I was not offended, my love. An insult is like a drink; it affects one only if accepted. And pride is too heavy baggage for my journey... - Robert A. Heinlein

“Pay, are all paymasters dishonest?”
“Only the good ones.”

No, chum, there’s a lot of guff talked about freedom. No man is free. There is no such thing as freedom. There are only various privileges.

America in my own time line suffered the cancer of “Bread and Circuses” but found a swifter way to commit suicide. I don’t boast about the difference, as in time line two the people of the United States succumbed to something even sillier than Bread and Circuses: the people voted themselves a religious dictatorship.