We will be honest here and admit that we are without justification. Therefore we resent mightily the implication that we are under any compulsion to justify ourselves. We neither spin nor sew nor till the soil. We do not work to make our people stronger, or not in the way that you mean it. We have instituted no healthful policies, have enforced no nutrition and exercise regimes when we could have. Oh, yes, it would have been quite easy. We admit that freely, if we may take that so-loved word of yours for our own. We did not think of it.
We knew that you languished, you poor, and though our heart bled to see you in the street, at least until we had curtains installed in our carriages, we did not establish free kitchens. We did not try to educate you that you might be more than you were. We left you to fend for yourselves, and then arrayed all our forces on the other side so that you could not fend too much for yourselves. We should do so again. We have learned nothing, will learn nothing. You can kill us, but you can never touch us.