age to the State was part of the briefing
I received," I replied. "I must say that I agree with your opinions.
Especially with your opinion of local political practices. Politics is
nothing, here, if not exciting and exacting."

"You don't understand it though." That was about half-question and
half-statement. "Particularly our custom of using politicians as clay
pigeons."

"Well, it is rather unusual...."

"Yes." The dryness in his tone was a paragraph of comment on my
understatement. "And it's fundamental to our system of government.

"You were out all afternoon with Gail; you saw how we have to handle the
supercow herds. Well, it is upon the fact that every rancher must have
at his disposal a powerful force of aircraft and armor, easily
convertible to military uses, that our political freedom rests. You see,
our government is, in effect, an oligarchy of the big landowners and
ranchers, who, in combination, have enough military power to overturn
any Planetary government overnight. And, on the local level, it is a
paternalistic feudalism.

"That's something that would have stood the hair of any Twentieth
Century 'Liberal' on end. And it gives us the freest government anywhere
in the galaxy.

"There were a number of occasions, much less frequent now than formerly,
when coalitions of big ranches combined their strength and marched on
the Planetary government to protect their rights from government
encroachment. This sort of thing could only be resorted to in defense of
some inherent right, and never to infringe on the rights of others.
Because, in the latter case, other armed coalitions would have arisen,
as they did once or twice during the first three decades of New Texan
history, to resist.

"So the right of armed intervention by the people when the government
invaded or threatened their rights became an acknowledged part of our
political system.

"And--this arises as a natural consequence--you can't give a man with
five hundred employees and a force of tanks and aircraft the right to
resist the government, then at the same time deny that right to a man
who has only his own pistol or machete."

"I notice the President and the other officials have themselves
surrounded by guards to protect them from individual attack," I said.
"Why doesn't the government, as such, protect itself with an army and
air force large enough to resist any possible coalition of the big
ranchers?"

"_Because we won't let the gover