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24 always involving people in useless and pernicious wars) is too evident for reasonable people of our age not to free themselves from it; and the religious deceit of the obligation of the oath (which is distinctly forbidden by that very gospel which the governments profess) is, thank God, ever less and less believed in. So that what really prevents the great majority from refusing to take part in military service is merely fear of the punishments which are inflicted by the governments for such refusals. This fear, however, is only a result of the government deceit, and has no other basis but hypnotism.

The governments may and should fear those who refuse to serve, and, indeed, they are afraid of them, because every refusal undermines the prestige of the deceit by which the governments have the people in their power. But those who refuse have no ground whatever to fear a government that demands crimes from them. In refusing military service, every man risks much less than he would were he to enter it. The refusal of military service and the punishment—imprisonment, exile—is only an advantageous insurance of oneself against the dangers of the military service. In entering the service, every man risks having to take part in war (for which purpose he is being prepared), and during war he may be, like a man sentenced to death, placed in a position in which, under the most difficult and painful circumstances, he will almost certainly be