This year, as every year, the people of America will be using Veterans' Day as a reason to celebrate and worship the federal government's mighty war machine. Here in Grant County, they've decided that one day of jingoistic propaganda will not be sufficient. We will need an entire week. The Chronicle-Tribune has taken its normal position as head cheerleader and promoter of such local celebrations of chauvinism. I find this all to be concerning enough, but what is especially troubling is the paper's promotion of the old canard that our soldiers are sent to distant lands in order to protect freedom at home. The truth is that these wars actually decrease our liberty. But don't take it from me. Here is a short list of quoatations of admired and respected people who realized that war is the health of the tyrannical State and the enemy of free peoples everywhwere. You might want to pay special attention to what James Madison, the author of the Constitution, had to say on the matter.
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." -James Madison
"All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it." -Alexis de Tocqueville
"Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty." -George Washington
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." -James Madison
"A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny." -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
"How far can you go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?" -Dwight D. Eisenhower
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. " -James Madison
"We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom." -Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other." -James Madison
"Statism needs war; a free country does not. Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by producing." -Ayn Rand
"It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad." -James Madison
"No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country." -Alexis de Tocqueville
Happy Armistice Day!
Special thanks to humblelibertarian.com
