Rejection of Force as a Creative Agent

Seventh is a rejection of the use of coercion as a means to achieve creative ends. Coercion must be understood for precisely what it is, a force that can restrain, restrict, suppress, destroy. It is not a creative agent. The true believer in human freedom is one who never resorts to coercive methods for creative purposes, be it in the field of medicine, education, housing, farming, electricity, or any other.

The true advocate of freedom knows that only men in voluntary effort can attain these ends short of a resort to legal robbery. And he knows that a nation of robbers will soon destroy itself, and can seemingly attain the appearances of progress only while there is something remaining to rob. To insist on attempting to do by force what men will not do in free action is itself authoritarian; it is the attempt to cast others in one’s own image; it is that weakness in man which lets him try to play God.