27. Using Violence to Thwart Peaceful Activity

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

-H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)

ANY POLITICAL PROPOSAL THAT prevents peaceful activity, in effect, condones acts of violence—coercion, incarceration, or death—upon persons who are minding their own business or interacting with other persons on a volitional and contractual basis. Peaceful activities and associations are thus condemned, because someone who is not a participant in those activities finds those activities and associations objectionable.

The proposals made that evening at my dinner party were offered not to defend against barbarians banging at the gate, but instead to control human subjects merely interacting with each other peacefully and minding their own business. To wit: One can point to the discussed peaceful interactions between the yacht builder and the yachtsman, the employer and employee, and the benefactor and the beneficiary.

A proponent of any State policy concurrently must condone the acts necessary to enforce its compliance, and by so doing, is, to some extent, responsible for the ultimate consequences of such acts. One can ascribe admirable titles to a policy and heartwarming goals to its purpose, but, regardless of the rhetoric, any act used to enforce compliance remains inconsistent with human liberty, since that compliance involves a master and a subject. It is inconsistent to despise slavery on the one hand, while condoning mastery on the other.