Stupid Politicians

When I read this part of their letter quoted below I thought that John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon must have had a crystal ball and seen what our politicians today are like! The more things change, the more they remain the same:

They are therefore stupid politicians, who would derive advantages from a distinction which is manifestly without a difference: It is like, however, that they may improve in their subtleties, and come, in time, to distinguish between corrupt corruption and uncorrupt corruption, between a good ill administration and an ill good administration, between oppressive oppression and unoppressive oppression, and between French dragooning, and English dragooning; for there is scarce any other new pitch of nonsense and contradiction left to such men in their reasonings upon publick affairs, and in the part which they act in them.

Cato's Letter No. 94
Against Standing Armies.
John Trenchard & Thomas Gordon (Saturday, September 15, 1722)