This quote from VDH’s column today on the current war is profound, and not solely relevant to the war. It also applies, I suspect, to the IRS-court cabal and probably to Microsoft as well.
One final observation: Very rarely in history do any of the belligerents quite realize what stage of the war they are actually in. The slugfest at Zama still followed Hannibal’s escape to Carthage. After Gettysburg there was the terrible summer of 1864 to come. The Battle of the Bulge followed both Normandy Beach and Stalingrad. And for much of the 1980s the world was sure that Soviet divisions were going to crush Polish steelworkers as a crumbling empire went out with a bang rather than a whimper.