In case anyone is in the mood to deepen their state of depression, you can do no better than to read Hunt Tooley’s book, The Western Front. A particular gem comes from page 43, where Tooley is describing for us the popularity of the first World War among certain groups at home. Here is Ralph Raico’s summary of that passage:
Especially ecstatic were the intellectuals, who viewed the war as a triumph of “idealism” over the selfish individualism and crass materialism of the “trading and shopkeeing spirit”, i.e. free-market capitalism.
I’ll have many more of these to share in the coming days. And for all these years I was under the impression that both world wars had something to do with saving us all from being enslaved. You know, making the world “safe” for capitalism.
Wintercow, you have reminded us all about how hard it was to live a few centuries ago.
On a trip, Linda and I visited Marksburg Castle, Germany. One walked up cobblestones worn by the horses of soldiers, who defended the prince or king who slept and ate at the top of the castle. Down below were the serfs, tending the vineyards and reaping the grain.
The serfs feared the king’s soldiers, and the soldiers of some other prince who might come along and behead them, on the way to storming up the cobblestones to behead the king, take all of his treasure, and to claim fealty from whatever serfs were left.
There are too many people today who will put up with that, and that is the way it has been in our country for more than two centuries.
The day is bright, wintercow.
Sorry– I meant to say “people who will not put up” with oppressors.