Guns don’t kill people, governments do
Posted in Freedom's Flame by R Lee Wrights on January 22nd, 2009 by Mike Ruff
Just a couple of notes on the nature of government I’ve been thinking about for a while…
First, one of the adages I’m fond of quoting is: “To the person who has only a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.” Politicians, bureaucrats, and other government thugs and con-artists fall into this category pretty consistently. Because the one real tool government types have is the government’s claimed monopoly on initiatory force–that is, the “Government Guns”–they tend to resort to violence or threat of violence in almost every situation, no matter how inappropriate. Oh, they try to cloak the iron fist in velvet gloves, but they never do forget about that iron fist–even though they want you to pretend it’s not there.
Think about it–everything the government does, it has to pay for–just like anyone else. Now while you and I have to convince people to pay us for our goods or services of their own free will, government just says “Pony up the cash” to the rest of us, whether we will or no. And if we don’t, then the “Government Guns” come out and drag us off to prison, or just outright kill us (of course, it’s always “justified,” isn’t it). Yes, I know, you may believe that the pretense of justice beforehand, via the nasty letters and court proceedings and such actually mean something. But in fact, those things are only there to set the stage–to convince the masses that there really is some sort of justice in the system, that it is “right” for the government to do these sorts of things.
And of course, after all this, the government goons then want people to thank them for “defending freedom” and “keeping the streets safe” and “making the trains run on time” etc.
Absolutely everything government does is backed up by the government guns. There is nothing–no matter how innocuous–that the government-types will allow people to do in violation of their edicts. Try actually competing with the Post Office–no, FedEx and UPS and such don’t count. Try starting a first-class mail service to compete with the US Postal Service, and see if the government just says “Hey, good luck. We’ll see how the free market does–will it support a non-monopoly first class mail service as well as our government agency? May the best service win!” No, I think you’ll find you start getting visits from armed government thugs, and nasty-grams from other government thugs, and so forth, all gradually increasing in threats until the day they actually draw the guns and either kill you or kidnap you.
I mean, is it really that important that government and only government delivers first class mail? Are lives really in the balance on this one? Does anyone really trust the government mail delivery bureaucracy with anything important these days? I know I don’t–if I want it to get there safely, on time, without damage, and so forth, I send it via FedEx or UPS or DHL or one of the many other private services.
Hell, where I live, the Government postal service won’t even come to my house–but UPS and FedEx sure as hell do. But the private services aren’t allowed to deliver anything to my PO Box, and none of the various government bureaucracies I have to deal with to keep my “papers in ordnung” will send anything to me via private mail, and to make matters worse, most of them won’t send anything to me at a PO Box! So, if the government won’t allow me to receive things via private post, and they won’t deliver government post to my house, and they won’t send things to me at their own post office, what the hell am I supposed to do?
Well, somewhat tangentially, my second point is this. Think about Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, and some of the other more well-known butchers of the last century. I think most of us will agree that they were evil men, and butcher doesn’t even begin to describe the magnitude of their mass-murders. But I want you to think about those men–consider just how evil they were. And then tell me how much murdering they’d have managed to pull off if there wasn’t a government there for them to exploit for their mass-murdering ends? I mean, how many people did any of them kill with their bare hands? Mao probably did a few, and Stalin as well. For that matter, so did Pol Pot. I doubt Hitler had the balls to actually get his hands bloody. But even in those cases, these murders depended on their government thugs backing them to make sure their victims didn’t fight back.
Imagine for a moment that these guys weren’t government murderers, but rather “free-lance.” So Pol Pot moves in next door, and goes down the street offing the neighbors. Are they gonna just stand there and take it? Are you going to just stand there and watch? I hope not. In fact, I seriously doubt it. If I or my friends saw such a thing going down, we’d be out there fighting the bastard off most ricky-tick. So yes, Pol Pot may manage to actually kill a couple people before anyone knew he was an evil, murdering bastard. But as soon as the neighbors know, they put a stop to him quick, fast, and in a hurry.
Compare that to reality, in which there was a government for Pol Pot (and the other mass-murderers I mentioned above) the grab control of, and use to lend an aura of legitimacy to their killing.
Guns don’t kill people–Governments do.
Mike Ruff is an apolitical activist living in the soon-to-be-Free State of NH, and is one of approximately 9,000 participants in the Free State Project, and one of approximately 700 participants who has already moved and become active there. Mike is a practicing Mediator, and has been providing non-coercive dispute resolution as an alternative to the government court system for 6 years.
Kevin Dean said,
January 23, 2009 @ 3:35 pm
Excellent write up!
Maybe we’ll cross paths. My wife and I are both moving to New Hampshire later this year as part of the Free State project!
Tim Jennings said,
February 15, 2009 @ 1:01 pm
Mike, I couldn’t agree more. Our present government has our head in the noose. The ironic part of it is the we ourselves put it there. We put our elected official on a pedestal thinking they can do no wrong while closing our eyes to an injustice that we know are taking place. We close our eyes to much that we know is wrong. We tell ourselves, “It’s OK, we didn’t totally agree with them people anyway.”
Our greedy, lazy, sloven ways have gotten us into this mess and we can only blame ourselves. We hold the reins to government but we have been too lazy to apply any control. I want to invite you and all your readers to join a new movement. It is called the Second Amendment March. It is scheduled to take place in D.C. in April, 2010. Imagine several million unified, peaceful marchers, from all aspects of American society, it will make an impression on our elected officials. Please take a look at it. Mr. Obama wanted change, believe me . it s time has come. http://secondamendmentmarch.com