Note: Libertarian Girl is off to Europe, but while she’s away she’ll be updating with previously written posts about politics and life in the places she’s visiting. She’ll soon be back to her regularly scheduled Libertarian Girl programming.
You can’t get very far in Austria without being reminded of the country’s Nazi past. Austria was invaded by Germany, although it accepted the invasion willingly at the time. Today, the country has erected a “Monument Against War and Fascism” in its capital city, Vienna, to commemorate victims of violence in all wars, but especially those who died at the hands of the Nazis during World War II. Many Austrian Jews, including the preeminent economist Ludwig von Mises, were forced to flee under the threat of being sent to concentration camps.
Austria learned that it is sometimes best not to take sides in a war, because you may very well be siding with evil.
One particular statue included in the Monument Against War and Fascism includes an image of Orpheus burying his head in the stone on the way to the underworld. According to Rick Steves, it “reminds Austrians (and the rest of us) of the consequences of not keeping their government on track.”
In 1955, after 10 years of joint occupation by the victorious Allies, Austria regained total independence on the condition that it would be forever neutral (and never join NATO or the Warsaw Pact). To this day, Austria is outside of NATO (and Germany).
Perhaps we in other countries could take a lesson from Austria in this way. Why do we need NATO? Why do we need countries meddling in other countries’ business? Austria allowed Germany to take it over because the Austrians thought they were doing the best thing possible for Austria.
Perhaps other countries are making these same mistakes right now. Yesterday I left Vienna for Innsbruck, but this particular lesson is not one that can be left behind.
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