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Collective defence
- One of our greatest problems as humans is the threat from other humans.
- If those other humans band together then us individual humans are likely to lose.
- Thus, we need to band together as well. In doing so we create a state.
- That state has the power to protect us but it also has the power to enslave us.
The above seems obvious to me but is it to others?
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It is obvious to me. The insoluble problem is that a war-band needs discipline in order to fight successfully, but it’s damned difficult to drop the habit of giving and taking orders, especially if the threat continues.
The yin to that yang is the oft-observed cycle in which a country’s military success means that its people feel safe, so they cease to prepare for war or value the military virtues, so they lose the next war.
I must have water to live, but too much will drown me. I need just the right amount of water.
3 does not necessarily follow from 1 & 2. There’s plenty of ways to defend oneself – even collectively – without constituting a “state”, and in fact we’ve done so throughout our history, time and time again. There’s plenty of examples of people coming together to defend themselves, even submitting to a temporary authority, and then dissolving it afterwards.
On a smaller scale, it happens all the time in “working groups”, albeit these are (hopefully) somewhat less violent.
Pirate vessels, for example, were often run (contrary to popular tellings) very democratically.
During a battle encounter, however, everyone deferred to the most senior fighter – generally, obviously, the captain, for the duration of the fight because, frankly, right now is not the time for “let’s have a show of hands on whether to let off a broadside”.
Once the encounter was over, they reverted back to more democratic means, and this was very normal.
It’s really not hard to imagine a world where in “sharp” situations, you go into modes of hierarchy based on expertise, and then revert out of them when the situation is over.
I mean, hey, as long as it’s consensual, who are we to judge people’s personal proclivities?
See it is all very well, but as Madeleine Albright famously said — “What’s the point of of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”. The existence of a large military force at the command of the civil authorities means that they start using it for all sorts of purposes for which is was not intended. The point, Mdme Ambassador, is to have it as a deterrent so that we never have to use it.
The United States is a perfect example. We are guarded by two gigantic oceans, and bordered on the north and south by two countries that couldn’t defend themselves never mind attack us, both of which are utterly dependent on our good will for trading relationships to keep their economies afloat. The United States by good fortune of geography does not need a large military to defend itself. The founders feared a standing army, and even to this day we don’t technically have one, it is a “temporary” army reauthorized by congress every two years. The only permanent force countenanced by the constitution is a Navy. Instead the plan was that any invasion would be repelled by an armed militia. And today, US citizens can do so, because there are more small arms in private hands here than in the whole military of all but the very largest countries, and a tradition of shooting so that the average American is not only armed, but quite capable of using that firearm in self defense.
Yet despite all these advantages we have a military bigger than the next ten put together. And since we have it we use it. All the time. All over the place. And it gets us into so much trouble. The military is shockingly effective, but the politics that are required for properly finishing a war are utterly lacking.
Trump, I love the guy, I voted for him three times. He ran on a “I’m the only president who didn’t start any wars.” “I’m gonna focus on making America great again” has, like every president before him, been seduced by the power of our military to force his will on others. The president, in two short years has double the military budget, which was already massively bloated. An actual MAGA plan would be to half the military budget, and refocus it on things that are actually a threat to the US homeland, such as a proper ICBM defense. Then give the money back to the people who could invest, create, innovate and actually make America great again.
Yet here we sit, an impenetrable fortress, and yet we spend vastly more per capita than say Germany or France, both countries that are not only prone to foreign invasion, but have been invaded many times throughout history. This is so backward it’ll make your head spin.
Neonsnake: Who says a state cannot be formed and dissolved as needed? Sounds like the best kind of state to me.
The problem with Fraserism is that if you leave the world to get on with its own affairs unmolested, you finish up with Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. Or these days Chinese ones. What price ICBM defense then ?
Unfortunately if you leave the world alone, eventually it will come looking for you.
Another question Patrick might have ended with is “Is it obvious to people in free nations that it impacts how they vote? And are there enough such people in such nations for it to matter?”
In the US, the answers are “some of them” and decidedly “NO”.
Those statements rely on fear and a sense of vulnerability to argue that humans must unite defensively, portraying the state as both necessary and threatening, which instils anxiety and a mindset of inferiority rather than one of confidence or trust.
The problem with a state is that it is composed of people who want to be rich and powerful just like everyone else. Unfortunately, all the state has to do to achieve this aim is to pass laws confiscating our wealth and liberty.
Lee Moore
The problem with Fraserism is
I’m honored that you think have my own -ism, but I’m afraid it is not original. It is called “libertarianism” and has been around for a while. It is the idea of having a very strong defense, but preventing war by deep and friendly trade alliances. To be the greatest friend and worst enemy to others. It is the idea that a country gets rich by defending itself to create an open and free market where wealth is created, and wealth can be shared with other nations through trade. That isn’t to say that all nations wish us well, which is why a strong defense, defending our borders (and to some degree the high seas for trade) is what we seek. A country who seeks to make friends and profitable commerce with those who wish us no ill, and offer certain destruction at our borders for those who do. A free and open market built on an impenetrable fortress.
BTW, I’m not necessarily advocating for no standing army, I’m just saying that is what the constitution says and what the founding fathers feared.
History suggests that it is not so simple as that. Non-libertarian minded states try to create barriers to trade between you and the places you would like to trade with – at various times such things might go by the name of Napoleon’s Continental System, the European Community / Union, the Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere, Chinese Belt and Road Intiative or whatever. The point is there are wicked folk out there who will strong arm the folk you would like to trade with into not trading with you, or only trading with you on Napoleon’s, Brussels’, Tokyo’s, Beijing’s terms. There are variants – such as Mr Hitler’s and Mr Lenin/Stalin’s – where they just conquer a patch of turf and you can whistle your libertarian tune in vain. Trading, not so much.
England, later Britain, adopted a very long standing policy of not caring who ruled in Europe, so long as nobody ruled as a hegemon. After 1450 or so, England/Britain stopped bothering with trying to conquer bits of continental Europe, and focussed on preventing any one European power becoming strong enough to control all European trade. This was motivated by sentiments not a thousand miles from your own – we don’t want to rule you, we just want to trade with you. But a glance at a history book indicates that this policy, in practice, requires quite a lot of war. The Spanish, the French, the French again, the Germans and the Germans again, and latterly the Russians all had a go at becoming top dog. And on each occasion the English/British found their trade interfered with and intervened to hobble the putative top dog. This is hard work. It’s not a matter of sitting at home, sucking on your pipe and saying “These poor crazy foreigners.”
A foreign country who wishes to be friends with you, and whose inhabitant wish to trade with you is great. Until its bigger neighbor says “we don’t want you to trade with Fraser, and if you do we will burn all your ports to the ground.”
The US of A was, at the founding, in the happy position where it had a vast economically exploitable hinterland inhabited by savages who could be easily intimidated or put to the sword. Other nations had to sail a long way to inconvenience it – though the Brits tried a couple of times. It was like founding a colony on Mars. Isolationism is easy on Mars. But things have moved on. Isolationism only works if you are a perfectly self sufficient island, untouchable by foreign bad guys. That is not how the world is. Nor has it been for some considerable time. The world does not lack for bad guys, and the US of A has learned the British lesson, while the British have forgotten it, fight your enemies on foreign soil, while they are still weak. Do not wait until they are strong enough to visit you. It may not be libertarian, but it is common sense. Libertarian sentiments and common sense may both be good things on the whole, but they are not coextensive.
Certainly other countries try to put up barriers to trade, but that harms them as much as you. Trade by definition helps both sides, and so trade denied robs both sides of profitable endeavor. So if I have open trade then I accrue benefit wherever it is to be had, and where it isn’t my competitor is hurt the same as me so gains no advantage.
The whole subject is of course complex, but the idea that you can plan it effectively is surely one that is laughable; has the socialist calculation problem not been thoroughly debunked?
And FWIW your theory about the United States being in a strong position because they could exploit virgin land and resources doesn’t really hold up to examination. The frontier disappeared a couple of decades after the civil war, but it was only in the 20th century that America arose as a great world power. Why? For sure by exploiting a vast hinterland, but not of real estate or buried minerals, but rather the vast hinterland of human ingenuity, and human entrepreneurship. The same thing that made Britain great in the 19th century so too make America great in the 20th. Technological advancement that was fostered in a libertarian economic system.
All that capital spend on consumable materiel blowing up dark skinned foreigners, including many entirely innocent foreigners could instead have been spent on advancing that technology further, making that non belligerent country richer and richer. And more and more able to provide resources for national defense. And how much more do I want to trade with a country that didn’t blow up my mother or brother or child? One advantage of defending your borders is that anyone who is there is almost by definition a soldier and a legitimate target.
When you are at actual war with someone then there may well be justification for extending out to their territory, but that’s no reason to go chasing after every opportunity to blow things up to advance some other agenda.
And this idea of free trade within a fortress is not without precedent. Singapore, an honest to goodness free market, and a fortress bristling with military hardware. Or the UAE or Switzerland are great examples. Amazing open markets with powerful militaries that do not leave their shores. America used to be like that too until Wilsonian insanity decided that we needed to be a “player on the world stage”.
Fraser
It’s a shame that they didn’t apply the same approach to a ‘standing judiciary’.
War is when there are at least 2 governments who may be trying to either kill you or get you killed.
Certainly other countries try to put up barriers to trade, but that harms them as much as you.
Up to a point, Lord Copper. It may harm them as much as you, or more than you, or less than you. I venture to suggest that a full blown trade war, with a complete ban on any trade, between the United States and Cuba, would harm Cuba more than it would harm the United States.
But what about third countries ? Let us suppose that the US has a certain amount of trade with China, and a certain amount of trade with Taiwan. And China and Taiwan have a certain amount of trade between themselves. And suppose China then occupies Taiwan and prevents any trade between Taiwan and the US. But continues the trade between China and Taiwan. It seems to me that the US is losing out more by this change in affairs than is China. It is true that to the extent that Taiwan becomes poorer as a result of not being able to trade with the US, it will be able to afford fewer Chinese goods. But that is very much a secondary effect. China is taking only a share of Taiwan’s losses, whereas the US is taking all of its losses from not being able to trade with Taiwan. Moreover China can recoup its losses by simple pillaging of Taiwan, while in occupation.
And last but not least, if we start with a US economy producing 1,000 widgets, and China 600; and by invading Taiwan, China reduces its production to 500, but reduces the US to 600, the gentlemen in Bejing would score that as a win. There is more to life than money, There is power.
I accept of course that shackling your own economy with trade barriers certainly can damage you more than it damages an adversary. That was one of Nazi Germany’s big mistakes between 1933 and 1939 – practising for even bigger mistakes later on 🙂
But I deny that when A interrupts B’s trade, A necessarily harms himself as much as he harms B.
bobby b
There’s some precedent – my memory is fuzzy on the details, but I recall reading about a few American tribes that kind of moved in and out of statehood based on seasons (I’ve an idea it was “state” during farming season, and “non-state” during hunting/foraging season – along those lines, anyway)
Everyone else? I don’t want to be rich and powerful. I’m retired and have enough to get by comfortably and have pretty much all I need. As for being powerful, just no! I want other people to leave me alone and I willingly apply the same courtesy to everyone else.
“If those other humans band together..”
It is in the nature of humans, and our monkey cousins and other mammals to group together under a leader/head man/Alpha male. You might find a few exceptions but you can’t switch off this tendency. Which leads to conflict between groups over territory or resources. It’s baked in, as are the consequences as technology improves. Useless to debate how it could be different if only…
The four points that Patrick makes are strong.
We do need to defend ourselves against invasion – and Murray Rothbard or David Friedman style competing protection companies will not work in military terms, if you have such division during war YOU LOSE.
And, as Patrick also points out, the danger is that a state that is powerful enough to defend the nation (the people) may also be powerful enough to enslave the people.
In the Ancient Greek and Republican Roman world this was answered by the principle that the people must have the right to peacefully remove a government that they believed had become oppressive.
This is mocked is modern times by the claim that these societies were based on slavery – a view that is NOT fully true (the number of slaves is often greatly exaggerated) but IS partly true.
And in the Ancient World whilst many thinkers accepted that slavery was against natural law (natural justice) they, almost in the next breath, made excuses for slavery (such as “all nations practice it” and so on) – only Gregory of Nyssa (who also interpreted the Gospel of John “I am the way, the truth and the life – there is no way to the father but through me” as whether people know-it-or-not – i.e. that non Christians do NOT automatically go to Hell to be tormented for all eternity, and are not snuffed out existence either) firmly argued that slavery was such a moral evil that it must be ended.
George Buchanan, the 16th century Scottish theologian and philosopher, is an example of a thinker in a society where slavery and serfdom were NOT central, who held that the majority of people must be able to remove a government they believe had become oppressive.
But how to do this if the government says it will NOT go?
Here Classical and “Early Modern” thinkers agree – free citizens must have the right to keep and bear arms, indeed it was a sign of the collapse of the Roman Republic when citizens were stripped of this right (Octavian, “Augustus”, argued that an armed and trained citizenry led to Civil Wars – the classic argument of a tyrant) – it was not restored till the time of the Emperor Majorian – who (rather desperately) called upon ordinary citizens to take up arms and training again – to defend themselves against invaders and against despotic governments with mercenary armies.
Up to 1914 it was a commonplace of British thought that free British people should be armed and trained – in order to defend themselves and others against BOTH foreign invasion and domestic tyranny.
Indeed as late as the 1950s Simon Webb (“History Debunked” on YouTube) remembers being trained on sub machine guns (cheaply made and simple “Sten Guns” which were common World War II) at school – and no one batted an eyelid.
In the 1960s in the United States the Boy Scouts often came to teach shooting (and discipline in the use of firearms) in American schools – and it was common to take firearms to school and leave them in one’s locker – school shootings were LESS common then than they are now that schools are often “Gun Free Zones”.
The idea that an armed and trained citizenry is “American” would have astonished British people of my father’s generation – who could remember when London had far LESS “Gun Control” laws than New York had. New York having the first strict American “Gun Control” Act – the “Sullivan Act” of 1911 – named after Mr Sullivan the Democrat politician and organised crime Boss – who did not wish people to have firearms with which they might resist his gang members.
The idea that the state is organized criminals was literally true in the case of Mr Sullivan.
“Gun Control” in Mexico and other Latin American nations does not apply to the state (it never applies to the state – in any country, in spite of the record of governments in murdering vast numbers of human beings) or to the vast criminal gangs – which are now coming to the United States. The murder rate in Gun Control Mexico is much higher than the murder rate in the United States – even in towns on the Mexican-Texas border (equally Hispanic on both sides of town – so it is NOT a matter of race).
The Democrats support the right of these “Social Justice” (for they are political movements as well as criminal associations) gangs (who have many thousands of members and have such mottos as “Rob-Rape-Kill”) to freely migrate to the United States, and support ordinary people being stripped of the right to have firearms to defend themselves and others against such armed gangs.
The spirit of Mr Sullivan is, sadly, still very much with us.
The film “Gangs of New York”, by Martin Scorsese, is a tissue of lies – as, sadly, one would expect of Hollywood (which sees its role as “subverting” society – via agitation propaganda agitprop).
For example, “Bill the Butcher” is shown as anti Lincoln in the film – in reality such “Nativists” were PRO Lincoln – and “Bill the Butcher” (a real person) was dead by then anyway.
He was called “Bill the Butcher” not because he murdered people (he never murdered anyone), but, rather because he had been a butcher (and his name was William – hence “Bill”) he was volunteer fire brigade leader (and, yes, such fire brigades often used thuggish tactics in their disputes) and bare knuckle boxer – fighting for money in the ring.
Bill angered Irish Catholic immigrants by his politics – but also, fatally, by defeating their champion – not in a street battle (as shown in the lying film) – in the boxing ring (bare-knuckle prize fight).
So two men (one originally – but he felt nervous and so brought an associate along) were sent to shoot Bill, who was unarmed (unarmed), dead.
Bill lived long enough after being shot (his murderers having run away) to name his murderers – in a dying declaration.
However, a New York jury found the two murderers “Not Guilty” – not because they did not know the men were guilty, but because they DID know.
So what do you when the majority of people in an area (or a large proportion of the population of an area) have become SCUM?
The sort of people who will find murderers “Not Guilty” (and laugh as they do it) – and, conversely, find someone who is totally innocent, guilty of things they know (they know) he did NOT do (for example the “trials” of Donald John Trump in New York City – with giggling juries admitting they were basing their verdicts on politics).
The sort of people who will vote for an evil man such as Mr Mamdani to be Mayor – not because they do not know of his evil, but because they DO know – and delight in his evil, share his wickedness.
This is a problem that writers such as George Buchanan in 16th century Scotland (and earlier writers in Greece and Republican Rome) tried to address by the ideas of “honour” and “virtue”.
This did not mean some sort of parody of Puritanism – it meant a basic sense of justice in the sense of to each-their-own – the enemy of justice being “Social Justice” (plundering).
What President John Adams meant when he said the Constitution of the United States, indeed the principles of any free government, would only work if most people (at least at their core) were “moral and religious” (and by “religious” he did not mean following a particular set of doctrines).
And if most people do NOT fit this – again what if most people (or a very large proportion of people) really are vicious scum?
Sadly the answer is to hit-the-road – sell up for whatever you can get, and leave.
If you stay they will either just rob you “legally” by some form of “Progressive” taxation and regulation (such as taking your property from you via squatting or “a ban on no fault evictions” or some other Social Justice “law”) – or will just come to rob you and burn you out. Like the mass burnings, and many murders, in “protests” after Mr Floyd killed himself with drugs he willingly consumed.
If you live in a community where, for example, you could not leave eggs (or some other thing) out to sell with an Honesty Box (and that was true even of London in the 1930s – where newspapers were sometimes sold that way, and there was a lot of poverty in London in the 1930s – but the vast majority of the poor did NOT steal), where the eggs (or whatever) would be stolen, or just smashed for fun.
Then LEAVE – leave whilst you still can.
The classic American “Red Neck” (originally that ethnic slur meant Irish Protestant – who were pale and yet worked outside and got sunburnt, but leave that all aside) may not live well – but they often die well (as the record of Medal of Honor winners shows – but many have died well in civilian life as well).
He will not think you are a better man than him because you live in a palace and he lives in a hut (or a trailer park) and he will tell you so – in blunt language. But he will defend (to his death) you when people come to loot and burn your big house down and murder your family, even if he knows (he knows) you would not risk your life to defend him , and his family, in his hut.
Thus he is a better man than the people who look down upon him.
This the rich people in California will find out soon – now they have driven out the “Red Necks” (yes there used to be a lot of such people in California – for example Bakersfield used to be a center of Country Music) they despised, and replaced them with people who have a rather different culture.
As for biological race – it was the people that Martin Scorsese presents as heroes who murdered people in New York for the “crime” of being black – indeed who burned down orphanages knowing the children were inside, and attacked the New York Times (then just about the opposite of the newspaper it is now) – which the publisher defended with a privately owned machine gun, a gatling gun – shooting into the mob trying to burn out the newspaper and murder the people who worked for it.
Cassius Clay, over in Kentucky, had privately owned cannons, with which he defended his property against pro slavery forces – but he had no canon with him (or firearm) when attacked on the road one day – so he cut up his (armed) attackers with a bowie knife.
A boxer in the 1960s was named after Cassius Clay (as others had been in his family) – but he dropped the name (and insulted the memory of the man) and adopted the name “Muhammed” – after an Arab slave trader who hated black people (the Arab slave trader, who also founded a major religion, called black people “raisin heads” and claimed they looked like Satan).
As for feuding……
Old Man McCoy (of the feud of the Hatfields and McCoys), denied that the feud had started over a pig or vegetables – as the newspapers claimed. Pointing out that when a young McCoy boy came back (unarmed and disabled – crippled) from the Civil War he had been murdered for the “crime” of having worn blue rather than gray – and that the name of the person in charge of the gang that did the murder was “Devil Anse” Hatfield.
There was also the “little” matter, Old Man McCoy continued, that the Hatfields, and their allies, had attacked women and children – and the McCoys, and their allies, had not done so. So NO he would not be posing for a newspaper photograph shaking hands with Mr Hatfield. And the newspaper could take their money and shove it where the sun did not shine – he would continue to live in his hut.
Which he did – till he burned to death.
@Lee Moore
Up to a point, Lord Copper. It may harm them as much as you, or more than you, or less than you.
You are right to call me out on this (though I don’t know who Lord Copper is.) I overstated my point by suggesting that damage from lost trade was necessarily equally harmful. For sure I certainly know that to not be the case, and in a sense it is the justification from Trump tariffs, that the inequitable harm will bring about some form of detente. My thoughts on the Trump tariffs are complicated, and I have talked about them here before.
However, you know what causes more damage to an economy than inequitable trade policy? War. War is devastating, expensive, ruinous. In Iran we just blew what 200 billion dollars blowing shit up. That is roughly the amount of money invested privately so far to bring about the AI revolution. Imagine if we had contented ourselves with good quality spying and the occasional B-2 bombing mission and allocated that same capital toward some other technological revolution. WW1 and WW2 between them burned through the 200 years of wealth created by the British Empire.
And as to Taiwan, if they want to survive they too must become a free market fortress. If I were in charge there probably the first thing I would do is issue one or more AK-15s and ten boxes of ammo to every household in the country. Maybe even issue some things a bit more destructive like RPGs and anti tank weapons. To be up to date perhaps a couple of drones and a box full of grenades. And I’d offer, maybe even require, every adult to have access to a gun range once a month to blow off two hundred rounds. It should be clear to China that the only way they get Taiwan is as a smoldering wreck and graveyard for their soldiers. Perhaps they’d prefer than to a free Taiwan, but I don’t think there is much can be done about that. FWIW, for sure a massive strategic priority for the west is to reduce our dependency on TSMC, something that our government does seem to be taking seriously.
Seems obvious to me too.
Although at least one qualification is needed: what is the definition of “state”?
Perhaps it would be best to rewrite items 3 & 4 as follows:
This removes neonsnake’s main objection.
As for bobby’s objection:
It’s partly a matter of turning a knob, but it is more than that.
What if the police were to turn into nothing more than an instrument of political repression?
(A process which seems to be well on its way in the UK.)
In this case, the people would be more free if the police were defunded; AND the people would ALSO be more free if the police had enough funding to also purse crimes against the people.
See also the 1st paragraph of Hume’s essay, Of the Independence of Parliament:
Shamelessly translated without attribution from Machiavelli’s Discorsi; although neither author specifies who exactly those “political writers” are.
Milton Friedman also wrote something to the same effect.
Lord Copper is a character in Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop. I was going to write you an explanation of the phrase “Up to a point Lord Copper” but I see the Wikipedia article on Scoop explains it all, so I won’t bother. But essentially it means “ you are wrong” uttered by someone too timid to say so.
Scoop is well worth a read, my favorite of Waugh’s. I happened to be reading it on the London Tube about 40 years ago and burst out with a loud snort of uncontrolled mirth, and got a number of strange looks from the crowded carriage.
@Lee Moore
But essentially it means “ you are wrong” uttered by someone too timid to say so.
Aha!! telling me I am wrong in a way that I am too ignorant to understand? Now that is a double whammy!😉 Thanks for the tip about the novel. I’m not much familiar with his work beyond watching Brideshead on the telly with my mum. But perhaps I’ll try to pick it up and read it when I get a chance. At least I know Evelyn is not a girl, so apparently I haven’t quite bottomed out in the English literature dunce scale.
If you are divided in war – YOU LOSE. You get conquered.
So the question is not “should there be a state?” – there will be a state, if not a domestically created state then a state by conquest. The question is “how do we prevent the state oppressing the public (the Res Publica) who created it?” – and that is why an armed citizenry is vital, but it must also be a trained and morally restrained citizenry – not restrained by external edicts, but rather by their own moral reason – which must control their passions (NOT, contra David Hume, the other way round).
As for Hollywood – people who will present a prize fight (boxing – a bare knuckle boxing match) in which no-one was killed (“Bill the Butcher” never killed anyone) as a street battle in which many people are killed, and will present anti slavery people as pro slavery and pro slavery people as anti slavery (reversing the sides in the massive riot in New York City during the Civil War of the 1860s) will lie about anything – and they do. Hollywood is NOT about harmless entertainment – and money is not their primary motivation – if only it was, as Dr Johnson said “a man is seldom so innocently engaged as when he is after money” for the other motivations of the human heart tend to be a lot darker.
As for when most people (or at least most people who vote) in an area support tyranny, support evil, then you have to leave – what else can you do?
The people who voted for Mr Mamdani did not vote for him because they did not know he was evil – they voted for Mr Mamdani because they DID know, they delight in his evil – and share it, they make evil their good.
Such a city does not deserve to continue – and people who can leave should leave, and they are doing so.
Guess who said this in 1924,
“Personally, I feel that miniature rifle shooting is more important for our countrymen now than at any previous period in our history. Our land forces have been reduced to such an extent that they are hardly able to perform efficiently all that our vast Empire needs in time of peace. We must, therefore, depend, more than ever, on the voluntary effort of our fellow citizens to defend us all in time of crisis. If the rising generation do not learn how to shoot, the vast possessions of our Empire will be at the mercy of any crafty foe in a few years’ time.”
I do not know Patrick – but it would indeed have been a mainstream opinion.
And not just in regards to defending the Empire – but also for defending Britain itself, both from invasion and from domestic tyranny.
Give you a clue: it’s your favourite WW1 field marshal.
Patrick I suspect you are being a bit naughty with your use of the word “favourite” – Douglas Haig?