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Old 06-15-2011, 02:10 PM   #28
Basia Halliop
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 711
Canada
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Re: Hard before Soft???

Quote:
But do you really? The Swiss come to mind as an example of another way. They have no army to speak of yet have managed to stay out ot two World Wars and a bunch of regional skirmishes.
The Swiss are strange and are a more complicated example than I think your quote suggests... they seem to believe more in neutrality than in non-violence per se - they have a policy that's something along the lines of, not to get involved if they aren't directly attacked. I don't know how big their army actually is or how it ranks in terms of planes and tanks, etc, but they have mandatory military service for all able bodied males and voluntary for women - so a huge percentage of their adult population is basically a member of the army. They have militias and are required to maintain their weapons and keep them at home, hence have very high rates of gun ownership with, according to a quick google search, an estimated 1-3 million guns in a total population of about 7 million, including some half a million military issue assault rifles kept at home.
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