including the still-influential essay by Martin Diamond, “Ethics and Politics: The American Way.” Although those who studied directly under Strauss have, for the most part, retired or passed, we can expect the students of those students to take the lead as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration and, in a few years, of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Yet Straussians, famously, disagree about the meaning of America. Following Diamond, so-called “East Coast” Straussians contend the founding was “low but solid,” grounded primarily and essentially in preserving life, liberty, and property and nothing more, thus eschewing or at best downplaying the cultivation of virtue and morality. So-called “West Coast” Straussians interpret America more favorably, even claiming that it is the “best regime” of Western civilization, as Harry V. Jaffa argued in these pages. West Coasters maintain that America, properly understood, aims at goodness and nobility. Why so much disagreement? More importantly, who gets America right?
What’s On Jan 12-18 2026
— Organisation: Free Palestine Melbourne —What Venezuela means for Australia | Between the Lines Newsletter
— Organisation: The Australia Institute —The Wrap with Dr Emma Shortis
The Trump administration started 2026 as it means to continue: with violence and lawlessness.
Trump’s attack on Venezuela and kidnapping of the Venezuelan president clearly contravene every principle of international law.
This attack, and the administration’s escalating threats against other places, like Greenland, send a clear message. Trump is leading an imperial revival. His version of America has no respect for old alliances. It has no care for the safety or security of the rest of the world.
We are, now, in uncharted territory. The America we thought we knew is gone. And it isn’t coming back. Even a “decent” America (and there are many decent Americans) will be looking over its shoulder, cautious and reluctant.
This has deeply serious consequences for Australia. As our colleague Allan Behm wrote in The Point this week, we simply cannot bury our heads in the sand and hope this will all pass us by. It will not.
The Trump administration has already made that clear. It has trashed the Free Trade Agreement we signed with the US in 2004. The US Congress is threatening the Australian eSafety Commissioner with contempt charges if she does not testify before a congressional committee. She is being accused of “harassing” US tech companies – for enforcing Australian domestic policy and law in Australia.
If international law matters to Australia – and it does – then our response to Trump’s concerted attacks on the rule of law also matters.
The Machinery of Terror
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Media Release: Palestinian existence is not “culturally insensitive”
— Organisation: Free Palestine Melbourne —US invades Venezuela, threatens Greenland while ICE wreaks havoc
— Organisation: The Australia Institute —On this episode of After America, Emma Shortis and Angus Blackman discuss the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, the credibility of the Trump administration’s threats against Greenland and elsewhere, and the fatal shooting of a woman in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer.
This discussion was recorded on Friday 9 January 2026.
A time for Bravery: what happens when Australia chooses courage is available now via Australia Institute Press. Use the code ‘POD5’ to get $5 off.
Host: Emma Shortis, Director, International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @emmashortis
Host: Angus Blackman, Executive Producer, the Australia Institute // @AngusRB
Show notes:
‘What you need to know about Trump administration’s abduction of Nicolás Maduro’ by Emma Shortis, The Point (January 2026)
The Decline and Fall of Republican Government in America
— Organisation: The Claremont Institute —Ronald J. Pestritto has done a splendid job in supplying us with a succinct account of the ideological origins of the administrative state, its evolution, and the attempts by Donald Trump and some of his predecessors to rein it in. Essentially a fourth branch of government, the administrative state has taken over most of the functions of government, yet is not directly responsible to any elected official.
Its establishment and expansion presuppose the existence of what Hegel called “the universal class”—an impartial, benevolent, all-wise cohort of Platonic Guardians apt to take better care of us than we would be capable of doing ourselves, even if we were blessed with ample resources. Such an arrangement makes a mockery of our pretension that, as human beings, we have the capacity to govern ourselves, and that it is incumbent on us to do so. How can there be liberty and personal responsibility when our conduct is governed in nearly every particular by individuals over whom we exercise no leverage? And how can there be a redress of grievances when our true rulers are largely beyond our reach?