Societies have always had to negotiate the competing demands of the better-off and the poor. Yet for Aristotle, attributing civil war solely to economic causes is myopic. In Book V of his Politics, the ancient Greek analyzed no fewer than seven long-term causes that can transform peaceful citizens into violent factionalizers. Writing in American Greatness, Steven Skultety wonders how many of these are at play right now in the United States.

In Vino Veritas – Or, Whatever It Takes to Get the Truth Out of Such a Crew
Winston Churchill drank his way to saving the world from Nazism and, according to Alec Marsh in Spiked, the old bulldog would fit right in with certain current Parliamentarians enjoying a tipple to endure late-night sittings in Westminster. “Well, why not?” Marsh asks. “Politicians wouldn’t be human if they didn’t.” This news doesn’t, however, sit well with certain neo-puritan scolds from – you guessed it – the Green Party, which on the other hand does support providing free narcotics to welfare recipients.


