Discipline consists in this, that by complex and artful methods, which have been perfected in the course of ages, people who are subjected to this training and remain under it for some time are completely deprived of man's chief attribute, rational freedom, and become submissive, machine-like instruments of murder in the hands of their organised hierarchical stratocracy.And it is in this disciplined army that the essence of the fraud dwells which gives to modern governments dominion over the peoples.
As soon as the government has the money and the soldiers, instead of fulfilling their promises to defend their subjects from foreign enemies, and to arrange things for their benefit, they do all they can to provoke the neighbouring nations and to produce war; and they not only do not promote the internal well-being of their people, but they ruin and corrupt them.
In the Arabian Nights tllere is a story of a traveller who, being cast upon an uninhabited island, found a little old man with withered legs sitting on the ground by the side of a stream.The old man asked the traveller to take him on his shoulder and to carry him over the stream.The traveller consented; but no sooner was the old man settled on the traveller's shoulders than the former twined his legs round the latter's neck and would not get off again.Having control of the traveller, the old man drove him about as he liked, plucked fruit from tlie trees and ate it himself, not giving any to his bearer, and abused him in every way.
This is just what happens with the people who give soldiers and money to the governments.With the money the governments buy guns and lure or train up by education subservient, brutalised military commanders.And these commanders, by means of an artful system of stupefaction, perfected in the course of ages and called discipline, make those who have been taken as soldiers into a disciplined army.When the governments have in their power this instrument of violence and murder, that possesses no will of its own, the whole people are in their hands, and they do not let them go again, and not only prey upon them, but also abuse them, instilling into the people, by means of a pseudo-religious and patriotic education, loyalty to an(l even adoratioii of thenlselves~tliat is, of the very men who keep the whole people in slavery and torment them.
It is not for nothing that all the kings, emperors, and presidents esteem discipline so highly, are so afraid of any breach of discipline, and attach the highest importance to reviews, man~uvres, parades, ceremonial marches and other such nonsense.They know that it all maintains discipline, and that not only their power, but their very existence depends on discipline.
A disciplined army is not even required for a defensive war, as has often been shown in history and as was again demonstrated the other day in South Africa.A disciplined army is only needed for conquest~that is, for robbery, or for fratricide or parricide, as was expressed by that most stupid or insolent of crowned personages, William II., who made a speech to l]i~ recruits telling them they had sworn obedience to him, and ought to be ready to kill their own brothers and fathers should he desire it.Disciplined armies are the means by which they, without using their own hands, accomplish the greatest atrocities, the possibility of perpetrating which gives them power over the people.
And, therefore, the only means to destroy governments is not force, but it is the exposure of this fraud.It is necessary people should understand : First, that in christendom there is no need to protect the peoples one from anotber; that all the enmity of the peoples, one to another, are produced by the governments themselves, and that armies are only needed by the small number of those who rule for the people it is not only unnecessary, but it is in the highest degree harmful, serving as the instrument to enslave them.Secondly, it is necessary that people should understand that the discipline which is so highly esteemed by all the governments is the greatest of crimes that man can commit, and is a clear indication of the criminality of the aims of governments.
Discipline is the suppression of reason and of freedom in man, and can have no other aim than preparation for the performance of crimes such as no man can commit while in a normal condition.It is not even needed for war, wlien the war is defensive and national, as the Boers have recently shown.It is wanted and wanted only for the purpose indicated by William II.-- for the committal of the greatest crimes, frat-ricide and parricide.
The terrible old man who sat on the traveller's shoulders behaved in the same way: he mocked him and insulted him, knowing that as long as he sat on the traveller's neck the latter was in his power.
