Do Conservador Robert Nisbett

"The state is born of war and its unique demands. Those social evolutionists who have tried to derive the political state as a development from kinship – that is, as an emergent of household, kindred, or clan – have simply not recognized the issues involved. The first political figure in history is not the patriarch but the military leader. (…) the kinship group and the militia were thus set into complete and unremitting opposition so far as their aims and needs were concerned”. War is unavoidably statist and anti-family.

"It was not easy for the young Romans, after a number of years in the field where every form of violation of the canons of continence was scarcely more than routine, to return to the iron morality of the traditional Roman family system, with its built-in coercions, constraints, and subjections to patriarch and matriarch."

"I do not think it extreme to link the breakdown in moral standards in all spheres – economic, educational, and political – as well as in family life – the effects of two major wars – celebrated wars! – in this century. What is in the first instance licensed, as it were, by war stays on to develop into forms which have their own momentum."

"Many of the basic values of war and revolution are identical. In each there is legitimization of violence in the name of some moral or social end that transcends violence. The appeal in each is overwhelmingly to youth – its unique energies, strengths, and also values, the latter so often subordinated in peacetime to the values of the older and established members of the social order. In both war and revolution there is an emphasis upon loyalty, honor, and cause that is all too often difficult to find in ordinary political and economic society."

Comentário: Robert Nisbett expressa aqui a ligação entre a decadência de valores morais, económicos, etc, e a natureza da guerra, que muitos subestimam da sua característica revolucionária (no que pior podemos entender desta palavra), induzindo o espirito humano a esquecer aquilo que é antigo e tradicional, e abrindo uma página branca onde serão escritas novos (no que pior podemos esperar pela palavra "novo") e porventura degenerados valores impostos pelo crescimento do Estado. Exemplos: o fim do padrão ouro, os déficits e dívida pública como norma, o ataque legislativo à família, a educação programática, impostos extorsionários, a redistribuição coerciva, as politicas a favor da igualdade imposta, o ataque à propriedade e o direito à exclusão, a lei como peça legislativa e não como deriva do costume e interacção entre a Justiça (suposto "orgão de soberania" independente do Estado) e a sociedade civil, etc. Quanto destes novos valores estranhos ao século 19 (e ao liberalismo clássico) não o devemos às guerras do século 20 (em primeira linha a Grande Guerra) e o assim induzido crescimento do estado progressista e centralista?