Thought for Today

It's ten minutes to midnight and I thought I couldn't let this day go by with out reproducing this quote from Jean-Jacques Revel's How Democracies Perish:

Democratic civilisation is the first in history to blame itself because another power is working to destoy it... But it is less natural and more novel that the stricken civilisation should not only be deeply convinced of the rightness of its own defeat, but that it should regale its friends and foes with reasons why defending itself would be immoral, and in any event, superfluous, even dangerous.