“We Wuz Kangz”
On the Morality of Conquest
“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished...unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
― Voltaire
There are many patterns in the story of mankind, but one pattern that is most consistent is that there has always been war, and there have always been winners and losers of wars. In every civilisation, and in every culture, the most powerful man controls most of the resources, and wins the allegiance of most of the people. This is whom we may call a King. Such is the ambition that inheres in man’s nature that even when he is King, he either hungers to control more land, or he wishes to fortify himself against enemies that may usurp him. To what extent is this impulse to conquer moral or immoral? This is as futile a question as wondering whether power or money is moral or immoral. The will to power is not immoral itself, rather, the way that a man wields this power is how we may judge his morality.
The difference between Conquest and Theft
Conquest is by definition when one King takes over the land or resources that belong to another. This similarity between the idea of conquest and theft emboldens modern leftists to indict conquest. We understand very clearly what makes you own an object like a laptop or a house: a legal transaction. However, consider what is it that makes any ruler own a piece of land. When you buy land, you must buy it from a ruler, but how did he get it? All ancestral heritage, at some point in the infinite refraction of history, finds its roots in violence and conquest. And unlike the beliefs of revisionist leftist historians, this doesn’t just apply to white civilisations but to every single one.
When the earth was empty of human beings, an untouched rind of wilderness below the sun, perhaps then man could plant a flag and proclaim “this is now MyLand and I am its King” and he would not be stealing it from anyone. As the earth became populated and all the land ultimately became spoken for, this is perhaps where conquest was born. Why should the man who showed up to a place first have ownership over it? Perhaps we assume too much fairness in the idea of “first come first served”. Should not the King who rules the best own more land? Should not the King who can provide the best organisation and protection for his people deserve to rule? There are an infinite number of ideals we may justify about who should rule, but the only rule that is consistently enforced by the forces of history is this: land belongs to the one who can defend it.
