El Greko - 03 May 04 - 10:07 AM

"It takes a soldier to fire the gun.
To make it, you need a working man.
To feed him, the farmer will plow the land
- it all goes hand in hand.
But to feed the soldier, and the man
who makes the gun, you need more land;
and to get more land, of course, you need a soldier."

He's right of course, he is taking simplistic speach to the outer regions of idiocy. The little discourse up above completely ignores history, particularly when applied to Europe, even from the advent of cannon, gunpowder and musketry.

El Greko for the vast bulk of the time in which the nations of Europe evolved, your farmer, your working man and your soldier were all one in the same person. Now as trade grew, people prospered, the advent of the the agricultural revolution allowed greater productivity using fewer people, which disproves your line, "But to feed the soldier, and the man who makes the gun, you need more land;", the industrial revolution employed those people, more goods were produced and the nations continued to prosper. We are now at a point in time of around two hundred years ago where the farmer and the man who made the gun would not be the same man, but the soldier was still drawn from either the farmer or the working man. Around 170 years ago, in the UK a police force was created to look after law and order in the land, the requirement for a military establishment in the UK was minimal and levels were maintained on that premiss (The Britsh Army at the height of Queen Victoria's power was smaller than the standing army we have today)

Your idea on getting out of this spiral you see us all in is interesting - perhaps we in the UK should kick it all off - I'm sure many more would follow suit - all we'd have to do then would be to live with the consequences.

I'd love to know what trolling Guest's definition of a militaristic society is? Last one we had in Europe was Fredrick the Great's Prussia.