Violence is Golden. All governments — left, right or other — are by their very nature coercive. They have to be. Order demands violence. A rule not ultimately backed by the threat of violence is merely a suggestion. States rely on laws enforced by men ready to do violence against lawbreakers. Every tax, every code and every licensing requirement demands an escalating progression of penalties that, in the end, must result in the forcible seizure of property or imprisonment by armed men prepared to do violence in the event of resistance or non–compliance. Every time a soccer mom stands up and demands harsher penalties for drunk driving, or selling cigarettes to minors, or owning a pit bull, or not recycling, she is petitioning the state to use force to impose her will. She is no longer asking nicely. The viability of every family law, gun law, zoning law, traffic law, immigration law, import law, export law and financial regulation depends on both the willingness and wherewithal of the group to exact order by force. And heres where the anarchists would jump in and state that they believe in a society with no government and no violence, in accordance with the NAP. But heres where the NAPsters (NAPists?) are just simply naive children, as lost as their ideological forefathers, the flower-children of the 1960s. Without action, words are just words. Without violence, laws are just words. Without law, there are no rights other than what you can enforce. With violence. If someone has to protect them or theyll entropy away, theyre not natural rights, but exercised rights. The law protects them. The state enforces the law equally. Ideally. Its not a perfect system, but libertarians have a chronic thinking problem of not understanding where rights come from. Might makes rights. In a system with no government anyones rights go only as far as his ability to enforce them. Should you decide you have a right to freely speak, and you speak in the public square, and someone stronger than you decides you dont have a right to say that he can simply punch you in the mouth and stop your words. If hes stronger, what right do you have? When there is a limited state which enforces rights as law (Such as the original US Constitution) there are a list of rights which are commonly agreed upon, and violations of which will be punished by the might of the state, ensuring that the individual must not exert might on a daily basis in order to maintain his rights. When your right to free speech is written in law, and protected by it, should that man punch you in the mouth, the police would stop him, arrest him, and he would be subject to civil prosecution in addition to whatever lawsuit you lay upon him in the common courts. Peace can only be maintained without violence so long as everyone sticks to the bargain Thats the fallacy of the NAP. People wont. History shows over and over that they simply dont. To maintain peace every single person in every successive generation — even after war is long forgotten — must continue to agree to remain peaceful. Forever and ever. No delinquent or upstart may ever ask, “Or Else What?,” because in a truly non-violent society, the best available answer is “Or else we won’t think you’re a very nice person and we’re not going to share with you.” Our troublemaker is free to reply, “I don’t care. I’ll take what I want.” And heres where violence is needed. Violence is the final answer to the question, “Or else what?” Without a state pooled from the collective might of the people, with their authority to rule, the answer of or else what? falls solely on the person attempting to assert his rights, and if hes weaker than the upstart delinquent, he loses his rights in that moment of weakness. The fallacy of natural rights means that those who believe in them think that theyre a natural law, like gravity or electromagnetism, with no need for human action to keep them going. In truth, rights are artifacts. Human artifacts. That doesnt take away their importance, it only underscores how fragile they can be. Sure, artifacts are man made, but theyre useful. Guns are artifacts. So is our right to own them. Both need to be preserved. With violence if need be. Violence is civilizing. Violence is golden. againstpolitics/la-rollins-the-myth-of-natural-rights/ jack-donovan/axis/2011/03/violence-is-golden/
Posted on: Wed, 09 Apr 2014 20:15:51 +0000
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