A few years ago, I took a cruise on the Rhine River. For a little while, the river forms the border between France and Germany. It was puzzling to me that a couple times in the previous century, some moron in Berlin tells German men to go fight France and take their territory…and they obey him.

I’m confused by what the German leaders were thinking. They wanted to go in and defeat the French military and then tell the French people that your new government is in Berlin, and you just need to get back to work and send all your taxes to Germany now. The long term plan is just to get back to normal and pay taxes to Germany?

I’m definitely confused by the German men cooperating. Some of these Germans could look across the border and see French people and probably considered them neighbors they get along with. But then, they decide to risk life and limb so that their government can tax the French. It makes no sense to me.

The same goes for Russia and Ukraine. Russians are willing to go into Ukraine and give their lives so their government can govern portions of Ukraine? Russians are being told that Russians living in Ukraine are being abused by Nazis, but that’s surprisingly little reason to me to go and annihilate a bunch of Ukrainians.

The China and Taiwan situation is equally puzzling. The Chinese government thinks they have some right to boss around Taiwanese people and tax them. What are they smoking? Why do people want to control others so much? Would a Chinese guy be willing to give up his life so that his government can get a few percentage points richer? What kind of moron would do that?

Statism is a crazy religion.