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Who tells you what to think?

Day 834, 11:41 • Published in Netherlands

• by Thomas Fairfax

Swords and Ploughshares - A polemical rag of the worst kind

Who tells you what to think? Surely the answer will be nobody, nobody tells me what to think. Who then, detemines your agenda? Surely your response is that nobody determines your agenda but yourself. Hearing these answers from the United Netherlands, this newspaper's only response is that Swords and Ploughshares is not so sure. Perhaps someone else does determine our agenda. Perhaps someone else does tell us what to think.

The truth is that we are not only being told what to think, but we are being told who we are, by a foreign power with no right to do so. The fact that the United Netherlands is letting this happen is perhaps the strangest part of the tale. Why should the United Netherlands change any of its policy, let alone its national name and character, because some seditionists have moved away?

Enough riddles. If you have not yet deciphered the purpose of this article then here it is. Why is the United Netherlands allowing events in Belgium to dictate how we act and what we call ourselves? Would we change the name of our state based on what happened in Germany, or what happened in France, or what happened in the United Kingdom, or Poland or Spain? Of course we would not.

Some apologists within the United Netherlands have said that it is just a name. Swords and Ploughshares believes that the United Netherlands is a dynamic nation with a long history, a strong character and unique values. Are we going to throw that away, because some seditionists have moved abroad? Belgian independence may be a foreign policy fact, but as far as this newspaper is concerned, that changes nothing within the borders of the United Netherlands. Those who want sedition from the United Netherlands, those factions abroad who view us as competition rather than a friend, want nothing more than for you to abandon the idea of the United Netherlands. Swords and Ploughshares asks that you dont let them determine your agenda. Dont let them tell you what to think. Dont let them determine who you are. We are the citizens of the United Netherlands, no matter what they do or who they think they are.