Now let us set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace—and you can have it right now. Surrender. 

Admittedly, there is a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of our history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our so-called nobles refuse to face—that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to lie down and attempt to talk, eventually we have to face the final demand—the ultimatum, and what then? When (Insert enemy leader's name here) has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we're retreating under the pretense of Harmony, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he has heard voices pleading for "peace despite the price" or "Flight rather than Fight," or as one commentator put it, he'd rather "live on his knees than die on his hooves." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices do not speak for the rest of us.

You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin—just in the face of this enemy? Or should the founders have told the children of Faust to live in winter under the Windigos? Should Celestia have refused to banish the Nightmare? Should Hurricane's army at The Crystal Spire have laid down their arms, and refused to fight Sombra? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of Discord didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well 'tis a simple answer after all.

You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay, There is a point beyond which they! Must! Not! Advance!" Starswirl said, "The destiny of ponies is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits—not beasts." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.

We'll preserve for our foals this, the last best hope of Harmony on Equis, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness. 

-Ronald Reagan 'We Must Fight' speech

If you've ever answered your nation's call and would like to be featured in a future thread, send all those awesome pics you have to submission@okchive.org or submit directly online

 

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