Posted by:
caffiend
(
)
Date: January 09, 2020 12:52AM
"People Sleep Peacefully in Their Beds at Night Only Because Rough Men Stand Ready to Do Violence on Their Behalf."
Commonly sourced to George Orwell, it seems he picked it up from Kipling. The genesis of it seems to be a Kipling poem:
"I went into a public-‘ouse to get a pint o’beer,
The publican ‘e up an’ sez, “We serve no red-coats here.”
The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die,
…
O makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap;"
Orwell had little use for pacifists. In a 1942 essay, he wrote, "He sees that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them." A later writer put the two together, and changed "less civilized" to "rough men."
My source, a fascinating read--as is the entire site:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/11/07/rough-men/(Even if the quote is not pure Orwell, it is pure truth!)