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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared
for it, that will be the kind of government which the will have.
Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments
are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.
The objections which have been brought against a standing army,
and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail,
may also at last be brought against a standing government.
The standing army is only an arm of the standing government.
The government itself, which is only the mode which the people
have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused
and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the
 On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |