| Notes | Book |
To paraphrase Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz:
| Politics is a continuation of war by other means. |
Governments are continually at war, or threatening or planning war. These are not all wars against other governments. Most of them are wars against elements of their own population. The drug war is a perfect example, but all of us can think of plenty of government crackdowns, raids, programs, and so forth which are essentially criminal acts involving fraud, intimidation, and perhaps kidnapping and murder.
I happen to think that these government actions are very rarely productive, or moral in any reasonable sense. Perhaps you don't agree with that, but it seems to me that anyone would have to agree that without the credentials, papers, and a credulous population, most government servants would be as guilty as those they have imprisoned are purported to be.
It's difficult to see how dealing with large groups of armed humans could be anything but dangerous. Large groups of unarmed humans are dangerous. Even more than rock stars, politicians have a high rate of accident and death.
I think that many admire the courage of politicians even if they don't care for their morals.