As to the improbability of a general repentance in Nineveh itself, this must now be tempered by the recognition that our historical evidence preserves the fact that things were not going well at all for the Ninevites at approximately the time Jonah served as a prophet (the first half of the eighth century). Military and diplomatic losses internationally were coupled with famine and popular uprisings domestically during the time of Aššur-dān III (773–756 b.c.), for example. In addition, both an earthquake and an eclipse, dreaded major omens to the Assyrians, were experienced concurrent to these other problems. A weak, shaky monarchy reeling from domestic and international turmoil could well have welcomed the chance to solidify its acceptance by a suspicious populace, already set on edge by the prevailing problems, via the sort of royal proclamation preserved (in part?) in 3:7–9.

Word Bible Commentary, Douglas Stuart

This section from Livy describes the desire to restore an empire which drove Hannibal to attack Rome. The desire to restore the empire burned in the father and became the end of the son:

It is said moreover that when Hannibal, then¹⁴ about nine years old, was childishly teasing his father Hamilcar to take him with him into Spain, his father, who had finished the African war and was sacrificing, before crossing over with his army, led the boy up to the altar and made him touch the offerings and bind himself with an oath that so soon as he should be able he would be the declared enemy of the Roman People. [5] The loss of Sicily and¹⁵ Sardinia was a continual torture to the proud spirit of Hamilcar. For he maintained that they had surrendered Sicily¹⁶ in premature despair, and that the Romans had wrongfully appropriated Sardinia—and even imposed an indemnity on them besides—in the midst of their African disturbances.

[2] [1] Tormented by these thoughts, he so bore¹⁷ himself in the African War, which followed hard upon the Roman peace and lasted for five years, and likewise afterwards, during the nine years he spent in Spain in extending the Punic empire, that it was plain to see that he meditated a more important war than the one he was engaged in, and that if his life had been prolonged, the Phoenicians would have invaded Italy under the leadership of Hamilcar, as they did in fact under that of Hannibal.

[3] Hamilcar’s very timely death and the boyhood¹⁸ of Hannibal delayed the war. In the interval betwixt father and son, the supreme command devolved, for about eight years, on Hasdrubal. 

¹⁴ B.C. 218–201

¹⁵ B.C. 241

¹⁶ i.e. the western part of the island, which had been in the possession of the Carthaginians at the beginning of the First Punic War.

¹⁷ B.C. 237–229

¹⁸ B.C. 229–222

 Livy, Boooks XXI-XXII With An English Translation, ed. Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ab Urbe Condita (Foster-Moore-Sage) English Text (Medford, MA: Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd., 1929), 5.

This is a curious thing, thousands upon thousands people would die because a man wished for a larger empire and delivered that desire to his son. It struck me because it seems to be the motivation for the current war; a motivate that has gone back decades.

The link is to a story in the New York Times from 2004. In a 2017 issue of European Review, it was argued:

“In this article, I argue that the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, by his political actions in Eastern Europe, the Baltic States and Central Asian countries, and his current actions in Ukraine, strives to re-establish the nineteenth-century Russian Empire, ignoring the principle of international law that protects the sovereignty of each nation-state over its territory. In order to achieve his goals Putin uses ‘soft force’ and social fermentation in Russian-speaking ‘near abroad’ nation-states of the former Soviet Union. He also uses a policy of weakening the economy of the target countries and uses the Russian chauvinism and irredentism as the basis of his policy.”

In 2018, Time Magazine said Putin does not really want war, but he does want his empire:

“At the same time, Putin also hopes that the relations with the West will improve. Putin doesn’t dream of world war. He dreams of the new Yalta Conference, the peace conference that took place in Crimea in 1944 and brought Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill together. Back then the leaders of the countries that won World War II divided the world into zones of influence. Putin wants new zones of influence and new clear rules of the game. He wants the West to admit that territory that once belonged to the USSR (probably including nearby countries) should be areas of Russian responsibility. He wants to get guarantees and suitable honors.”

And in January 2022, it was argued that while he wanted to speak of the empire he wouldn’t actually go to war:

“Only Putin himself, and the members of his very secretive inner circle, truly know how much of their rhetoric over NATO expansion is bluster and how much is true fear. But there is one, purely practical answer to the question of whether Putin intends to invade Ukraine — and it’s based on a factor that didn’t exist in Stalin’s time, or in Catherine the Great’s. Unlike his belligerent predecessors, Putin doesn’t have the military, economic or political strength to win.”

Now I imagine counter-examples of those who predicted war could be found. It is interesting that “everyone” knew Putin wanted the empire. He used policy when it worked. And that, he will policy to make incremental gains, made sense to everyone, because who would actually invade another country? This belief persisted even after he had troubled so many neighbors (Georgia, Chechnya, the Crimea, a build up which has another parallel to Hannibal). There is a pattern here.

Now, like Putin, Carthage went through a period of gaining more power by “policy” than violence:

“Relying more often on policy than force, Hasdrubal enlarged the sway of Carthage rather by setting up friendly relations with the petty kings and winning over new tribes through the goodwill of their leaders than by war and arms.“

 Livy, Boooks XXI-XXII With An English Translation, ed. Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ab Urbe Condita (Foster-Moore-Sage) English Text (Medford, MA: Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd., 1929), 7. But when Hannibal came to power, the times changed and violence was the issue. He was concerned that if he did not proceed, he would lose his opportunity. His aim was to go after Rome, but he didn’t start with the main prize, instead he started small, taking what he could without immediately provoking Rome:

“But since an attack on them must certainly provoke the Romans to hostile action, he marched first into the territory of the Olcades—a tribe living south of the Ebro, within the limits of the Carthaginians but not under their dominion—that he might appear not to have aimed at the Saguntines but to have been drawn into that war by a chain of events, as he conquered the neighbouring nations and annexed their territories. [4] Cartala,29 a wealthy town, the capital of that tribe, he stormed and sacked; and this so terrified the lesser towns that they submitted and agreed to an indemnity. The victorious army, enriched with spoil, was led back to New Carthage for [5] the winter. There, by a generous partition of the booty and the faithful discharge of all arrears of pay, he confirmed them all, both citizens and allies, in their allegiance to himself; and early in the spring pushed forward into the land of [6] the Vaccaei ….”

Livy, Boooks XXI-XXII With An English Translation, ed. Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ab Urbe Condita (Foster-Moore-Sage) English Text (Medford, MA: Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd., 1929), 13.

The parallels are imperfect, and the men are remarkably different. But something about the greed to just desire to rule someone else (a greed I admit I cannot rightly understand from the inside) seems to have a particular shape as it works it way out. Something to think about.

It is fascinating how time and perspective color things. I am watching in horror the invasion of Ukraine. I am descended from both sides of the American West, both invader and defender. I have been in a camp in New Mexico. And so I read such things as this with wonder:

The Navahos soon learned that Star Chief Carleton had a great hunger for their land and whatever metal wealth might be hidden under it. “A princely realm,” he called it, “a magnificent pastoral and mineral country.” As he had many soldiers with nothing to do but march around their parade grounds rattling their guns, Carleton began looking about for Indians to fight. The Navahos, he said, were “wolves that run through the mountains” and must be subdued.

And

In September, 1862, he sent out an order: There is to be no council held with the Indians, nor any talks. The men are to be slain whenever and wherever they can be found. The women and children may be taken as prisoners, but, of course, they are not to be killed.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown

Then what sort of death did Christ die at Golgotha? His was a vicarious death, undertaken in our place and on our behalf; this means he died the death to which sinners are subject: physical and spiritual death. Christ suffered physical death in the separation of his soul from his body, that decreational judgment whereby God pulls apart what he put together when he breathed the breath of life into the man he formed from the dust of the ground, making him a living creature (Gen. 2:7). More startling still, Christ suffered spiritual death in the form of excruciating estrangement within the Trinitarian fellowship, as heard in his destitute cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34; cf. Psalm 22). The vicarious death of Christ means that he drank our cup of judgment to its last and bitterest dregs, descending body and soul into the depths of death, into the yawning abyss of divine condemnation upon sinners. God the Son died at Golgotha, and God the Father suffered the death of his dear Son. Rightly understood, as Michael Reeves notes, confessing the death of God is not the end of faith, but the beginning of true faith: “For, on the cross, Christ the Glory puts to death all false ideas of God; and as he cries out to his Father and offers himself up by the Spirit (Heb. 9:14), breathing out his last, he reveals a God beyond our dreams.””

The Incarnation Of God

John C. Clark

Marcus Peter Johnson

I will mention to you two observable experiments, things which I have observed in the course of my pilgrimage:

Where the slander will often fall

First, It is a passage which famous Baxter has in his Christian Directory:^[1] “If you be famous for any grace or good work, expect to be defamed for quite the contrary. I have known some that have given away almost all they had to the poor, and hardly kept necessaries for themselves; yet these person have been accused of covetousness, unkindness hard-dealing.”

‘Tis most certainly so, Insani sapiens nomen feret, Aequus Iniqui. (A wise man will bear the accusation of insanity, even iniquity.) If you decline a thousand opportunities to make yourself a name, and very patiently bear [difficulties], and almost seek to be overlooked; yet, you shall be called “The proudest of men.” If you are ever devising liberal things and ever scorn little things, you shall be reproached as a “Man always looking for gain.” I you contrive all the methods imaginable not only to be good, loving, tender in your several relations, yet you shall be treated as a very unkind person, and perhaps most unkindly by them that have the least reason for it.

Methought, I have often seen some resemblance of this matter in a thing which I have seen befalling a minister, when in the way of his pastoral duty he visited persons possessed with evil spirits; the persons though they knew everyone else in the room, yet through the unaccountable operation of the evil spirits on their eyes, the minister who was most likely to do them good, still appeared so dirty, so ugly, so disguised unto them, they could have no knowledge of him.

So misrepresented shall good men often be to the minds of people, when evil spirits are working on the unpersuadable children. Sir, if ever you find it so remember that God is not trying you, whether you will grow in that grace; hold on in that good work,, for which you have hithero had so mall encouragements, in the representations of the neighborhood.

[1] Essentially a mountain of pastoral notes. It contains a number of quite useful observations. You can find electronic copies here: http://digitalpuritan.net/richard-baxter/

A brave man once undergoing very barbarous indignities as well as the loss of his life on the scaffold, cheerfully said upon it, “What a deal of do here is [what a great ado this is] to make a poor sinner like his blessed Savior.” I make the nore bold with this matter, because antiquity has told me, Contumlia sunt Christi insignia. [Indignities are the insignia of Christ.] This may be the glory of defamations and indignities. If you find yours to have any of this glory in them, Oh! Count it glory, and rejoice in it with joy unspeakable. (1 Peter 1:8)

The great thing remains, is your imitation of glorious Christ under all the provoking defamations that are heaped upon you. Of him you read, 1 Peter 2:21, 23:

For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps … Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:

Are you in the hands of the shearers? Oh! That you could imitate the Lamb of God. His incomparable meekness and patience and silence. His readiness to forgive his most unreasonable adversaries! When all manner of evil was to only spoke of him, but also done to him, he expressed no undue resentments; he did not let fall one outrageous or intemperate word; he silently concocted the wrongs that were done unto him; he left to his Eternal Father the way and the time of his just vindication. He prayed for his persecutors. His obliging prayer for them was, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)

If you follow the steps of your suffering Savior, I will set before you the consolations of God, which Oh! How can they be small unto you? There will infallibly belong to you those great consolations of God. 2 Tim. 2:12, “If we suffer we shall also reign with him.” The scars of your defamations and other calamities leave upon you, will be the marks of the Lord Jesus (Gal. 6:17) upon you: The marks, which as often as you look upon, you may with a triumphant faith conclude, My glorious Lord intends a part in the glories of his heavenly kingdom for me! My friend you will find Joy of such considerations to be inexpressible.

‘Tis a blessed thing to suffer like your glorious Lord. But then if you suffer for him, or if the cause of the malignity which disposes ill med readily to utter or to receive defamations against you, be your known serviceableness to his [Christ’s] interest, and churches’, this a vast addition to your blessedness. Your Christ-like behavior under the suffering will consummate the tokens of a great reward in heaven (Matt. 5:12) reserved for you (1 Pet. 1:4) and of your being one day with thim to behold his glory. (Ps. 27:4)

Here, sir, is the consummating point of your conformity to your Savior.

First, you must be full of Christ: always thinking of him, acting for him; watching all occasions decently to make mention of his glories; daily pleading of his sacrifice, flying to his righteousness; resigning to the possession of his Holy Spirit; admiring, studying, following, of his holy pattern; perpetually rendering some acknowledgments to him by yourself, and bespeaking acknowledgements of him from others; this must be the very business of your life!

Then you must be as Christ was, full of benevolence and beneficence to manking; ever filled with compassions toward the miserable; ever doing to them all the kindnesses imaginable: Particularly contributing to the reconciliation of such as are at variance; and seeking out poor and mean [not angry or unkind, but lowly in social standing] people, and with delight stooping to any kin goffices for them; and all this upon his account; continually contriving how to be serviceable unto all that are about you; relishing of no pleasure comparable to that of doing any service whereof you may be capable; thankful to any one that wil but show you an opportunity how to do good, and not needing any arguments and persuasiveness to lay hold upon it: Having imprinted on your mind a deep apprehension of your being but a steward of all your possession in this world; and in a discreet and faithful stewardship dispensing all to just such uses as your great Redeemer has prescribed for all.

When you have gained these two points, you may be tempted now to think, “‘Tis well; ‘tis all!” No, my friend, it is no twell, it is all spoilt if there be not a third supper-added. It is this, if you thus glorify Christ, you must be greatly exposed uot the envy and hatred of a malignant world. You must look to be as he as despised and rejected of men.

Satan operating in the minds of men, will procure you a vast encumbrance of prejudice from the world. Men will have a strange aversion to you. Yea, many that pass for good men will have so; and yet not be able to give any good reason for the aversion.

Well you must cheerfully undergo all the neglect, all the contempt, all the obloquies that shall be case upon you. Your love to a glorious Christ, and you hope of being loved by him, and [being] like to him, is to carry you cheerfully through it all. Yea, though you should be hated as the off-scouring of all things. You must be willing that the providence of God, and the disesteem of man, should make a very nothing of you^[1]. And this not only from a mind really convinced that you are nothing, but also form the marvelous exinanition [emptying; in current theological language, kenosis] of your glorious Christ when came into the world. Now, it is finished! (John 19:30)

This is the point of conformity of your blessed Savior which I mightily press upon you: a spirit reconciled unto humiliations; a spirit not adverse to diminutions.

And among the previous discoveries [experience] of such a spirits there is especially one which you shall allow me to insist upon.

You know that the beloved Apostle [John] mentions pride as the last part of the Old Man which dies within us. It is the Pride of Life; it lives on to the end of life, till we ourselves do die. I have been inquisitive, “What is the last essay of pride?” It is doubtless for a humble man to be willing got be thought humble, or to be impatient, when pride is charged upon him^[2].

This then is the thing I demand of you: Be always, really, heartily, inwardly loathing yourself. Really esteem others wiser and better than yourself. Really shun honors, be adverse to them, afraid of them; never be uneasily at bein goverlookd by other men; of there if there be three hundred in Sparta preferred before you.^[3]

The very first motions of a design to make yourself a name, suppress them immediately.. After all this, be not angry if you are still called a proud man. It is the easiest thing imaginable for disaffected people to find something or other by which they will imagine to justly their passing such a censure upon you. But now let not such a censure produce the least impatience in you.

I was not well satisfied with a very good and great man, the martyr Cyprian^[4] for this thing: he had his adversaries whose principal clamour against him was that he was a proud man; he wanted [lacked] humility. Now the only symptom of it that I know of was that he took the paints to write a letter in own vindication against that foolish calumny. His best vindication and the best confutation of the calumny in my poor opinion would have been to born it patiently and have said nothing at all.

[1] You should be willing to be made as nothing; to have no standing or social status.

[2] The ultimate allusion here seems to be:

15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

1 John 2:15–17 (AV)

[3] An allusion to the Battle of Thermopylae: https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/leonidas

[4] “CYPRIAN (c. 200–58). Latin church father, and Bishop of Carthage from about 249 until his death, Cyprian was a pagan who was converted to Christianity in middle age and quickly rose to the office of bishop. He was well educated and a gifted speaker, able to unite and inspire a church which was undergoing severe persecution.” Sinclair B. Ferguson and J.I. Packer, New Dictionary of Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 184.

William Spurstowe

Meditation XXXII

Upon the Molting of a Peacock

Such is the gaiety of the peacock’s plumes, that Nazianzen (as I find him cited) says, that when he spreads his starry wheal the peahen is provoked to lust. And the naturalists who describe his properties affirm that he is ambitious of praise and affects to show his beauty, when commended by spectators, in a stately tread and free displaying of his various colors against the sun which casts a luster on them.

How short a continuance is this glory? How small is the distance between his delight to expose himself to the view of others and his shame to be looked upon by any? For no sooner do those specious feathers in which he prided himself fall from him, but he walks sorrowfully and has then (as observed) latronis passum [a robber walking] the shifting pace of a thief who flies the light and the eye which beholds him. He is dejected with the sense of loss, as one that is robbed by the autumn of his summer’s riches. 

Bernard Spragg. NZ

Can we have now, though we should make it our study, a more clear comment upon the text of St. Paul’s, The fashion, or the figure, of this world passes away? Or a more apt emblem of worldly men’s behavior so it does, then this pensive bird affords unto us? 

What is the world with which men are so passionately enamored with but a surface, an outside, not so much of beauty as a lust — as St. John styles it? And what are those transient felicities of honor, fame, riches by which some are distinguished from others but so many crowns of breath that nothing of any firmness or solid consistency?  What are they but so many painted bubbles which shine and break? 

O methinks I never wanted words till now to express their emptiness! How shall I say something that may speak them less than nothing?  

And yet in what admiration are these thing held with most? How do men affect to have the eyes of others to behold them? How highly do they who want any of these specious vanities thirst after them?  And how hardly can any bear the loss and privation of what this way they enjoy.

And yet this only is certain, that all these things are most uncertain. The sick man’s pulse is not more uneven in its beatings; the leaves of trees are more various in their falling; or the feathers of birds more facile in their molting than the fancy and pomp of all earthly greatness is frail in its continuance. 

How many accidents do make a change where men do promise themselves the most firm stability? How too is Job’s hedge pulled up, [Job 1:10] who said he should die in his nest and multiply his days as the sand? [Job 29:18] And David’s mountain removed, and he troubled, who pleased himself in his strength? [Ps. 46:2] What strange alterations and does the frowns of the prince in a courtier’s glory? Haman’s plume of honor and riches were lifted up and spread to the wonder of beholders, upon the change of Ahasuerus his countenance flag and trail in the dirt like the peacock’s train in a storm, yea drop and fall off; leaving him exposed to the utmost of shame and ignominy.

What steadfastness had the rich man in his great possessions beyond his own conceit? He promised himself the rest of many years, and yet lived not to see another morning. Death made an unexpected break upon his designed projects; and while he thinks to imp his wings for an higher flight and mount, he falls as low as the grave.

Can we then make better, or more seasonable mediation, when we find our affections carried out to the prizing and seeking of such perishing vanities, then to expostulate then with ourselves? Why is my foolish heart eaten up with cares? Mine eyes robbed of sleep, mine hands wearied with unceasing labor to grasp clouds, shadows, trifles that have little of reality or worth — and less of duration? Are these the things that make angels happy? Are the robes and crowns of saints made of no other matter than that we may see in the courts of princes? 

O what a poor place were heaven if it had no other riches, beauty, excellency than what might be fetched out of the bowels of the earth, or the bottom of the seas and rocks? Add but eternity to such common comforts and you turn them into burdens which cannot be borne; into a satiety that produces loathing and not delight. It being change only that makes them to be grateful, it being sometimes pleasing to want them as to have them; to lay them aside as to put them on.

It is not then wisdom for me, for everyone one to make a right judgment concerning true happiness? And to know that is one thing and not many things; and yet it is sufficient for all persons, for all places both in heaven and earth; for all times both in this life and after it.

It is ever the same, and makes us ever the same; it has no change in itself, but the communication of its growth to us and what is not grace shall be glory in heaven.

If it could decay or lose, it were not happiness but misery.

Lord therefore whatever others judge or think, 

make me like the wise merchant willing to sell all to buy the rich pearl, 

yea to contemn all for one thing necessary, 

and to say as David did, 

Whom have I in heaven but thee? 

And there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee.

Gary Kasparov raises a morally significant question: what responsibility do I bear for the one with whom I do business?

He writes

Early Thursday morning, Germany invaded Ukraine. So did the Netherlands, Italy, France, Great Britain and every other country that has supported Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s war machine for the past decade. The missiles that slammed into Kharkiv, the helicopters attacking an airport near the capital Kyiv, every bullet in every Russian paratrooper’s gun — all were built or bought largely with money from the free world. That same free world now stands in shock that these weapons are being used to do what they were designed to do.

The ethics of doing business with another are complicated. I remember an essay written years ago by a man who had invested for his child’s college. As he looked through the investments in the fund and traced the companies down to individual operations, he began to conclude that his son’s future would be funded by the unjust treatment of others around the world.

Operating in the world comes with the impossibility of justice in all areas, because we human beings seem so very willing to treat our fellow humans with the utmost contempt and cruelty. President Biden gave these remarks on February 24,

When the history of this era is written, Putin’s choice to make a totally unjustifiable war on Ukraine will have left Russia weaker and the rest of the world stronger.

Liberty, democracy, human dignity — these are the forces far more powerful than fear and oppression.  They cannot be extinguished by tyrants like Putin and his armies.  They cannot be erased by people — from people’s hearts and hopes by any amount of violence and intimidation.  They endure. 

Such words could only be written or spoken by someone unfamiliar with the planet or its history. The most common structure of life has been oppression and misuse. The evil of Russia’s invasion are not new or uncommon:

Amos 1:13–15 (ESV)

¹³ Thus says the Lord:

“For three transgressions of the Ammonites,

and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,

because they have ripped open pregnant women in Gilead,

that they might enlarge their border.

¹⁴  So I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah,

and it shall devour her strongholds,

with shouting on the day of battle,

with a tempest in the day of the whirlwind;

¹⁵  and their king shall go into exile,

he and his princes together,”

says the Lord.

Seeing that this is a world of oppression and too common violence. Just take a look at the Global Conflict Tracker: https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/?category=us

So then let’s return to Mr. Kasparov’s essay: Is he being fair? If this is a world which is filled with oppression and violence, and if we cannot track out all of the misuse of money, isn’t he just applying an unfair standard? I think not.

There are a few options (this is not exhaustive list nor a comprehensive discussion of the ethics). Here are some extremes: I operate a corner market. Someone I do not know comes in and buys a quart of milk and something to eat. The man says that he is exhausted and he needs this to be able to get back to work. We happily sell him the food and milk and wish him well. Later we realize that he is torturing someone and he has grown weak from the violence of his acts. Are we morally wrong? No. He had no way of knowing the immediate harm which was done. Our actions were actions which would normally be good.

Now consider another scenario: A man comes into my hardware store. He is covered in blood. He looks crazed and angry. He says, I need rope, a saw, and a shovel. I am busy murdering people and I needed some more tools. You think, well I am not actually murdering anyone myself, so I guess I’m not responsible.

Kasparov presents a third case: A man comes to you and says, I have a dream of murdering thousands maybe tens of thousands of people. I want to destroy the lives and happiness of millions more. But, as you can guess, it takes a lot of money to cause that sort of sorrow. I’m going to need weapons, I’ll need to hire soldiers, all sorts of expenses. So I’ll tell you what we’ll do, let’s do business. I have a lot of oil and I’ll keeping selling you oil until I get wealthy enough to make children weep for their dead parents, and mothers to hold ruined children, and thousands to flee in fear. Anyway, that’s my dream, and my dream takes a lot of money. So what you say, want to do business? You say, sure. You need cash, I need oil, sounds like a win-win.

Ten, 15 years later, you sociopathic neighbor sets on his reign of terror. He’s not attacking you, so while it is terrible to watch, it doesn’t actually cost you anything. When the victims start screaming, you say, Whoa, that’s terrible. But that’s not my fault.

Kasparov’s point is You didn’t have to give the murderer money. But you knowingly made a murderer very rich and he did what he promised, he spent it on weapons and soldiers and now he is causing sorrow. Again, read his essay.