When a civilization accepts the propaganda of its enemy as truth, it has reached the far side of appeasement and capitulation is nigh.
In 340 BC the Athenian ambassadors to Macedon, who had negotiated the Peace of Philocrates, returned to Athens and addressed the Assembly. They extolled the virtues and peaceful intentions of the warlord to the north, King Philip II. “He has no intentions of conquering Athens and he will be an important ally in deterring Persia from returning to make war on the Greeks,” they said. Only Demosthenes stood to warn the men of Athens that they would one day lose their freedom to Macedon.
Just two years later, in 338 BC at Chironea, twenty thousand Athenians and Thebans were killed by the pikes of the Macedonian phalanxes and by the cavalrymen led by Philip’s son, the future Alexander the Great. With that appalling loss of life, all organized resistance to Philip on the Greek mainland of Attica ceased.
In the so-called “Arab Spring,” revolutions overthrew Muslim dictators, with many of the newly liberated Muslims bristling for another war with Israel. In May 2011, coordinated attacks on Israel’s northern border by Syria and Hezbollah were joined by calls from the new ruling elites in Egypt to bring the whole of the Arab world against Israel. With the chaos reining across the Middle East, the Iranian regime continued to vow to wipe Israel off the map, was emboldened, and gained influence across the region.
While the storm gathered around our only reliable ally in the Middle East, the President of the Free World took the side of the Muslims. They pretended to be outraged by Israel building some new houses in Jerusalem, its ancestral capital of twenty-five hundred years. He failed to observe that no other country in human history, continuously attacked by its surrounding enemies, could survive if it operated its capital city and foreign policy according to the dictates of those same enemies. The fact that our president made the case that Israel, one of America’s most important allies, should do so, represented the far side of appeasement.
Law #1: No nation has ever survived once its citizenry ceased to believe its culture worth saving. (Hanson’s Law)
Law #2: In battle, free men almost always defeat slaves. (Herodotus’ Law)
Law #3: Appeasement of a ruthless outside power always invites aggression. Treaties made with ruthless despots are always fruitless and dangerous.
Law #4: If a people cannot avoid continuous internal warfare, they will have a new order imposed from without.
Law #5: When a free people, through taxation, is deprived of its ability to acquire wealth and property, collapse is presaged.
Law #6: To hold territory, a state must be populated by those loyal to the central authority. When immigration overwhelms assimilation, the fall is predicted.
Law #7: With the loss of fiscal solvency comes a loss of sovereignty.
Law #8: Debasing the currency always destabilizes the governing authority.
Law #10: Declining civilizations will always face superior firepower from ascending civilizations because sovereignty is only temporarily uncontested.
Read more about these laws in my book.
