The First Duty Of Government

Is the heading to a post on Conservative Home, in which the author writes:

"We are agreed that the first duty of government is to safeguard our national security and support our troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere – and we will fulfil that duty." - David Cameron and Nick Clegg in their foreword to the Coaltion's programme for government."

It cannot be denied that encapsulated within the matter of a nation's security is included the preservation of that nation to be a self-governing nation and thus able to decide its own destiny. I have never been able to understand this love of membership of the European Union - and the reason is I have a knowledge of history in general and that of my own country in particular. Now history is not a subject which the newer generations have had the opportunity to learn, because if they had they could but agree with a quotation of Margaret Thatcher: 

"........ most of the problems the world has faced have come, in one fashion or other, from mainland Europe, and the solutions from outside it."

Bearing in mind that quotation and the fact that the UK has, over the centuries, fought various factions from Europe to preserve our independence, I am reminded of another quotation, this one by Jean Jaques Rousseau:

"I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery."