I've often
thought, in recent years, that if I were a young man, I would do
whatever was necessary to avoid being drafted into Uncle's Army,
to be sent to some exotic locale to fight and possibly die for reasons
that I did not understand, against an enemy that seemed to pose
little danger to my country. Of course, if an enemy force were to
come marching down my street, that would be another matter! Then
it would obvious that I would need to fight, join the resistance,
etc.

Or would
it? Of course, the emotional tie to one's own place makes resistance
to an armed invasion seem as natural as breathing, but what, in
fact, would have changed?

The invaders
would be a replacement for the former government. They would have
defeated it militarily, and were now in command. But the same was
true of that former government: it had replaced the pre-existing
government, and was henceforth in command. I didn't rebel against
that!

Of course,
the first, original, government, which had been defeated by the
prior government, was of the same people, speaking the same language.
Maybe that makes a difference. Still, if America were invaded by
Canadians, or English, wouldn't we fight to repel them? I think
so. One doesn't like being conquered, whether by a similar people
with the same language, or foreigners who speak broken English.

The new
government would not be legitimate, having obtained power by force.
But that illegitimacy would be in the eyes of the remnant of the
defeated government, not the new one. The new government would quickly
establish itself in the palatial structures to which governments
accustom themselves, and declare itself the legitimate and only
government. Isn't that always the source of a government's legitimacy?
They're legitimate because they say they are. Who is going to dispute
it? Remember the tanks and the bombs! And notice the soldiers everywhere!

And, naturally,
the new government would give orders, and expect us to obey them.
Again, what's new? The old government did the same. Does it really
matter who gives the orders?

I am not
saying that if America were conquered we would easily accept that
fact, and offer no resistance. On the contrary, we would almost
surely resist in any way we could. It would be the most natural
thing in the world. My point is that if we recognize the horror
of having our lives directed by some new strangers, we should recognize
the horror of having it regulated by the old, established, strangers.

Whether
they seized power yesterday, or ruled for centuries, matters little:
they still claim sovereignty over us, and base their claim, ultimately,
upon the use of force, or the threat of it. If they are modern rulers,
in tune with all the modern psychological concepts, their rule will
be as gentle as possible, because they realize that the most productive
slaves are happy, contented slaves, hardly aware of their condition.
For the majority of men, the illusion of freedom is accepted as
the real thing. You're not a slave if you don't have the whip's
marks on your back!

At one
time, it was a capital crime in France for a shopkeeper to so much
as ask a customer how he planned to pay: with the government's paper
assignats, or gold. And in the "glorious" French
revolution, the tyranny of the monarch was replaced with the greater
tyranny of the mob. Yet the French cheered hysterically when American
troops entered Paris in WWII. No longer were Frenchmen under the
rule of the Germans! No, American troops restored them to the rule
of Frenchmen, who could oppress them in their own language, without
an accent. Thank God!

Should
revolutions be directed only toward foreigners?

March
24, 2003

Dr.
Hein [send
him mail] is a semi-retired ophthalmologist in St. Louis,
and the author of All
Work & No Pay.