No One Loves Armed Missionaries

The continuing disasters in Afghanistan have again made me remember Robespierre’s quote:

During the French Revolution, Brissot and the Girondists wanted to export the republicanism to France’s neighboring countries by force. They were convinced that if the French army were to overthrow the monarchies of its neighbors, and set up republican governments, then they would be welcomed as liberators by the local people.

During the euphoria of revolutionary France, Robespierre was one of the few politicians clear-headed enough to see through this. And over 200 years ago, he spelled out exactly what the dangers of this way of thinking were.

The most extravagant idea that can arise in a politician's head is to believe that it is enough for a people to invade a foreign country to make it adopt their laws and their constitutions. No one loves armed missionaries.

Robespierre’s faction lost the vote, and France did invade its neighbors. But the war was a disaster, and Robespierre was vindicated by the actual events.

Actually I’ve already mentioned this quote twice on this blog already, so you might think I’m over-using by bringing it up a 3rd time

However I say this quote doesn’t get used enough.

It so perfectly applies to our present day situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, you would think this quote would get used more. But how many times have you heard it? Do a Google search and see how few times it pops up.

[Admittedly Robespierre’s historical legacy is a bit mixed, and that could be part of the embarrassment of repeating a quote associated with his name. This quote comes from the time of his life when he was just a charming liberal, before the stress of the revolution caused him to lose his mind and become an insane dictator. But either way, it doesn’t make him any less right.]

Conservatives, by and large, have done a very good job of cherry picking their favorite quotes from history and repeating them ad naseum until they get forced into mainstream culture. We liberals need to do more of this.

So repeat this quote. Repeat it and repeat and repeat it. Post it on your blog or on your facebook page. This quote needs to be repeated ad nauseam until it gets forced into the mainstream.

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Actually on the topic of under-used historical quotes, I can’t help but remember Herman Goring's quote.

Goring, one of the Nazi leaders, when on trial for war crimes gave his thoughts about how the Nazi's had manipulated the German people into supporting the war:

Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

Now I know what you’re thinking: this was already widely quoted in the years running up to the invasion of Iraq.

Well, it was widely quoted on liberal blogs. (I've used it on this blog in the past myself.)
However I saw very little reference to it in any mainstream publications. It also deserves to be repeated ad nauseam. Ideally it would get repeated so much that there wouldn’t be a school child in America who was unfamiliar with it.

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