A rule of thumb that is wrong

You know the old saying from the Middle East:

'The enemy of my enemy is my friend'.

 

It is pretty straightforward that the people vexing your enemy are helping you, right?  Really you need to support that, don't you?

Unfortunately they aren't 'on your side' as they are going after their own cause and agenda and not yours, so while the vexation may be fun to watch, these doing the vexing are in no way, shape or form a 'friend' to you.

 

Now logically stated is the following:

The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy.

This one is not only correct but has a corollary to it on what the strategy is for your enemy and his enemy:

Let's you and him fight.

This is the happy strategy of minor nations throughout history that have two major nations lusting after wealth, territory, and other things tangible or intangible in the minor nation.  This was done by Vienna during the two Ottoman invasions that threatened the city.  Since the local military was dwarfed by the incoming Ottoman armies, the plea to get a larger, regional power to defend Vienna went out.  Poland was a relatively large power for that era, as the area we call Germany was still a lot of squabbling Principalities, and while the Poles may not have had any great affection for the Viennese, they knew that if the Ottomans got Vienna they would be able to stage attacks to devour the Germanic Principalities and actually threaten Poland.

Poland changed that around in the 1920's and got defensive alliances with France and the UK against Germany, so that if Poland was invaded then France and the UK would have to bail her out.  Germany used a hoax to make it look like Poland had attacked Germany, but no one as fooled by that and the invasion of Poland started the official start of WWII, since fighting between Japan and China had been ongoing for years, by then, and Japan as an ally of Germany the attack got a globe spanning war.  This is the diplomatic variation of 'Let's you and him fight' as the Polish army and defenses were sub-par to say the least so that horse mounted cavalry had to face off against tanks.

The US used a version of this in the Iran/Iraq war of the early 1980's, by supplying both sides of the fight with arms: Iraq openly, although not with a lot of material, and Iran clandestinely in the Iran/Contra deal which saw a limited amount of very effective weapons against tanks get sent to Iran which had very little in its arsenal to compare to them.  Henry Kissinger summed it up as a war in which we wished both sides would lose.  That is one of the most quintessential variants of 'Let's you and him fight' that has been seen in the modern era.

So, if applied to a present-day case, like Libya, what would the response of the US be to rebels going against He Who's Name Can't Be Spelled Correctly?

The first few days of dithering is indicative of having no policy for such events when our enemies are attacked by their enemies.  The old Bush Doctrine was that we were the supporters of those seeking 'democracy' in the Middle East, but that was not immediately deployed.  Instead the idea of wanting 'regime change' in Libya was used when it looked like the rebels were going to win the thing.  The President said that He Who's Name Can't Be Spelled Correctly must go.

Ok, good enough on the old sorts of concepts: we didn't like the guy and would like to see him gone.

Then the Carter Doctrine of 'dithering' was deployed.

He Who's Name Can't Be Spelled Correctly rallied his supporters, paid off lots of mercenaries and thugs to fight for him, started bombing anyone in rebel held cities and generally was acting the part of a brutal dictator... because he IS a brutal dictator.

At that point the US has a wide array of options.

- We can say that the leader of Libya had ordered attacks under no auspices of normal Nation State war against US military personnel in Germany (plus German civilians) and had taken down a US commercial aircraft over Lockerbie, Scotland which was an act of Piracy, as Congress has extended the coverage of the Laws of the Sea to US commercial air carriers.  We could point out that US policy has not embraced Libya's leader, that we have not forgiven him and that he was no longer seen as a valid leader of any Nation but a Pirate with a Piratical State under his control and that we considered him and any cronies still with him and supporting him to be Pirates.  That there was no government of Libya that we recognized and would welcome people in Libya to form an interim government that we could help.

- We could use our clandestine offices to try and get a hit squad into Libya as we no longer saw the Unspellable One's rule as legitimate and that he was a threat to us and had attacked us in the past.  He wanted personal war, and we are obliging.

- We could seek the help of regime personnel who had fled after the rebels started their campaign, put a 'government in exile' together with a very sketchy constitution or other ruling document, hire some mercenaries to help them get those who wanted to fight in shape, and landed a government with tiny force to broker with the rebels to bring them into an official government fold.

These are effective ways to deal with such threats from official delegitimization of the current regime to a bit of clandestine work to get rid of the lynch pin of the regime, its leader, all the way to doing the old fashioned 'right thing' and getting a real government of ex-government officials together, giving them some backing and getting them on the ground so that there would be an official group to then plea for military and commercial aid.

See how that works?

What did we do?

We froze the leader's bank accounts.  About $30 billion in cash in the US.

We looked for a 'blockade'.  How that would work with wanting to supply rebels and such makes your guess as good as mine.  Blockades have timetables of years to decades, not hours to months, to have an effect, by the way.

We thought about a No Fly Zone, passed on that until the French and UK got together on it to 'protect the rebels' and also to stop any damage to the oilfields in Libya.  If you did the first you could get some help on the second, so we decided to join up!  Then we would lead!  Then we wouldn't lead!  It was multinational!  We were going to do it all!  We were going to hand it all off to some political talking group!  Then we would hand it off to NATO!  We were only taking out regime air assets, save for the tanks and such we started to go after as a 'coalition'.

This is not a 'doctrine': it is incoherent.

The address the President gave last night is not a doctrine, either, it is a mixture of statements and feel good phrases that are meant to be applied everywhere, but only really apply to Libya, unless they don't apply at all.  It isn't being applied to the similar circumstances in: Ivory Coast, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, Jordan, and even the uprisings in China, come to that.

In theory all we want is the Unspellable One out of power, perhaps with a nice permanent vacation in Venezuela, Land of the Tyrants.

With announcements that al Qaeda is part and parcel of the rebels, with a leader who actually fought against the US in Afghanistan, we now know that we have two enemies fighting each other in Libya.  Something we should have gotten word about from our ever less-than-capable INTEL Community, say, about 3-5 days into things, not 3-4 weeks later and only then by the actual leader's own transmissions.

What was the right strategy that anyone, with an ounce of sense in their heads, could see when our enemy has an unknown enemy that really isn't seeking big favors and promises us NOTHING if we help?

Do we even have a dog in that fight?  Mind you that is way, way, way before the revel leader announced he was trained in Libya to fight for al Qaeda against the US and Coalition Forces in both Afghanistan and Iraq.  Just taken on purely face value, with the knowns of the time, do we really want to support the enemy of our enemy if they have given no indication of how they feel towards us?  It is possible to get worse than the Unspellable One, you know?  The current regime in Iran points to that.  As did Saddam Hussein.  And the Magical Kingdom of Mr. Kim in NoKo.  The Congo.  Somalia. Parts of Detroit and Chicago.

When your enemy has an enemy, and he has not said anything about being friendly to you, then he is just your enemy's enemy.

They really should fight it out amongst themselves.

That is not 'isolationism' but pure, unadulterated common sense.

Let's you and him fight.  We will figure out what to do once you two have gotten things settled. 

We might even send arms to both sides if we find them both hostile to us... stranger things are happening, you know?

What is a Nation State?

The following is an opinion piece by The Jacksonian Party.

This is pretty simple, no?  Everyone has a good idea of what a Nation looks like, in form, even when that form varies from the early City States to the modern Nation State, we can definitely put our fingers on a few salient points that define Nations.

First off is that they have a declared government.  This can be anything from a Warlord putting his cohorts in place with an iron fist all the way to people on a small speck of land banding together to use a representative democracy to run a republic.  Either way a known set of people who work within a confines of a geographic area, with a people in it and an orderly system of government are key points in the Nation State business.  The Nation has accountable actors who act in the name of the people of that territory.

Second is that many Nations are born in blood from previous regimes that did not reflect the will of the people or who were deposed by invading armies or from the turmoil of an upset order that fell apart.  Peaceful change is to be sought at every turn, but not every ruler or government is willing to recognize the will of the people to get rid of them.    Thus fighting usually starts before an actual new government can get in place.

There is a critical juncture between the First and the Second and that is the ability to get help from the outside if you are fighting to depose a government.

Note that governments are only imposed after being on the losing side of a war: the winning side gets to dictate terms.  Coming to power with no governmental structure means you have no orderly means of actually running the Nation, even temporarily, until a new government is set up.  That is why many of the mechanisms of the prior government live on for months or years after the defeat of the prior regime: they are necessary to keep things going.  Hated?  Most likely.  Necessary?  By and large, yes.

To take two examples:

- In the American Revolution the build up to 1776 via prior incidents put forward a group of representatives willing to stake a claim for a new government.  They declared independence and the very next thing they did (beyond circulating the declaration) was put a new government in place.  That was the Articles of Confederation, which was the interim government that allowed other governments to back the new government.  Thus Poland would send us our first Light Cavalry and France would later give us troops, arms and cash to help against the British.  All that time fighting was going on, but a recognized chain of command from the new government to Gen. Washington was established.  It didn't work that well, but it did work and the form of accountability was put in place.

- In Iraq after OIF the government of Iraq dissolved.  Not by order, that was the after-thought, but by the civil service leaving their places in government and leaving a mess behind.  The loss of control meant a loss of order and looting ensued, as well as a general uprising against the old regime.  There would be long, long months to getting a local interim government put in place to help settle things down and then the agenda to get a new constitution passed would involve more months of bloodshed as scores were settled and outsiders attempted to thwart the standing up of the new government.  That interim government was responsible for the obligations of goods and services, so it gained recognition outside of Iraq from Nations wanting to have commerce with Iraq and support it.  That has been a messy route, yes, but necessary as letting the locals control their own destiny after deposing a genocidal tyrant unable to stick to his war-time treaty was no longer acceptable.

Both instances have timing involved - in America the revolution had basically started before independence was declared, yet in Iraq the government was removed by it being attacked and then dissolving in its very offices when defenses broke down.  Getting an interim government up was critical to both Nations, and they were Nations as they were they were considered sovereigns either by declaration (in the US) or recent custom (in Iraq).

In general it is not wise to support any uprising, rebellion or set of actors looking to overthrow a regime that does NOT put down their system of government, who is accountable and the territory they will oversee with consent of the governed.  That is why the US needed a government to survive the early months of its war with the mother country, and why the insurgents in Iraq were seen as puppets of foreign powers: the accountability system is the 'sniff test' of a Nation.

If you don't have it, you reek of barbarism.

You, as an individual, may not like certain Nation's governments, but that is for the people in the Nation to work out, not for you to help 'decide' from the outside.  I don't like despots, tyrants, dictators, and warlords overmuch, but if the people they are over can't figure out how bad they are and get rid of them, then there is little that I can or should do for them from the outside.   Sympathize with their plight?  Yes.  Beg my government to intercede?  No.  Opposition is one thing, interceding where the locals can't buy a clue is something else, again.

That now brings up Egypt, Libya and other fun places with insurrections going on, like Tunisia and even China.  What should the US policy be?

Well, how about requiring the locals to get serious, first off?  Insurrection, rebellion, revolution are all parts of changing a government you don't like, but the ballot box should work as well.  If you don't have elections and the government will not recognize that the people are the sovereign actors of the Nation to create a Nation, then you get the bloodier, nastier way of doing things.  That is all understood.  So what, exactly, do these upstarts want to replace the old system with and what is the territory they will be held responsible for, and who is doing this stuff?

That gets to the crux of the matter, that junction between First and Second: if you don't know what you want or who is being trusted to run the show then why, exactly, should anyone on the outside recognize such a rebellion as in need of 'help'?  You may not like the dictator, despot, tyrant, regime, warlord, etc. in charge, but if those in opposition won't stand up for something other than being anti-regime, then you aren't likely to get a good outcome.  Quite the opposite as that is how such notorious regimes usually start: rebels without a clue beyond wanting power.

Thus in Egypt the people had a general uprising against the regime and it, finally, stepped down and handed running the show over to the military.  Now there are drafts for a new constitution coming about, with a more or less legitimate interim regime in place.  Its strange that those wanting the regime change couldn't say, exactly, what they wanted to replace it.  It is one thing to have a government deposed by outside forces who then get to figure out what to do and quite another when you take to the streets without a clue as to what you really want as a form of government.  That path to mob rule isn't pretty and usually lasts until a dictator or junta can kill its way to power and get some cronies to be strongmen for the new regime.  And if that starts to sound like the old regime... well... if you don't know what it is, exactly, you want then you are unlikely to get something to make you 'feel' better in this realm.

In Tunisia the dictator has fled, but what of the government?  It is in disrepute but a newer system hasn't really come about, yet.  For such a well educated people they should be able to figure out the cart - horse order of things.

Things are less well formed in: Yemen, KSA, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan and Syria.

Iran has the Green Movement (not an environmental movement) but that seems stalled on the verge of doing things and its leaders are being rounded up by the thinning old regime.

China is cracking down and paying people to stop the insurrection's communications.  Good luck on that, I tellya.

Libya has the problem of rebels who were very successful and were even rumored to be putting a constitution together.  They really, and for true, should have done that.

Why?

It could be announced as part of foreign policy that the old regime was no longer recognized as sovereign and the new regime was.  Money, arms, supplies and all the rest of it could flow from Nations recognizing the new government and then blockade the old one.  What took months back in 1776 now takes minutes to hours.  Rebels with a constitution, putting on identifiers and generally having a recognized chain of command means they are serious about getting a new government in place, even on an interim basis, and can be supported.

They didn't do that.

We can't recognize them as a government as they aren't one.

See that part about what happens when you are clueless about what you want to do once you win after fighting?  That is where Libya is.  Egypt, at least, has a government that knows it is interim.  Libya has a government under the old regime, and the rebels are unable to figure out that they need a new form of legitimacy to get things rolling their way.

Rebels without a clue.

Putting the cart before the horse.

Helping the clueless when they demonstrate they are clueless usually doesn't end well for all concerned.

I don't like He Who's Name Can't Be Spelled Consistently.

I have no good feeling about the current rebels, at all.

Wanting to get rid of a tyrant is all well and good, but could we have the guarantee, in writing, that you actually do have an idea of what it is you want afterwards?  Otherwise this is just your standard tyrant swap during a coup.

Put up and demonstrate your morals and ethics, and your willingness to be held accountable.

Or don't.

The first gets you a new government, and that can have a bloody end, but at least you are willing to stick up for your fellow citizens and a better way of doing things.

The latter is tyranny for tyranny, despot for despot, and coup after coup.

Thus America's answer should be: put up a government, draw your line in the sand, be held accountable, put on uniforms and then we will think long and hard about supporting you as you are showing you are willing to do the hard work of creating a better government after the show is over.

That is, however, sane and rational.

I'm not expecting that any time soon, and we will rue the day we gave up being civilized for transient ends.

The simple self-evident

The following is a pure opinion piece.

Yesterday was the last day for complaints.

You have been warned.

There are a variety of the 'self-evident' truths that we learn in our life that tell us much about the nature of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  These are not 'rights' nor 'freedoms' but the consequences of actions that we all must understand and live with.  Most of them are cliches as they are well known and used as 'rule of thumb' or something we can readily identify with when looking at a problem.  Yet few actually apply these to their daily lives and overall outlook in life, even though they are self-evident truths.

What sort of truths are these?  Here are a few that one can live their life by:

- Neither a borrower nor a lender be.  Biblical but a good rule of thumb for life as when you are in debt you are in sorrow, and when others owe you then you are constantly wondering if they will ever pay you back.  Do without the heartache on both sides and you will live a better life and be happier with the results of what you do.  That does mean buying fewer things, in life, and not going into debt.  And there is a simple truth for that and easily learned.

- Outgo must be lower than income by a wide margin for you to survive.  It is a corollary to the first truth, but a vital part of understanding what the role of debt is in your life.  If your debt burden is more than you can pay off, you will be forever indebted to others and they will call much of the tune in your life.  In all instances paying your debt burden down and off is a first priority after food, shelter and a means of income.  Pay off on the principle of loans early, and you will lower the length of the loan and, thusly, pay it off faster.  Wherever possible use the funds you have stored from not being a borrower nor lender to purchase big ticket items with cash on the barrel-head.  You will not be a part owner and partially in debt, but the full owner and the burden of ownership rests with you, solely: it is your responsibility.

- Idle hands are the Devil's workshop.  Today the devilishness is in the games and frivolity with which we can populate our lives.  Yet for all of the fun of killing the Boss on Level 39, you have accomplished little with your time, save to have some transient and somewhat addictive fun.  Avocations are those things of interest that require you to do and think about them so as to gain information, improve your skills and otherwise better yourself and those around you with what you can do.  If you can do for yourself, you need not ask others to do for you, and that means you cut expenses and live a better and richer life.  The feeling of accomplishment from doing for yourself something that is vital is enduring: you can look and say that you are self-supporting.

- If you want something done right, do it yourself.  This is a corollary to the previous self-evident truth, but is far more subtle.  It is a subtle mis-statement of the actual meaning and should more rightly say - Do it yourself and you will work to be satisfied for yourself.  This means it is done right in your estimation, even if half-assed by that of an 'expert' that does not matter as you are the one with the accomplishment of achievement to your own satisfaction.

- You are your own worst critic.  You had better be or you will not live long.  Those who are always satisfied with not striving to achieve more and better never do achieve either and become a burden to themselves and those around them.  Thus your self-criticism is one of the highest and hardest things to deal with in life as when you fail yourself, there is no one there to forgive you but yourself.  Those who cannot do that never improve their lot in life and soon come to expect others to do for them, because they hold no value in themselves of what they do.  That is why we praise the efforts of others, even when they do not achieve great results: their effort will be re-doubled with modest praise as they know it is earned and that they can see the flaws in what they did.  Those who criticize harshly, continually, without ever giving praise have a mean spirit towards themselves and their fellow man and seek to demean and belittle others without ever, not once, attempting to make a better world through their own work.  It is easy to be a critic.  It is much harder to strive to build a better life for yourself and others, and the ever-mean critics only seek to destroy your efforts.

- Stop to smell the roses.  Then get back on the path and keep walking.  We appreciate nature for its natural beauty, given to us as a bounty of creation.  We invest time to preserve it as best we can while doing better for ourselves, and lingering to afford too much praise on what is free in life can warp our perspective of what is of great value given naturally and what is of value for our investment of time in it.  Your time with the rose will not make it a better rose, and if all you do is praise the rose, then you are becoming lesser for such praise, not more in life.

- There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.  From Robert A. Heinlein and a self-evident truth.  Someone pays for that lunch in the time and effort to get it there, and your attendance to it is by no means free as it depends on someone else.  When you come to expect that which is free from another, then you are indebted to them and no longer thinking of how you can get it for yourself without someone else providing for you.  You are not entitled to the generosity of others, you are expected to earn it by making yourself a better person while your body is sustained.  That free lunch is there for a reason: to keep you alive to find a way so you don't need it.  That gift is a great burden to you to give back once you do achieve a better life as that is a burden we must all share.  When you are given a fish to eat, it is time to take fishing lessons or you will soon be enthralled to the provider of the 'free' fish.

- If you cannot live with yourself as you are, no one else will.  Except for those seeking to 'change' you to fit their role in life for you.  Self-love is far harder than loving God or, indeed, loving any other person as you must live with yourself on a continual basis.  The easy self-love makes you a narcissist as you come to see perfection in all you are, the never given love makes you miserable as you never allow yourself to see your good side: it is only the love in moderation with the fair assessment of what you do achieve and understanding that it is not up to your best but is still good that gives you the strength and courage to admire others without fawning.  Once fair to yourself, harsh at times but fair in that harshness, how can you not help but be generous to others who have better skills than you and see those seeking to better themselves as on a worthy path?

- Life is for the living.  Failure is an option and a pre-requisite of life.  What you are not good at teaches you humility and the necessary lesson that to achieve in that realm you have failed in will take much, much, much hard work on your part.  No one succeeds in all things thus be wary of those of who it is claimed otherwise.  Your experience at achievement and failure is the teacher of wisdom for you, if you can but accept that the lesson is good even when you do not achieve your goals.  When you fail you are put to the test to see if you can fairly evaluate yourself, your skills, your outlook and then pick yourself up from such failure to be a better person in understanding your limits.  And failure first time is not a guarantee of permanent failure as you may not have all the necessary skills and abilities to do what you wish to do.  Even the very best, those with the pinnacle of human skills will have bad days, off hours and poor judgment in those areas of expertise, especially when they advance beyond what they can easily do.  To achieve in life you must be able to accept life's lessons, fairly evaluate them for yourself and then figure out your path from failure and success.

- The helping hand up cannot be forever expected.  If failure is a prerequisite to success and being a full person, then you cannot expect that you will always have someone or something to cushion the blow to you.  Parents guide children, help them understand that failure is not a personal, moral fault but one of skills, ability and fortitude.  Those necessary lessons in learning and play become fewer as a child grows up and when the child learns the larger lesson of self-reliance and the ability to shake the dust off of themselves after a failure, they are then operating in the realm of adults.  Adults must learn that there is no 'safety net' for them that does not come at great expense to others and that when this expense is not given freely you then feel entitled to always be a failure.  A culture of entitlement is anathema to adults as it does not allow individuals to grow and become functioning members of society.  The responsibility to those who fall rests upon each of us, not all of us, and it is our charitable heart that up-lifts the fallen with a hand up to a better life, not the hand out due to a serf.  We do not denigrate our fellow man with a hand out, but offer the friendly hand up and offer to help them so they can succeed in life.  Those without a charitable heart are the most evil on this Earth, save those wishing to coerce others to cover their responsibilities for them:  forced 'charity' is not charity at all, but pure and utter evil as it takes from those who would give freely to their own causes and forces them to endorse causes in which they have no choice.  Every tyranny coerces in the name of 'charity', and beware all those who say that charity does not begin at home but in your wallet for they care not about your home but only about your wallet: of you they care little, and it is your works of liberty they seek without your input.

- Anything too good to be true usually is and anything promised to always be there and never end, won't.  Every scam that offers something for nothing pulls in the gullible, those known as the target of the scam: The Mark.  To those wishing to defraud, everyone else is The Mark.  In a large scam the last person to realize they are The Mark of the scam, is The Mark.  As we all know, everything has its season, its time, its beginning and its ending, including our universe.  Thus nothing lasts forever, no fiscal system is guaranteed to produce always good results, and anything that requires the next generation of a scam to pay for the previous generation of it will fail.  Thus the promise of a 'social safety net' that requires an 'inter-generational agreement' fails by demographic movements known for decades.  Attempts to 'help' the system are merely attempts to make it last just long enough to get pay outs to those currently paying in.  If forced giving to a 'safety net' is evil due to its coerced nature, it is made deeply so by the false nature of it as the point where it can be sustained reaches a maximum and then fails, catastrophically.  And The Mark are those paying in who can see that this will not work for them and that there is no way it ever will.  The promises were false, the nature of the scam evident since it was started, and the idea of you actually getting some 'retirement' funded by everyone else is too good to be true.  Like all good scams The Plants who claim it will work are in on the scam: they are seeking to make it last long enough to get them into a payout position.

These are self-evident truths we know, in our hearts, as we see them in every day life.  You cannot force someone to do good, only restrict them in doing harm to their fellow man and society.  The necessary evil of restricting those seeking to harm the innocent is still an evil and the very best we can seek is equality of protection and the administration of blind justice to all citizens regardless of income, class, status, skin color, religion or any other thing.  As it was said of our Nation before it was a Nation, when we were under the Unwritten Constitution, government is only a Punisher and that is its role for us.  It can only do 'good' by inflicting harm upon others: financial, moral and physical harm each, in turn, has been justified to make all outcomes in life 'fair'.  Yet life is, itself, very fair, as no one can thwart death and it is equal to all mankind without favor nor fervor, visiting each in their turn.  There are no permanent fortunes as there is no permanent life, and any financial empire will, through mismanagement and greed, fall on its own or be pushed by competitors who can out-compete it.  That is the nature of all things built by man.

Our quest to a more perfect Union is one that is ever forming anew, and there is no permanence to society as the necessary good of one generation may be seen as an evil by the next.  Of the few truths we hold self-evident, we are each born with the blessings of Our Creator to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and they are inalienable to our very being.  We accept that the pursuit of happiness is a quest, not an end-state, and that to our dying breath if we are very lucky then we will still be in pursuit of happiness, even if that means a horrible death in a far off corner of our world to protect our fellow citizens from harm.  Far better that death than the to be a peasant and slave to government only wishing for a next meal and then cursing government when it does not provide it as you have forgotten that you are to provide for yourself.  Freedom and liberty for our fellow citizens is worth dying for in its defense, which is why tyrannical regimes have such poor armies and always lead to cruel and bitter ends... no matter the victories it gains, it has lost the soul of its people and there is no glory in that at all. 

To live free or die means you must do for yourself and are willing to live with your works and yourself.  It is the hardest way to lead a life.  Yet it is the only way that creates a life worth leading full of freedom, liberty and the responsibilities you gladly accept to help your fellow man so as to create the greatest good of a better society for all, with malice towards none.  Those who viciously deride and attack any segment of a civil society deserve to be shunned, disdained and to rant to their dying breath about the injustice of the world that they only want to make worse to their own ends. 

Into your care is given the heart of liberty. 

Only you can protect it from tyrants.

These two go hand-in-hand.