The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

Argentina launches naval campaign to isolate Falkland Islands – Telegraph.

The three state services libertarians all support are defence of the realm, policing and provision of an independent judiciary. That's one of the things that differentiates us from anarchists. The irony is that modern governments have focussed so hard on redistributive policies designed to buy votes from the masses by providing non-jobs in non-services with stolen money, that they have become really bad at the basics.

How long do you give it before the Falkland Islands are lost? Even if the boy David was half the man that Margaret Thatcher was; even if President Obama was half the friend that Ronald Reagan was, we simply don't have the military assets to defend them. Perhaps that's why we are deploying the sainted Diana's look-alike boy? Surely no-one is so cruel as to attack the son of the Princess of Hearts?

It's a plan, though not one Nelson would have applauded. Some fully-equipped aircraft carriers might be a more reliable one. But, while we fund a bigger civil service than we had to run half the planet, we don't have the money for that, do we?

h/t The Englishman