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The Paradise Perspective: Commentary from a Free and Compassionate Alternate Reality Volume 1, Number 41 The Fugitive by Glen Allport Exclusive to STR November 19, 2007 "O
ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the
tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with
oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. -- Thomas Paine, Common Sense "Humanity
has won its battle. - 1 - I
miss my country. The
country I grew up in actually was
"an asylum for mankind," or as close to that as mankind has had.
Corruption and growth of coercive power had already reached horrifying
proportions, yet still No
nation was stronger or richer than the Torture?
Not in my country. Torture
was the sort of thing that made people want to escape from other
countries. In Violations
of habeas corpus, or of the right to an attorney, or of the right to a
speedy trial by a jury of one's peers?
No more likely than violations of the law of gravity. Or
so I thought as a child. - 2 - My
touching belief in Even
in mid-20th Century Then
why did so many people, in and
out of the The
answer is simple: Other places were, for the most part, dramatically
worse. They had always been
worse. Plus
– and not to be taken lightly – the United States had been founded specifically and explicitly as a haven for liberty by people who,
for the most part, actually understood what that meant. Read the Declaration
of Independence or the Bill of
Rights: then imagine any of today's political candidates or members of
the power elite or the mainstream media understanding those documents and
truly believing in them. The Second Amendment is a perfect example: "A
well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a The
right to arms is under attack in America now as never before, but here is
how far that Amendment took us: As late as the mid-20th Century, an
American schoolkid could, in many parts of the country, bring a gun to
school, openly, and store it in his locker (or her locker; female hunters
or target shooters were rare but not unheard of). The gun could have been
purchased over-the-counter or even mail-order without needing a note from
our Masters or requiring any type of background check or waiting period.
After school, the kid – who was treated more like an adult than adults
are today – could take the gun from the locker (again, in plain sight)
and go hunting or plinking or target shooting with it. No big deal at all. Try
that now and see how long it
takes before you get tased or shot. The principle has been clearly
established now that government agents (i.e., the hired help) can have all
the guns they want, but you, as a mere citizen, are suspect. What do you need a weapon for, anyway? Not
surprisingly, school shootings are now more common and when they occur are
far more likely to become large-scale massacres, since no one on-site is
equipped to fight back. Imagine putting a neon sign in front of your
child's school saying "Attention violent criminals and crazy persons:
We are completely unarmed and helpless! Please don't hurt us, because we
can't fight back!" Yeah, that
would be sensible. I
want a gun-free world as much as the next person, and the way to get
to that world is to create so much love and freedom that, eventually,
nobody needs or wants a gun. In the meantime, forcing citizens to be
literally helpless to defend themselves (against criminals, who by
definition disobey the law) while heavily arming government
– the most violent and genocidal institution ever created – is
counterproductive, and criminally violates the basic human right of
self-defense. - 3 - The
importance of having a large nation with deep protection for freedom
(which is to say, for human rights) cannot be overstated. Love
and freedom are the two qualities absolutely required for a healthy world
or a healthy society, and indeed love and freedom form two sides of a
duality in human life. A lack of either freedom or love is the most
serious problem (other than for immediate physical basics like air or
food) people can have, and worse: when one quality is lacking, the other
is damaged as well. The Coercion
violates both love and freedom.
Using coercion (force or threats of force) against others is evil, except
in defense. Your mother taught you that and she was right. What she was
talking about was love and freedom: Coercion is the literal negation of
freedom, and using coercion is an unloving thing to do to another person. Government
is an organization built on systematic coercion. For that reason, coercive
government is by far the gravest possible threat to love and freedom. It
is inevitable that those who wish
to use coercion against others
strive to capture government power and to increase that power. Government
thus tends to grow, at the expense of love and freedom, and to fall into
the hands of people who are especially interested in pushing others around
by force. That
simple truth is the abolitionist
argument in a nutshell. - 4 - Government
justifies its license to use force by monopolizing national defense,
police, and court functions. These functions sometimes require
force and exist, at least in theory, to protect the rights and even the
lives of citizens. They are important functions, and giving a monopoly on those functions to a single entity is a huge mistake. Allowing
this force-wielding, monopolistic entity to broaden
its use of coercion into other areas, including funding (taxation), is an
even bigger mistake. Once the principle is accepted that forcible
government can involve itself in other functions, all is lost, although
the disaster may not come to full flower for decades – and along the
way, the masses will be told, and many will believe, that the
love-and-freedom-killing growth of government power is a good
thing – even a necessary thing. That is how every growing tyranny, from
Hitler's - 5 - In
Social
Statics (1851), Herbert Spencer pointed out just how deeply, horribly wrong
is the whole idea of running society by a system of force: "Command is the growl of coercion crouching in ambush. Or we might aptly term it – violence in a latent state. All its accessories – its frown, its voice, its gestures, prove it akin to the ferocity of the uncivilized man. Command is the foe of peace, for it breeds war of words and feelings – sometimes of deeds. It is inconsistent with the first law of morality. It is radically wrong." "Every
man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the
equal freedom of any other man. Though
further qualifications of the liberty of action thus asserted may be
necessary, yet we have seen (p. 89) that in the just regulation of a
community no further qualifications of it can be recognised. Such further
qualifications must ever remain for private and individual application. We
must therefore adopt this law of equal freedom in its entirety, as the law
on which a correct system of equity is to be based." [Emphasis in
original] --
From Chapter 6 of Spencer's Social
Statics: or, The Conditions essential to Happiness specified, and the
First of them Developed, as published at the Online Library of
Liberty. How
dangerous is the mistake of creating a monopolistic, coercive central
authority? In the just-past 20th Century, governments
murdered over 260 million people – more than two
and a half million murders per year, for a hundred years. This is in
addition to many millions of war
dead in the government wars of that bloody century. It is in addition
to tens of millions who were tortured or maimed or raped or otherwise
harmed, but not actually killed. It is in addition to hundreds of millions
kept in poverty and hunger unnecessarily. It is in addition to the many
millions who had mothers or fathers or other family or friends murdered or
maimed or tortured or raped or otherwise harmed. It is in addition to
massive environmental damage (e.g., pretty much the entire Soviet Union,
so polluted and otherwise hostile to life that those living in its corpse
have an average
lifespan of only 66 years, 16 fewer than in Japan and 14 fewer than in
the European Union. For Russian men, the average lifespan is an even more
abysmal 58 years). How
much emotional damage was caused by all that mayhem and murder? There is
no way to quantify it, but clearly the emotional health and capacity for
love of millions was harmed, often dramatically, by the staggering levels
of violence and cruelty inflicted upon them by government, both directly
(e.g., war and genocide) and indirectly (for example, from corporatism). Creating
the formalized, systematic coercion of government was the most dangerous
and damaging mistake the human race has ever made. - 6 - Earlier
in this nation's history – as late as the 1950s and early 1960s –
Americans had a generally warm view of government employees and even of
politicians, or at least of some
politicians. There was great affection for Eisenhower and for Kennedy, for
example – not from everyone, to be sure, but from a very great many
people. Policemen, teachers, and many others within government were seen
as genuine protectors and benefactors – as fellow citizens providing
necessary services. Such government employees were, for the most part, not
seen as tyrants or bullies or agents of pro-tyranny propaganda. While the
positive perception of such government employees was far from universally
deserved, it was nonetheless based on a large measure of truth. Citizens
had more direct control over the less-centralized government of that time
than they do today, and the legal protections built into the Constitution
and its Bill of Rights were better known, more widely respected in
Congress and elsewhere, including by many on-the-ground government
employees, and more reliably enforced by the courts. Returning
to the wider understanding and enforcement
of human rights in this country would be a boon to government employees as
well as to the rest of us; why be feared or hated ("don't tase me,
bro!") when you can be loved and respected. Protecting
love and freedom instead of violating those qualities is what makes
the difference. As Thoreau pointed out in Civil Disobedience, "That government is best which governs not at all." Until we reach that healthier state, let us strive to at least undo the growth and the corruption of government power that has infected the United States over the years, and return our beloved nation to the status it once aspired to, and was partly worthy of: a sanctuary and asylum for mankind. Glen Allport is the author of The Paradise Paradigm: On Creating A World of Compassion, Freedom, and Prosperity and maintains paradise-paradigm.net. This is one in a series of columns on the human condition.
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