Reply #10: I agree nothing new; I do tend to feel 'defensive' just because there are people like that everywher

[LeftishBrit]

and I consider them to be dangerous. Authoritarian politicians may bring the world down, if global warming doesn't get there first! The one hopeful sign is that people are more aware of the danger now than they once were. I doubt that British schoolchildren now would be encouraged, as they were in the early 20th century, to recite poems vowing to give their country:

"The love that *asks no questions*; the love that stands the test,
That casts upon the altar the bravest and the best".

Or as in the famous Victorian poem by Tennyson:

"Theirs not to make reply.
Theirs not to reason why.
Theirs but to do and die..."

In many ways, of course, life is simpler if you do 'ask no questions' and do not 'reason why' - and there are many here, too, who daydream of supposed earlier simplicities.