Which, in turn, reminds me...

...of this self-serving plug in the form of an excerpt from the postscript to my book, Songs of Bad Men and Good.

“Dad,” said Robert, “Why did the people put up with things like evil rulers and SWATs and stuff? Why didn’t they just shoot some and drive the others away?”

“Well, of course in the end they did. But it had gone on for so long by then that it was at the cost of terrible suffering.”

“Why? Because the rulers had so many fighters?”

“No, not because of that. The people always far outnumbered the evil fighters, even though most of them couldn’t fight and weren’t allowed weapons. It was because the government had ruled for so long, and had taken over control of so much, that the people couldn’t get along without it. When they finally threw off the control, a lot of them just starved.”

“Huh?” The children couldn’t conceive of a whole continent of people who couldn’t even feed themselves.

“It’s true! Do any of you know what currency is?”

Heads shook all around.

“Well, it’s just one example. Instead of goods or services or precious metals, the people traded with something called currency. It was pieces of paper, which were worth whatever the government said they were.”

“You mean like promise notes?” Robert asked. “What’s wrong with that, as long as the promiser makes good?”

“No, these weren’t promise notes. The government wouldn’t redeem them for anything. People were supposed to believe that these pieces of paper were valuable themselves. And it had gone on for so long, Son, as the stars are my witness, they did believe it. They worked long hours at jobs, hired men all of them, because few had good homesteads where they raised their own keep. And at the end of a week of that, all they got was stacks of this paper. And they’d trade it for food and shelter and the other things they needed. It was the craziest thing.

“Well, when good people finally had enough and chased off the rulers, there was nobody left to say that all that paper had any value. So of course it reverted to what it was really worth, which was nothing. Nobody wanted to work as hired men if they weren’t even paid for it.

“And that was when the terrible times started. When those times finally ended, it was only the few who knew how to take care of themselves, or those who could learn in a mighty big hurry, who got through them. The strongest of those who couldn’t or wouldn’t turned aggressor themselves, and they spread misery and death among the productive until they were put down.

“That’s the lesson I want you to take away from this. The greatest evil wasn’t the government, bad as it must have been. There have always been aggressive men, and there always will be. That’s why we train when we’re not working; so we can always be ready to keep them at bay. But the greatest evil of those days was that people let it happen; that they liked it that way. They were like livestock. The government took care of them; it gave them easy lives. Hollow and empty, maybe, but easy. Easier than ours. But when that great system broke down, as it had to sooner or later, they had nothing at all.”

“Daddy,” said Marcy, “That’s a crazy story. Tell us one about Great-Grandpa!”