Statism; YES WE CAN achieve utopia with violence

I apologize for the negativity that I am sure will be conveyed by this post. I had finished with my photoblogging for the day and intended to leave it at that, but I've got a few things I want to get out while the thoughts are fresh.

I stayed up late reading this evening and I just finished Ayn Rand's fictional novel We the Living, which is about life in early Soviet Russia. The short of it was that is was gruesome. Soul-crushing. Tragic. If you've read any of the excerpts from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, then you know what to expect. It's a real-life horror story that we're still living to this day, right now, as we speak. It's about those of us who continue to believe that all problems can be solved with violence, and the horrors we subject ourselves to in the name of the unachievable ideals of tyrants.

Let me break it down.

I've said it before but it will eternally bear repeating. The only power possessed by any government--anywhere, ever--is its ability to initiate violence with impunity.

YES. There are warnings. There are citations. There are tickets and fines. There are friendly-sounding letters. There are court dates. There are pleasant-looking social workers. There are social and cultural pressures.

But these are just polite suggestions that conceal the threat of violence.

Refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the above?

Go to jail.

Refuse to go to jail willingly? Do you consider your court-ordered arrest to be nothing more than kidnapping? What will you do?

Submit to arrest or else.

Or else what?

We will forcibly arrest you.

What if I exercise my natural right to defend my person and property against aggression?

We will shoot you. Dead.

Every political ideal and issue is built upon this simple, sadistic premise: "Do it or we'll kill you."

Every ballot you cast in the name of democracy is a sanction for the majority of people to inflict this violent ultimatum upon a minority of people. Every time you say "there oughta be a law...", you're proposing a new situation in which this violent ultimatum must be used. Every day, you're threatened with this ultimatum by people you've never met for murky reasons you've never understood.

Your "OMG I'm feeling anxious" self-defense mechanisms spout as if from rote memorization, 'yes, but we need those violent ultimatums to protect of us from murderers and thieves.' But do you abstain from murder and theft simply because you're afraid of this ultimatum? Honestly, no. But logic dispels your comfortable fiction.

Have a look at how some of the treasured gems of Statism look when the cloud of illusion evaporates.

PARKING IN A NON-PARKING ZONE:
Give us your money or we'll kill you.

BEING GAY IN A NON-GAY ZONE:
Don't get married or we'll kill you.

BEING MORMON IN A NON-MORMON ZONE:
Don't get married more than once or we'll kill you.

CONSCRIPTION:
"Join the Army" or we'll kill you.
("Join the Army"= kill or be killed far, far away from home)

RECREATIONAL DRUG USE:
Don't endanger your own body or we'll kill you.

LICENSING:
Do as we say and pay your dues or we'll kill you.

PASSPORTS:
Stay put and ask permission or we'll kill you.

MINIMUM WAGE:
Do not work for less than "X" amount or we'll kill you.
Do not pay less than "X" amount or we'll kill you.
("X"= a value determined by pseudoscience and "because.")

PUBLIC SCHOOLS:
"Educate" your child or we'll kill you.
("Educate"= in most places at most times, means "indoctrinate")

INCOME TAX:
Give us your money or we'll kill you.

SALES TAX:
Give us your money or we'll kill you.

CAPITAL-GAINS TAX:
Give us your money or we'll kill you.

INHERITANCE TAX:
Give us your money or we'll kill you.

ANY TAX:
Give us your money or we'll kill you.

It doesn't matter whether or not these evils accomplish some good when it comes to morality. Even if utopia were achievable by these means (which it cannot be, by definition), I would reject it if even one innocent were subjected to this ultimatum.

It's absolutely absurd that everytime something goes awry that our doe-eyed news anchors and the American population look toward Papa Washington to solve the problem. Everytime you hear about political action, listen closely and you'll hear the sound of a gun being loaded. Or, if it is too late, the sound of a gun's report.

How does this relate to the book I was reading?

The main character was shot while trying to escape from Soviet Russia. She died of blood loss, so she continued attempting escape until her last breath.

She smiled. She knew she was dying. But it did not matter any longer. She had known something which no human words could ever tell and she knew it now. She had been awaiting it and she felt it, as if it had been, as if she had lived it. Life had been, if only because she had known it could be, and she felt it now as a hymn without sound, deep under the little hole that dripped red drops into the snow, deeper than that from which the red drops came. A moment or an eternity--did it matter? Life, undefeated, existed and could exist.

She smiled, her last smile, to so much that had been possible.

There is so much possible because of the free human spirit. There is so much that will have to wait until our lives have passed. So far to go before there are individuals who are truly allowed to ask and explore all of the "why?"s they want with impunity and encouragement. I fight because I know what we are missing. I fear too many people fight me because they are afraid to know.