The World's Most Armed Camp

The "New Model" Army

Christian nations and their governments should, when it comes to defence, be focused upon defending the lives of man, woman, and child.  There are few nations which comply with this doctrine of national defence.

Switzerland is one such nation.  Angelo Codevilla provides a description of the Swiss defence doctrine--and capability.  Many would be surprised.   The Swiss army . . .

is fit for only one mission: to defeat invaders.  For this, a country of 6.7 million can generate an army of twelve divisions (the US army has ten) and has twenty-six brigades, armed with some of the world's best equipment.  Of course Swiss forces completely lack, among other things, the mobility and capacity to sustain the long supply lines that the armies of great powers possess.  But the Swiss army's civil function and military mission requires steadiness rather than mobility, teeth rather than tail.  [Angelo Codevilla, The Character of Nations: How Politics Makes and Breaks Prosperity, Family, and Civility (New York: Basic Books, 1995), p. 207.]

It goes without saying that the Swiss army is not set up, nor resourced to "make the world safe for democracy".

New Zealand's National Code

Least Armed and Most Servile

In his excellent volume, The Character of Nations, Angelo M. Codevilla has some insightful observations on how a nation's attitude to fighting and winning wars gives insight into its character.  [Angelo M. Codevilla, The Character of Nations: How Politics Makes and Breaks Prosperity, Family, and Civility (New York: Basic Books/Harper Collins Publishers, 1997).  A brief bio of the author from Wikipedia appears at the end of this piece.]

He writes:

The capacity to fight and win wars is the ultimate test of character and nothing so characterizes a people or determines its fate as the way in which it draws military power from itself.  In ancient republics, military service was synonymous with citizenship.  The ultimate political question always and everywhere is which people will risk their lives to uphold the regime.  [Op cit., p.15.]

Which people will indeed risk their lives to defend New Zealand, or any nation for that matter?  In our case, the answer is clear.

Rebelling Against The Duty of Work

Living Without Working

Robert Tracinski
The Federalist

Voters in Switzerland just resoundingly defeated a referendum calling for a guaranteed minimum income that would have required the government to send a check to every Swiss citizen every month for as much as 2,500 francs, or a little more than $30,000 per year. That’s a solid lower- to middle-class income — for doing nothing.

There are two ways of looking at this news. We can applaud the Swiss for being sensible enough to reject a load of pernicious nonsense. Or we can be appalled that in a productive and orderly society, nearly a quarter of the population was ready to vote to make itself a ward of the state.

Because that’s the issue here.

The idea of a guaranteed minimum income has been gaining some popularity recently, oddly among libertarians, as a more efficient form of welfare spending.

Letter From Switzerland

Behind Every Tree . . . 

Now here's something you don't see every day: the Swiss Army Chief has called for citizens to arm themselves, according to a piece in Zerohedge.com.  

Swiss army chief André Blattmann warned, in a Swiss newspaper article on Sunday, the risks of social unrest in Europe are soaring. Recalling the experience of 1939/1945, Blattman fears the increasing aggression in public discourse is an explosively hazardous situation, and advises the Swiss people to arm themselves and warns that the basis for Swiss prosperity is "being called into question." . . . He further recalled the situation around the two world wars in the last century and advised the people of Switzerland to arm themselves. . .

It appears as though his advice is resonating with the Swiss:

Applications for gun permits in Switzerland increased by 20% between 2014 and 2015, according to a survey conducted in 12 cantons by Swiss public television, SRF.  The survey, published on Wednesday, showed that in the 12 (out of 26) cantons surveyed, the Swiss are increasingly interested in purchasing pistols, rifles and other firearms for private use.  The greatest increase – more than 70% – was measured in canton Vaud, with more than 4,200 applications in 2015, compared with 2,427 in 2014. . . .
In Switzerland, with more than 8 million inhabitants, there are about 2.5 million legal weapons, around half of which are used for Swiss military service.

 It has been famously said that the reason Hitler's generals warned him not to invade Switzerland (which he would have liked to do) was that it would have been far too costly.  Behind every tree, they advised him, would be a Swiss marksman.

It would seem that the Swiss army chief sees history might well repeat itself.

Gun Control

Things Are Not Always What They Seem

Gun prohibitionism appears to rest on unassailable foundations.  The more guns there are in the community, the more people will have access to guns.  The more guns will be used to commit crimes.  Since guns are lethally effective, it is inevitable more people will die, the more accessible guns there are in a society.  And so on.  Persuaded? 

If so, Switzerland will stick out like the proverbial sore thumb.

Switzerland: Peaceful but... Armed

By Laura Secorun Palet

Acumen

Switzerland has earned its reputation as a safe, neutral nation. Yet it’s hardly pacifist or gun-averse.
In fact, the small and stable country has the highest firearm ownership rate in Europe —

46 guns for every 100 people

— and the third-highest in the world, outdone only by the U.S. (89) and and Yemen (55).