Quote of the day—Rudyard Kipling

Dane-Geld A.D. 980-1016

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: —
“We invaded you last night–we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away.”

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: —
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: —

“We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!”

Rudyard Kipling
[You would think the history lessons are numerous enough that people would not yield to the temptation. But now there are hundreds, if not thousands, of examples all around us paying the Dane-Geld to the domestic terrorists.—Joe]

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13 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Rudyard Kipling

  1. I always liked the more succinct Charles Pinckney quote:

    “Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute”.

  2. And the ones deepest into the Dane-geld debt are the Democrats paying off the Marxist fringe of their party. Unfortunately the rest of us are the ones left paying the debt we have allowed the Dems to commit to. Unless those who truly value freedom commit in massive numbers, both during and AFTER this election, we will be paying Marxist-geld for an untold number of years!

    • Even though the cost-accountant whiz kids say it’s cheaper, we shouldn’t be selling rope to someone who wants to hang us.

    • the dimmo’s are the marxist fringe. period. the dimmo’s pay for the riots, coddle the rioters, and praise them. what will it take to convince you?

  3. Speaking as a teacher with an endorsement in history, I think I can safely say that most public school history curricula do an excellent job of NOT teaching the lessons of history. The remove controversy, ambiguity, and context in the pursuit of trivia and easily testable things. They use propaganda like Zinn’s “People’s History” in AP US History (not as an exclusive text, but it’s not critically analyzed at all), They lie through omission nearly every unit. They want a particular narrative, not the truth. They commit lies of omission nearly every lesson.

    • When their not grinding them to sleep with endless mind numbing details. A lesson in reverse psychology with every class?

    • I started high school in ’67, and the history textbooks were already artful constructs of creativity, compared to history books in the school library, let alone the town library. My history teachers hated me, and quickly learned to ignore me, lest I make them look stupid. Most classes I spent reading other books, as I typically read the textbooks the first week. I was a rare student that read books for pleasure, and consumed lots of libraries while attending ~12 schools by graduation.

    • I’ve heard of Zinn, though not read him. Apparently some schools are now teaching the notorious NYT fiction hackjob “1619 Project” as if it were history.

      • Let’s just say that Zinn is to history as a CNN report about peaceful protesters is to news, except with worse source citation.

  4. Even though the cost-accountant whiz kids say it’s cheaper, we shouldn’t be selling rope to someone who wants to hang us.

  5. And the English became the Anglo-Saxions. I wonder if the English could see what was happening during the Saxion migration/invasion any more than we (except for a few lone voices) can see what is happening.

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