Liberalism can be summed up as the postulate of the free use by each individual or member of a society of his property (the fact that some have only one property: their workforce while others own the means of production is not denied, only omitted). In this sense, all men are equal, a fact enshrined in the fundamental principle of the bourgeois constitution: all are equal before the law, the concrete basis of formal equality between the members of a society. In an extension of this, a second idea proposes the commonwealth, according to which property and freedom-based social organization serves the good of all. (Incidentally, if there is no antagonism between social classes, action can be driven by reason, hence rationalism.) This is the crux of the ideological proposition, which seeks the consented domination of workers through the operation of identifying the interest of the ruling class (maintaining the prevailing social order) with the interest of society as a whole - the nation.
The GDR stated it was constructed as an "antifascist protection mechanism" in order to keep out external threats and keep the east Berliners safe in their "Socialist Paradise" but in reality it was to keep people in since many were trying to emigrate out of the communist zone and the GDR would fall because of emigration.
"It was strategically located to deal with the Persians in the east and barbarians to the north" was not a reason why the Emperor Constantine selected the ancient town of Byzantium as the site for his new capital of Constantinople, since this location did not mitigate many of the effects of foreign invasions.
