"First, we could have defied both of them and could have gone to war against both of these nations for this violation of international law and interference with our neutral rights"
About this Quote
Norris frames the unthinkable - war on two fronts - as a coolly logical option, and that calm is the point. The opening, "First", reads like a lawyer’s outline, not a drumbeat. He’s not selling blood and glory; he’s itemizing alternatives. By laying out the maximalist response ("gone to war against both of these nations") he highlights how absurd it is to treat every provocation as a casus belli, especially when great powers are busy testing the limits of "neutral rights" in practice.
The phrase "could have" does double work. It asserts capacity while withholding endorsement, a rhetorical feint that lets Norris sound tough without becoming bellicose. He borrows the language of legitimacy - "violation of international law" - because legalism was the respectable vocabulary of restraint in the early 20th century. Neutrality wasn’t just a posture; it was a claim to economic freedom, maritime access, and sovereign dignity. When belligerents interfered, the injury was real, but Norris implies the remedy should not be reflexive violence.
The subtext is a warning about selective outrage. By referencing "both of them", he points toward hypocrisy: if interference with neutral rights is the standard, consistency would demand confronting every offender, not just the politically convenient one. That’s a thinly veiled critique of how publics are steered toward a single enemy narrative. In the shadow of World War I-era debates over shipping, blockades, and propaganda, Norris’ sentence works as an antidote to emotional escalation: it performs reason to expose the machinery that manufactures consent for war.
The phrase "could have" does double work. It asserts capacity while withholding endorsement, a rhetorical feint that lets Norris sound tough without becoming bellicose. He borrows the language of legitimacy - "violation of international law" - because legalism was the respectable vocabulary of restraint in the early 20th century. Neutrality wasn’t just a posture; it was a claim to economic freedom, maritime access, and sovereign dignity. When belligerents interfered, the injury was real, but Norris implies the remedy should not be reflexive violence.
The subtext is a warning about selective outrage. By referencing "both of them", he points toward hypocrisy: if interference with neutral rights is the standard, consistency would demand confronting every offender, not just the politically convenient one. That’s a thinly veiled critique of how publics are steered toward a single enemy narrative. In the shadow of World War I-era debates over shipping, blockades, and propaganda, Norris’ sentence works as an antidote to emotional escalation: it performs reason to expose the machinery that manufactures consent for war.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
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