34 lines
1.8 KiB
Plaintext
34 lines
1.8 KiB
Plaintext
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The State is the organized authority, domination, and power of
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the possessing classes over the masses the most
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flagrant, the most cynical, and the most complete negation of
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humanity. It shatters the universal solidarity of all men on the
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earth, and brings some of them into association only for the
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purpose of destroying, conquering, and enslaving all the
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rest. This flagrant negation of humanity which constitutes
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the very essence of the State is, from the standpoint of the
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State, its supreme duty and its greatest virtue Thus, to
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offend, to oppress, to despoil, to plunder, to assassinate or
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enslave one's fellowman is ordinarily regarded as a crime. In
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public life, on the other hand, from the standpoint of
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patriotism, when these things are done for the greater glory of
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the State, for the preservation or the extension of its power, it
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is all transformed into duty and virtue This explains why
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the entire history of ancient and modern states is merely a
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series of revolting crimes; why kings and ministers, past and
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present, of all times and all countries---statesmen, diplomats,
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bureaucrats, and warriors---if judged from the standpoint of
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simply morality and human justice, have a hundred, a thousand
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times over earned their sentence to hard labor or to the gallows.
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There is no horror, no cruelty, sacrilege, or perjury, no
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imposture, no infamous transaction, no cynical robbery, no bold
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plunder or shabby betrayal that has not been or is not daily
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being perpetrated by the representatives of the states, under no
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other pretext than those elastic words, so convenient and yet so
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terrible: ``for reasons of state.''
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---Michael Bakunin, Federalism, Socialism, Anti-Theologism,
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found in Noam Chomsky, For Reasons of State, Pantheon,
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1973.
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