September 2, 2025

There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies against despots—suspicion.

Demosthenes (c.384–c.322 BC), Athenian statesman and orator, Philippic, Jay p.113

Are you sufficiently suspicious? Of your constituents? Of colleagues? Of bureaucrats?

If you are committed to democratic rule, do not assume that everyone else is. And do not count anyone other than yourself as committed to your political well-being, and sometimes not even yourself. This is what freedom of the press assures: a permanent class of suspicious people questioning—on behalf of the governed—every government move, and in hopes (at least in America) of a Pulitzer Prize.