Switzerland is a great country. In most respects Machiavelli’s description of the Swiss as “armatissimi e liberissimi”, “most armed and most free”, still applies. But…
It says,
Mandatory shooting
Mandatory program
Compulsory shooting training applies to all soldiers equipped with an assault rifle and must be completed every year until the end of military obligations.
It must be carried out by August 31 with a recognized shooting club. You can check the dates and times in official publications or on the internet.
Further information can be found at: http://www.be.ch/militaire
The Wikipedia article on Conscription in Switzerland says,
Switzerland has mandatory military service (German: Militärdienst; French: service militaire; Italian: servizio militare) in the Swiss Army for all able-bodied male citizens, who are conscripted when they reach the age of majority,[1] though women may volunteer for any position.[2] Conscripts make up the majority of the manpower in the Swiss Armed Forces.[3]
On September 22, 2013, a referendum that aimed to abolish conscription was held in Switzerland.[4] However, the referendum failed with over 73% of the electorate voting against it, showing strong support for conscription of men in Switzerland.
Much as I admire the Swiss, I cannot make myself believe that constitutes being liberissimi.
It’s a civic duty, no different than being called up for jury duty in my eyes. Freedom ain’t free after all and three out of four Swiss seem to recognize that. I get the whole argument against press ganging citizens into an army, but I also accept that far too many people in free nations just accept that freedom is the normal condition and not something they need to be ready to fight for, and more importantly, be capable of fighting for.
According to that Wikipedia article you lined to, there is also mandatory enrollment in the local fire department. I see this as no different.
Now, if Switzerland starts invading other nations or turns its military into a collections arm for its multinational corporations or the like, I may reconsider, but since the Swiss military is defense-only, I’m not all that upset about it. It seems to be no different than all men being in the militia and the 300 days of service is mostly devoted to training.
Much depends on what concept of liberty we are talking about. If we are talking about Quentin Skinner’s “third concept of liberty” (which is actually the first, historically), then, for a human to be free, it is necessary (but not sufficient) to be armed and to know how to use his weapons. And for a nation to be free, it is necessary that at least the men are willing and able to fight for their country.
PS: IIRC Machiavelli was referring to German Free and Imperial cities, rather than to the Swiss.
@StevenR
It’s a civic duty, no different than being called up for jury duty in my eyes.
Whenever someone uses words like “duty” I immediately check that my wallet and pistol are still in place. “Duty” is a word used by the powerful to force people to do something they can’t convince them to do. Jury duty is objectionable to me like conscription (the former being shorter and a lot less dangerous, and so therefore less objectionable.) “Duty” is a manipulation to rob people of their freedom.
Now to be clear, serving on juries or serving in the armed forces voluntarily are both extremely honorable things to do. Digging mines is also important and honorable work, except when it is done with slave labor in a gulag.
Freedom ain’t free after all and three out of four Swiss seem to recognize that.
You are right, freedom isn’t free, but there are many different ways to pay for it. Harvesting tobacco isn’t free either but that doesn’t justify enslaving people to do it any more than the cost of freedom justifies enslaving people to enforce it. What a strange, Orwellian idea — to protect your freedom we have to enslave you!
“Freedom ain’t free”
I’d think most ardent libertarians would agree that a national defence is necessary and must be paid for as a mandatory fee, but forcing citizens to pay for it is a lot more acceptable than forcing citizens to actually be it.
The Swiss are quite well off, why not make it voluntary and pay professional soldiers a healthy wage, from tax?
May I express my disappointment though — Natalie posted a pic of the announcement, but not the target she shot up. I think we’d all like to see her results. 😀
Fraser Orr,
It is a well-known law of nature that coolness is always conserved.
That picture, capturing as it does the exact moment at which I fired, is extremely cool. Unfortunately that had a depressive effect on the coolness available in other parts of the system, especially at the other end of the range.
What Steven R said.
Although, I would be more comfortable if the obligation wasn’t limited to males, and if our military existed for defense, not offense.
Because they are more opposed to a standing army than they are to an efficient defence. Even their officers are mostly not career military.
They also have the least centralised system of government for a modern state. They really, really, don’t want a strong and powerful central government, and especially not an armed one. See also their continual referenda.
They are prepared to sacrifice a year of personal liberty in order to maintain a system that is the closest to actually democratic that a modern state can have.
Natalie is being cruel to us gun nerds. What pistol (Make and model) did you shoot and what was the calibre?
Interested people want to know, you know!
The Swiss use conscription more as a manpower management tool than a coercive deal. If you won’t serve in the Swiss military in some capacity, there are alternatives.
There is a truth here, to be observed: Every privilege, every right, every liberty comes with its converse: Duty, obligation, and responsibility. You cannot have a civilization without these things, all at once, and freely entered into.
I’m not a huge fan of the standing professional army that is not at least somewhat based on the citizen-soldier concept. The US has been edging towards “standing professionals”, and I think it’s been to our general detriment. The idiots we’ve selected and promoted are not good men, they’re not competent, and they’ve been subject to far too much in the way of political influence. Left up to me, there’d be a wholesale purge of the institutions here in the US, and a total revamping of how we do “military”. I fear that it’s morphing over into a tool of the government, rather than a citizen-based force that would serve as a check on it all. This isn’t good, on many different levels and for many different reasons.
The Swiss have a lot right with the way they do “military”. I’d rather have their system than the one we have, to be quite honest.
Swiss concept is to be able to generate a mass army very quickly, presenting an invader with the prospect of a slow bloody attrition battle in every part of the nation. They seek to ensure Switzerland is not worth the ruinous cost of conquest. A small professional army doesn’t work if that’s the objective.
There are evil forces in Switzerland, the representatives of the “International Community” and its “rules based international order” of tyranny, seeking to crush all liberty – including the citizens being armed. But, so far, these evil forces have been, at least to some extent, resisted on firearms.
If only they had been resisted on MONEY – but, alas, the last link between the Swiss Franc and physical reality was ended in 2000.
The Swiss financial and corporate elite are, generally (NOT all of them), part of the accursed international elite (they hate ordinary Swiss people and wish to destroy their liberties) – this was graphically shown when the head of the oldest Swiss private bank was critical of American Credit Bubble monetary policies and the wild (insane) spending of the American government – the international Corporate State (the “private-public partnership” of “Stakeholder Capitalism” as Dr Schwab calls it) responded by destroying the bank.
The message is plain – it is fine (indeed good) for banks and vast corporations to get rid of “right wing” governments (whatever the term “right wing” is supposed to mean – after all the international financial entities considered both Pope Benedict and Prime Minister Liz Truss, rather different people, to be “right wing” and forced both to resign) – but banks and so on are NOT allowed to oppose regimes, such as the American one, that supports the international “Agenda” of “Sustainable Development”.
To think of modern Credit Bubble banks (which are NOT honest money lenders – indeed they despise such “Shylocks” who lend out Real Savings, rather than “create money” and dish it out to the politically connected – other members of the Cantillon Effect establishment elite) and vast financial entities such as BlackRock (and the others – for they act as a hive-mind and “own” each other) as capitalist business enterprises is a terrible mistake – they are not capitalist business enterprises, they are POLITICAL entities. They are about a “fundamental transformation” of world politics and culture – not business as traditionally understood.
As for firearms – well, even a small group of people who control Trillions (yes Trillions) of (fiat – “order-command” the word “fiat” does NOT mean paper) Dollars, are not bullet proof – just a factual observation, in no way a suggestion of any kind. The most vast and complex entities can be vulnerable to quite primitive attack. The power of their fiat money and their Credit Bubble (Cantillon Effect) finance, can be ended.
“How horrible Paul” – I am NOT the person who believes the economic order should be based on armed violence, it is the “fiat” (command-order) money people who believe that, who support an economic order based on Professor Krugman’s beloved “men with guns” (HIS words) – it is no accident that such Corporate State types want only the servants of the international Corporate State to have firearms.
I don’t think there is a “one size fits all” response to the question of standing army vs. militia debate. The US tried the “no standing army and navy” thing immediately after the Revolution and it simply didn’t work. Between the Whiskey Rebellion and the problems with Indians on the ever-westward moving frontier and piracy on trade routes, Americans simply said we need an army and an navy to handle these things. The militia and the Revenue Cutter Service (forerunner of the Coast Guard) just were not sufficient. Sadly, once the Indian problem was resolved once and for all, Washington decided it was time for us to get in on the empire-building game by going to war with Spain and then all those little Banana Republic adventures and then the First World War. The Swiss system worked for two hundred years because they have different geography and different needs. They weren’t expanding, they had set borders, and any war they fought would be defensive. They don’t need much in the way of a standing army.
In an ideal world we would have a very small, very professional standing army with the primary job of developing and training militia and in the event of a war they would be the hard core a national army builds around. We did have that system until the First World War, but it was decided by someone in DC that there needed to be a quas-professional army ready to be called up at a moment’s notice. I suppose that is the point of the National Guard, but it needs to be remembered that they are not the militia but rather an arm of the Army and Air Force that sometimes answer to DC and other times governors. Some states like Texas have a State Defense Force that is supposed to be akin to that but only answer to a governor, but in reality those SDFs are underfunded and seem to exist more as a club than anything else.
I don’t think the West should be the world of Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie) where the only way one can become a citizen with the right to vote is to serve, either in the military or in some civilian capacity, but I do think part of being a free man is to recognize that there is an obligation to support those freedoms by being called up as needed either in a militia system or for jury duty or for a local fire brigade if a real fire department isn’t available or to join a sheriff’s posse or to pitch in during a disaster. The solution of “I’ll just pay more taxes so the state can have bigger first responder departments while I just sit here and do nothing” doesn’t sit well with me. You can’t have freedom without the obligation to support those freedoms when necessary and I don’t think just writing a check to the government while someone else sticks his neck out on the line rises to the level of that support. It is impossible to say “there is too much state” while at the same time saying “I’ll let the state handle it for me.”
The system that I favour is Meridocracy. meaning it would be like the book, Starship Troopers. Except mine would be part-time. For instance, if I were to choose to become a citizen in a future Meridocracy, I might be a part-time fire-fighter. For 11 months of the year, I might put out fires, or train to do so, and for one month of the year, I and the other citizens who joined at the same time would be the local government. We could pass new laws, or modify existing ones, and appoint plenipotentiaries to Regional conventions. Other people might choose not to be civilians, but they would have no vote in any laws. Except for the compulsory military service, and driving on the wrong side of the road, and not having an English-speaking Canton, what’s not to love?
If we can’t have liberty, at least can we have democracy. Then, perhaps, we would at least not have a government that acted against the interests of the majority, and with no liberty.
That may not always work; the Swiss did not excel during Covid, and I doubt a direct democracy in the UK would get rid of or even reform the NHS.
Monarchy is the theory that one guy, who inherited the office through sheer chance is smarter and better at management than everyone else.
Democracy is the theory that everybody together is smarter than one guy…
My personal take on the whole thing is that both ideas are, when carried out to the ultimate expression, utter lunacy.
You don’t have many cases where there has actually been demonstrated multi-generational competence and selfless leadership. Everything devolves into the Borgias and Hapsburgs, inevitably. So, that idea is out, even if you start with a saint as your initial seed for hereditary monarch.
Likewise, while crowds are often wiser than the “brights”, the problem with democracy is that whole “mob” thing: A crowd of ten thousand can often demonstrate a collective IQ equal to the lowest common denominator present divided by the number of feet in the mob.
I believe that the only real “solution” is the zen-like state of “governmental non-existence”. You can’t manage the world, therefore, you should not try to. Attempting to “govern” inevitably leads to excesses that tend to take down the whole system. Rome, for example? Wonderful idea: Let’s unite Europe under one administration… Few centuries later, Europe is full of hothouse flowers that can’t defend themselves against the barbarians coming from the East, and Rome falls. If Rome had never turned Gaul into a vast Roman province, what success would the barbarians have found, invading the chaotic and highly militarized Gaul of pre-Roman times? Almost certainly “not as much” as when they broke the thin crust of Roman defenses.
There’s a human desire for “organization” that needs to be checked; Switzerland is what it is, mostly because Switzerland lacks a lot of the centralized “big government” that other nations have. This is good, this is bad; but, it is the main reason things are the way they are in Switzerland; they don’t try to be all things governmental to all people, all the time. The urge for big federal governments like the EU? In the end, they’re going to date the “Fall of Europe” to that idea, because it seems to have totally destroyed common sense and reason among the member nations. How else do you explain Lampedusa? Had you tried that crap back when the Italians were their own nation, how far do you think the situation would have gotten before Italian customs cutters were shooting up migrant boats before they ever hit the beaches? How many NGOs would be able to function, with the Italian government acting in its own interest, and that of the Italian people?
Only by creating these super-national entities like the EU has this crap gotten going. This is an indicator that this sort of “governance” is a non-starter, in terms of lasting. EU=Rome, in all too many very bad ways…
TBH, I don’t really understand the perspective of “duty” being expressed here. The purpose of the state is, or should be, to serve the people who live in it. The state needs a lot of people to work for them to make it all work. Policemen/women, judges, road builders, people to work at the DMV, oftentimes mail carriers and teachers. None of these people are forced to work in these jobs against their will — dressing slavery up with the word “duty” — all of them volunteer. Why is the military any different?
Freedom isn’t free, but crime free cities aren’t free either, roads aren’t free either. But the government doesn’t “conscript” cops or road works in the name of “duty”: it offers then an attractive employment package, and they volunteer.
I’m reminded of JFK’s famous (stolen) quote — “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask rather what you can do for your country.” To me there are few more stupid or backward things a politician has said in history. The purpose of a country is to serve the people, not the other way around. (BTW, another of his statements “we do these things not because they are easy, we do them because they are hard”, from his moon speech is equally unbelievably dumb. We do things, irrespective of difficulty, because they are useful, not because they are hard.)
Regarding Steven’s point on Switzerland’s federal system — I agree, the Canton system in Switzerland is an amazing system, it is what the USA was supposed to be like. It has a lot of merit. But regarding its national defense — we are already talking about a highly distributed system of defense — every house has a guy with a gun — so why can’t the Cantons be the organizing principle of the military? Let them set up what organizing mechanisms are necessary. If you don’t like what one Canton is doing you can always move to a different one. The essence of freedom is choice, and the federal system gives people choices — until the central government sucks up everything centrally to rob people of their choices. And of course as with anything the Swiss Federal Government can work with the Cantons in time of emergency to coordinate them all together, not through force but through cooperation.
Again, this was the original design of the US military. Only the Navy is mentioned in the Constitution since it is outside of the territory of the individual states. In fact the founders were very concerned with the idea of a standing army. My understanding is that in the USA we don’t actually have a standing army, just a “temporary” one that is renewed every couple of years.
But here in the US we could have exactly the same thing. A volunteer force of state level guard. If the federal government want to go invade Iraq, or Bosnia, or Niger, or Grenada, or Afghanistan, or Syria, or one of the hundred other countries they want to invade — they’d have an additional check that they’d have to convince the state Governors to mobilize and pay for this foreign adventure.
Surely there are lots of things that such a system couldn’t do. But, I think for the most part they are the things we shouldn’t do anyway.
When I use “duty”, I’m speaking, not of some duty to a government, but to my fellow citizens – my duty to take part in the common defense from outside threats. If I want to live in this society, in this place, but Trudeau decides that Canada has the right to invade Minnesota and take our stuff, I see a common duty amongst all citizens here to band together and fight back.
I see a place for conscription in the face of such threats.
I have a harder time seeing a place for conscription for what are essentially political wars outside of my own land. Those wars imply a duty to my governing class – and I agree I have no such duty.
If we simply desire to go somewhere else and fight battles – in situations in which there is no threat to me and mine – then I think a volunteer army is the correct means. If someone here wants those battles bad enough, they can raise the wages enough to attract their volunteer army. If they cannot justify a high enough wage to attract fighters, then they must not really want that fight anyway.
One shouldn’t be subject to being called up to jury duty either. Both are conscription, conscription is slavery.
If you don’t have a civilization where people would voluntarily defend it – or serve on juries – then you don’t have a civilization the people living in it consider worth preserving.
If they’re prepared to do that – why is is mandatory? Looks more like they’re prepared to sacrifice *someone else’s year* of personal iberty to maintain that system.
Rights come with none of that. For example – what are my duties, obligations, and responsibilities with regard to exercising free speech?
@bobby b
When I use “duty”, I’m speaking, not of some duty to a government, but to my fellow citizens – my duty to take part in the common defense from outside threats.
I think that is admirable. Perhaps one should feel such an obligation. But it is a long way from that to “and if you don’t I’ll put you in jail.”
But there is an important other side here, the practical reality. If you give the government the power to do this then you will not just be manning the borders of the St Paul. Before you know it, you’ll be in a muddy trench somewhere in eastern Europe without enough food or ammunition, and being sent on a suicide mission because you are considered part of “acceptable losses.” The government treats their soldiers like crap. But they treat their conscripts even worse. Maybe not you and me, but were it not for nuclear weapons I suspect my two sons would currently be stuck in some hellhole in Ukraine, or more likely in body bags.
However, if instead of conscription you simply ensure an armed citizenry, and you heed the call to defend your home and your neighbors when Trudeau and his Maple Syrup Army start heading toward Minneapolis then everyone is free and we are all defended. After all, that is what happened at Concord, MA. And look where that got us.
Agammamon asked:
Which is precisely how you allow the control freaks to get their camel’s nose into the tent when it comes to censorship. You’ve a right to free speech; this implies then, that you have a duty, obligation, and responsibility to use that right with due care to observing the truth and not abusing others. You say you have no duties, obligations, or responsibilities? Are you saying you have an absolute right to lie, prevaricate, and slander others?
Certainly, you can: But, as I am pointing out, you’ll pay the price for it. Enough do it, and it becomes habitual? Then the majority will start limiting your “right to free speech” precisely because you’ve abused it by not obeying your duty, your obligation, and your responsibility to speak honestly and forthrightly of others.
Every “right” has a set of what should be self-set limits; certainly, you have the right to tell your wife she’s looking particularly fat in that outfit. Go ahead; express that. You’ll find that your wife likely feels that you have a duty to keep that opinion to yourself, and an obligation to tell her a little white lie or two.
The thing is, you don’t get to have unlimited “rights”, because there are boundaries past which your “rights” run over other people’s “rights”. This is where the whole “duty, obligation, responsibility” thing comes in. You don’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater where there is no fire and there is a good chance of starting a stampede for the exits… If you don’t understand that as a duty, an obligation, or a responsibility that limits your “right to free speech”, then you’re really not fit for polite civilized company.
I can’t think of a single “right” that doesn’t come with a set of these things, in civilized conduct. If you insist on the idea that there are no such limits, whether self-imposed or societal, I’d submit that you’ve got issues with living in and among other people, ones that might mean you’d be better off as a lighthouse keeper somewhere off by yourself…
Just to clarify, are you saying that saying you have an unlimited right to free speech makes it easier for people to limit your right to free speech?
For me, yes for the first two. For the third, up to the point where it causes them damage, in which case the law of tort applies. Of course you do not have a right to force people to associate with you or listen to you after you have lied, but that is not the same as being forced not to lie.
But the question is whether it is right for the majority to restrict your right to free speech. It may indeed be the case that they will force you not to speak, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have a right to free speech.
Sure, but she isn’t going to force you to behave differently, which is the only thing the government can do.
I think the question was about limits which are imposed by the state, which must be involuntary, as opposed to those imposed on yourself (including limits you impose on yourself in order to associate with others, which I think is what you mean by “societal”), which are voluntary.
So if someone does not agree with your opinion here, then they should be excluded from civilized society. Tolerant person, aren’t you?
You can exclude me from your personal civilized social group, but I don’t think anyone decided you were allowed to make rules about all the social groups in our society!
Ah, the siren call of nihilism… Odd, how the adherent never recognizes that there are restraints on their anarchy, ones that will be fitted upon them by their fellow human beings when their delightful behavior becomes intolerable.
This is precisely why our society is falling apart. The very idea that there might be some restraints imposed by membership in that society is anathema to the spoiled nihilistic sort that refuse to acknowledge anything other than their Nietzschean fantasy ideals.
You don’t get to participate in society, and keep it running, without paying attention to the limits and the rules. Speaking as a high-functioning sociopath that’s observed this fact play out throughout my life, I’m just sitting here laughing my ass off at you. Try living your dream, inside a society where things matter and are close to the bone; at best, you’ll wind up ostracized, at worst, murdered in your sleep for your essentially heedless assholery.
No man is an island, and unless you’re prepared to abandon living with your fellow humans, you’d best learn the unwritten rules of society. There is no absolute “right” to anything, one that is unlimited. That’s a fantasy-land view of the world and the people in it; if you think there are no limits or responsibilities to your rights, just you try and force that view on everyone else around you. You’ll get the response you deserve, which is almost certainly going to be a painful experience, perhaps a fatal one.
You do you, though. I’d point out, however, that you ain’t Superman, either of the comic strip or Nietzsche’s fantasy version. You can assert the contrary all you like, but in the real world? Someone is going to put a hard stop to your transgressions on what they see as their rights. And, being the annoyance that you likely are in real life, I doubt anyone will even raise a finger in your defense.
Every privilege, every right, every social “thing” ever is wrapped up in a cobweb of concomitant duties, obligations, and responsibilities. You own a gun? You use it irresponsibly? Then, the people around you are going to take it away. Same with everything else… You slander, you lie, you abuse your fellow human? You’ll lose your “right” to “free speech”, if only because nobody will listen to your lies anymore. Push far enough, and they’ll look the other way when your victims burn you and your house down around you.
Failure to acknowledge these things is purely delusional. You can be a gadfly, a pain in the ass all you like, but when you’ve gone too far? Be ready to suffer the fate that Socrates did. Denial of these things is purest fantasy writ large with delusional lettering on the walls of society. Keep transgressing; someone will be along to inform you of the error of your ways, eventually.
There are no absolutes anywhere in life. The reality of things will eventually prevail, and if you behave as though there are no rules, no duties, no responsibilities? You’ll find out the hard way that there are indeed quite a lot of them. If nothing else, when your slanders reach the point of being intolerable to those you abuse, and they react? Nobody will come to your defense, figuring that you’re due what’s coming to you.
If nothing else, common sense would put a limit on “free speech”, but that’s apparently a super-power these days, so I suppose one shouldn’t be surprised to find it so rarely displayed.
Kirk
Precisely, to adapt (of all people) Lenin ‘Right-wing Libertarianism, an infantile disorder’.
In 1938, had Swiss ‘Libertarians’ run and won a referendum on abolishing military service, fine, but in 1942, when the Wehrmacht rolled in, it would all have come crashing down.
Arguing with Rothbardians is pointless, as Mark Twain put it: ‘Never argue with an idiot, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with their experience’. Just leave them to their undiscarded adolescent dreams.
Sounds like a Bond villain.
Quite so Mr Ed.
As for the professional armed forces – yes we all know the Adam Smith line that “defence is more important than opulence” – but this rather misses the point that the argument against standing armies was not “they cost us”, but rather “they may be used to crush our liberties”.
It is no accident that a campaign is going on to purge the United States military of people who believe in the Bill of Rights (especially the First and Second Amendments – which are especially hated by the international Corporate State), to purge the military of people who believe, quite correctly, that the 2020 Presidential election was rigged, and who believe, again quite correctly, that the courts are systematically corrupt – as the New York judge graphically showed yesterday.
“Say your property is worth X and it is Bank Fraud Mr Trump – but say your property is worth less than X and it is Property Tax fraud Mr Trump – heads you lose, tails we win, Ha, Ha, Ha” American courts might as well have a kangaroo sign in them.
The clapping seals of the international media, who report this farce (and all the other farcical proceedings) as if it were an honest legal process, add insult to injury – not to Donald John Trump, but to the general public, who know the legal system is corrupt, but have to endure the media endlessly lying to them (not just about the legal system – but, basically, lying about everything else as well).
But any member of the armed forces who points out that American courts are corrupt, and American elections are rigged (Mr Biden is no more the rightful President of the United States than I am) is going to get purged.
The purging of honest men from the armed forces, and the international Corporate State “Gun Control” agenda for the ordinary citizens, has an obvious aim – the aim being tyranny.
The Roman Emperors posed as great benefactors to the citizens – “no longer will you have to have military weapons or train with them, we will do everything for you – whilst you have fun”, but their agenda was tyranny.
Different issues, but similar principles. You want to live in safety? Then, you don’t just have a “right” to that safety; you have the duty, obligation, and responsibility of providing as much of that security and safety as you can manage, yourself. You don’t get to slough that off, because the minute you do, outsourcing all of that? You get the situation you had under Imperial Rome, or any of the other polities that have gone down that path of domestication.
You can insist on your “right” to something all you like, but if you’re not understanding and undertaking the hidden part of that, well… Yeah. You won’t have that “right” for very long, something I can say with some certainty from my reading of history and human nature.
The thing I find most annoying about the nihilists and anarchists of the world is that they’ve no idea how such things come about; they just want them for free, without any work by themselves. Socially, they have far more in common with the grasshopper than the ant, endlessly parasitical upon the rest of society, whose forebearance they both rely on and demand.
Frankly, looking at the world around me? I’d rather have these parasites suffer the consequences of their actions. They want leniency against criminals? “De-criminalization” of minor crimes, because they don’t want to be the “bad guys” that put criminals in jail? Fine; so be it. You live with the consequences: The arseholes that voted in all the Soros prosecutors are now living their dream, the one where they abnegated their duty, obligation, and responsibility to uphold the law and maintain civic order.
I hear Target is suffering extensive losses, and plans on closing stores. Funny, that; it’s a microcosm of the sort of stupidity a lot of urban liberals follow, to wake up one fine morning and discover that they are being car-jacked by the selfsame criminals they wanted released and de-criminalized, while taking the kiddies off to school.
Ya don’t do the work, you don’t get the benefit. May take generations to shake itself out, but shake it will. No such things as “absolute rights”, and if you fail to comprehend the fact that there are commensurate obversaries, well… You’ll learn, when the universe and the rest of the human race decide they’ve had quite enough of your bullshit and decide to teach you a lesson about boundaries and obligations.
The way I remember it, Tsar Nicolas the Second had quite a line in “divine right of the Russian Emperor”. He fudged up his duties, his obligations, and his responsibilities; where’d he end, again…? Likely, our wannabe-Tsar contemporary Vladimir Putin will wind up in similar circumstances, after having accomplished the pointless murder of millions.
Lessons there, if you’ve half a brain and the ability to see things clearly. Or, not… Most of the immature child-like personalities that take up nihilism and anarchy aren’t capable of coherent thought, observation, or any sort of clarity of vision. They mostly see things as they want to, regardless of what is actually going on around them. They think they can run rampant, follow no rules. Right up until their neighbors are setting them on fire…