It Always Comes Back To Same Question: "What Should The Role of Government Be In a Civilized Society?"

By Chris Rossini

​Government is force.

That's it.

It's not Mother Teresa. It's not a caretaker. It's not a charity, or a helping hand. It's not a business. It's not a nanny. It's not a "regulator." 

It's force.

Government's first act, before it can do anything else, is to use force against someone. This is why America's Founders struggled so hard to chain government down. Unfortunately, those chains were broken a century ago, and government today is primarily seen as something that has the power to take from one in order to give to another.

Ordinary individuals in a civilized society do not have this ability. If you steal from one in order to give to another (no matter what your excuse) you're committing a crime, and are justly punished. The property of others is the property of others. It's not yours for the taking.

Private property is the foundation of civilization. Without it, it's a free-for-all war, where only the strongest and most militant would thrive and take by force whatever they please from those who are weaker.

Respect for each person's ultimate property (their life) and their material possessions keeps a general free-for-all war out of the human experience. 

With private property, the weak and poor have a chance. If the strong and rich aggress against them, the strong and rich are justly punished. Neither brute strength or bank account exempt anyone from punishment if they aggress against others.

Private property gives the weak and poor room. It gives them an opportunity to rise up and become strong and rich should they desire to do so.

Private Property protects everyone from the free-for-all war of 'if you want it, just go and take it from someone else.'

Unless...

Unless government is given the power to harm a person's life or take a person's property...That changes the game entirely.

Everything changes when government is granted a moral "loophole" and is able to do what an individual is prohibited from doing. Under these conditions, a free-for-all war does take place. 

Government becomes the primary tool for looting others.

After all, it's legal!

No longer are the weak and poor protected. Their private property is no longer secure.

When government was prohibited from looting, and was there to protect them from aggression, the weak and the poor had a chance. Now, with government acting as the looter, it is the weak and the poor who will pay the biggest price.

Now the strong and rich can abuse the weak and the poor, and they can do so under the banner of government.

Naturally, the very first job is to "educate" the population by convincing them that government must be able to take from one to give to another. 

After all, that's the way that government "helps." More specifically, that's the way that government will "help" the weak and the poor.

And so, those who are "educated" become the greatest and loudest voices for the government-as-looter "system."

With private property no longer secure, the gap between rich and poor artificially rises to unheard of levels.

And yet, the "educated" cry even louder for more of the same! More "help"! Government needs to "help" even more!

Never has government "helped" so much...and never have there been so many impoverished and in need of actual and genuine help.

As long as the role of government is to have an exemption to steal whatever it wants, there cannot be a different result.

More of the same cause will only get you more of the same effect.

The only way to get a different result is to once again prohibit government from doing what individuals are prohibited from doing.

No theft! 

By anyone.

Private property must once again be secured for the weak and the poor. 

Unless, and until that happens, the strong and the rich will continue to dine at their expense.

And the government "help" will continue to grind the poor further into penury.