Saturday, June 24, 2006

Keep up the Special Pleading, Statists!

If a serial killer is responsible for innocent people's deaths, he is a criminal and the deaths are horrible tragedies.
When a state killer (soldier) is responsible for dozens of innocent people's deaths, he's either a hero, or at worst, he's fired. Sure you're a killer, but you're doing it for us, so it's morally fine (hitmen don't get that same recognition however - the statist mind is very finicky).

Thieves are considered criminals and put in jail.
When the state collects taxes... no, wait! Taxes are not theft! You see, social contract mumble mumble the common good mumble mumble without taxes how would we finance the War on Drugs? If you don't like the taxes, then wait until you can vote against them (you'll never get the occasion to anyway) or go move to one of those other countries that have taxes so you can complain there. IRS agents shouldn't be put in jail, that's ridiculous. They're not stealing from you, they are saving you from your own fiscal irresponsibility. Of course, if you try using that excuse to rob people, you're still going to jail. The main difference is that they have the guns and you don't.

Talking about guns, there can be no debate about whether soldiers and policemen should have access to firearms. They need them to defend themselves. This is completely different from your average American living in crime-torn cities, because the soldiers and policemen have uniforms! On the flip side, every time a private citizen kills with his firearm, self-defense or not, we should always have a public outcry on how evil guns are and how we should get rid of them (except for the state's goons, of course).

If a doctor withdrew vital medications from a patient and that one patient died from it, the doctor would be accused of gross negligeance and dragged through the mud.
When the FDA withdraws vital medications from people and thousands die from it every year, it's a vital service. They must be protected from themselves, even if that means they have to die. Always remember that unlike those big evil corporations, the state truly cares about your well-being.

When a handful of criminal fraudsters and con men are revealed as having edified a multinational corporation out of thin air, it is a major scandal which casts a shadow on the whole economic system.
When thousands of politicians are shown to have spent billions of dollars on programs and wars which hurt people instead of helping them, it's business as usual, and the people who came up with the programs or wars are hailed as heroes. Never does it occur to anyone to use this as an argument that statism is flawed.

When Microsoft makes special contracts with computer manufacturers, people cry monopoly.
When the state grants special contracts in Iraq to election-year generous, war profiteering corporations like Haliburton and the Bechtel Group, people are silent.

Talking about Microsoft, it's perfectly all right if the state imposes price floors, a trust, or even makes a product required by law (such as car insurance), but it is so not okay if you're a private individual successful in offering an actual product. Don't you know your success makes everyone else look bad? You should do like everyone else and ask the state to crush your competition.

When a store chain backs down of a position because of public outcry, people complain that the chain is politically-motivated.
When politicians refuse to acknowledge the will of the people after they are elected and never back down, people call it democracy. But since they believe that people magically become altruistic when they get public office, I guess we shouldn't be too surprised. They're really ignoring you for your own good.

The difference between a state bureaucrat and a private individual is that the bureaucrat doesn't need to persuade you he's right. He can just force you to do what he wants. The state, ultimately, reduces itself to nothing but coercion of productive efforts and resources into obeying the ruling class values in that society. And so anyone who supports the state is a traitor to his own values and his own freedom.

4 comments:

Francois Tremblay said...

Glad to hear from you Ryan, and that you like my recent posts! I hope my posts aren't becoming more and more incredible, though, otherwise no one will believe me! ;)

Libertarian Jason said...

*sigh*

It's sad that such obvious, common-sense things like this just don't sink in to most people.

Maybe if we keep saying it, more people will finally start coming around.

mdf1960 said...

But who would build and maintain the roads? ;-)

Francois Tremblay said...

Mark, you want to get my urge to kill rising? ;P