Worth Repeating

Excerpt from "A Short History of Progress," by Ronald Wright.

Patriotism may indeed be, as Dr. Johnson said, “the last refuge of a scoundrel,” but it’s also the tyrant’s first resort. People afraid of outsiders are easily manipulated. The warrior caste, supposedly society’s protectors, often become protection racketeers. In times of war or crisis, power is easily stolen from the many by the few on a promise of security. The more elusive or imaginary the foe, the better for manufacturing consent. The inquisition did a roaring trade against the Devil. And the twentieth century’s struggle between capitalism and communism had all the hallmarks of the old religious wars. Was defending either system really worth the risk of blowing up the world?
Now we are losing hard-won freedoms on the pretext of a worldwide “war on terror,” as if terrorism were something new.