We’re back to the Russian writers today: my personal favorite, Fyodor Dostoevsky (“Crime and Punishment,” “Brothers Karamazov,” etc.).

No . . . Dostoevsky was not suggesting that we should go around insulting people for the fun of it. A level of empathy and simple good manners — or what we now call “political correctness” — is just a matter of decency and common sense.

But he understood the dangers inherent in being robbed of our political opinions, and our right to express them, in order to avoid offending the imbeciles in high offices: in his time and place, those were the Russian Tsar and his minyons.

And while times change, human nature unfortunately does not.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
11/5/25