If someone can take away your life, liberty, or property you are not free. Tyranny is tyranny, whether from a king or a bandit.
This article is from The Editor’s Corner, with insights, short-posts, links, and general ramblings from Editor/Owner Justin Stapley.
Anarchists and minarchists often flinch at the idea of ordered liberty. They recoil at the notion that government coercion, force, or even violence is necessary for order and justice.
But this view assumes individual violence is a myth perpetuated by “big brother”. This is simply not true. Government poses a risk to liberty precisely because imperfect individuals must be in charge of it. It is the foibles of human nature that require checks and balances in government, not the mechanisms of government itself. Men are not angels. Tyranny does not derive from government, it comes from the hearts of men. Government is simply one tool, among many, that can be turned towards the purposes of unrighteous dominion.
The fallen nature of mankind is not thwarted by creating a society without government. A society that lacks a basic sense of agreed-upon law and order will not be freed from tyranny. Instead, it will devolve into the law of the jungle. Here, tyranny reigns supreme as it arises from individuals unchecked by a social and legal order. They are able to spread violence, coercion, and force at a whim, answerable only by those able to respond in kind. Living by the creed “kill or be killed” isn’t liberty.
Further, if just society can exist without at least a minimal sense of government, capitalism would be the status quo of human existence as opposed to a rare flower blooming in the desert.
Instead, freedom and liberty are conditions only possible when a legal order bound and tasked with preserving a sphere of liberty holds the realities of human nature in balance.
And yes, the limited and controlled use of government force is necessary, from time to time, for society to maintain such a balance. (Just as the perennial assertion of rebellion, always peaceful and lawful when possible but sometimes necessarily unlawful and even violent, must arise from individuals to similarly keep their government in check). This is not a violation of the Non-aggression Principle,.Instead, it is the only means by which the Non-aggression Principle can actually exist in a society.
Again, neither liberty or justice are mutually exclusive. You must either have both or you have neither. If someone can take away your life, liberty, or property you are not free. Tyranny is tyranny, whether from a king or a bandit.
It is not difficult to discern that despotism intrudes on the rights of mankind. Neither should it be difficult to discern that survival of the fittest equally tramples those same rights.
The folly of chasing after utopia is the political sin of socialists and anarchists alike. Both ignore the reality of human nature. And, both would create a world absent the necessary checks to ensure liberty and justice in a world inhabited by fallen creatures.
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