Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Quote: "...the addition of impunity..."

I have a bit of a leaning to pacifism or anarchism - I am not really sure which. Anyway this quote from St. Augustine's The City of God struck a cord.

"Justice being taken away... what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact of confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed on. If, by admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a kingdom, because that reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity."

- St. Augustine, The City of God, book IV.