When a robber forcefully enters your home with a weapon and intent upon using it to coerce your compliance, what is he or she really telling you?
In short, this individual does not respect the value you have placed on your life and property and is willing to escalate this show of hostilities to actual destruction. It also means that this individual is telling you that violence in the moment is all the reason that will be accepted for consideration on his or her part.
Therefore the use of force, up to and including deadly force to prevent such an action from being escalated by the robber is acceptable self defense regardless of what the local authorities proclaim. There is no in between in these situations without context. The conclusion every time must first be to kill in order to limit the amount of destruction caused by the intruder in the moment.
But think about that for a while. We are told by so many that killing such an individual is wrong. Why is it wrong when the intruder made no attempts to peacefully acquire from you what he or she chose to forcefully take? It is understandable that context will be different for each situation. The difficulty in comprehension is that once a peaceful exchange is over, the answer of ‘no’ has been accepted.
Unless hostilities are initiated immediately upon the issuance of the answer of ‘no’ then any attempt after to acquire whatever property or wealth in question is an act of aggression void of peaceful reasoning. And few people, even with haphazardly understood moral codes, will deny that theft is wrong on the individual basis. Most people understand in sentiment why theft is wrong. They may make justifications for the theft of an apple, but they know it is more or less wrong.
It holds people back and makes them a slave for the amount of time, intellect, and labor required to create or earn whatever property or wealth is in question. If it is wrong to steal 100% of an individual’s time, intellect, and labor, then when does it become okay to steal at all?
That is the question needing answering.
Even to take a piece of food without permission from its owner to end hunger or starvation is to steal. Consent is about recognizing the value each of us place upon ourselves. To steal is to show a lack of respect for that value, at least in the moment the act is committed. And even in dire circumstances principles must be upheld. Failure to uphold these principles in the roughest of times is said to be acceptable pending context. These are the justifications made by people who say theft can be acceptable.
Yet, no one who makes these justifications ought to be ever making the justification for violating them during times of plenty. Why the glaring contradictions for no other reason than different context? Because people fail to have a fully defined moral code completely transparent where all of their work is shown to create such a foundation of thought. Kind of the same way a math teacher expects all of the students work to be shown step by step. That way the teacher can judge if the student at least knows how the process works, even if they do not understand why it works.
And that is precisely what is happening with the justification of taxation being a necessary evil. People do not show their philosophical work concerning their moral foundations. God is the reason they are obedient. Law enforcement is the reason they are obedient. Or something they cannot explain because they never made the time to consider is the reason why they have not. This is evidence that people do not understanding the crux of why moral codes are invoked. They are only invoking them based on specific actions they were taught as being ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’
Because they were not taught how to understand why the actions are ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, they make justifications, employ arbitrary guess work, and follow rules blindly because who or what they feel is a proper authority to them. These authorities are often things that cannot be proven true or untrue definitively or authorities that are seemingly overwhelming to challenge leaving them feeling better off compliant, apathetic, or going with the flow beneath the mantra of ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.’
This is precisely why so many people have contradictions in their logical processes for designating what is moral and immoral. It is also why so many people view morality as ‘good’ and ‘evil’ exclusively. There are no clearly defined parameters to use as a litmus test to judge whether an action is evil or good. So when people are not performing actions that are ‘good’ then they are automatically performing actions that are ‘evil’. When that occurs, the ability of people to reason out who can actually reason is dismissed. The humanity others possess is ignored. People are dehumanized and thus emotionally disconnected or rejected so less pain is felt when violence, force, punishment, or destructive acts are employed against them.
And when the Humanity and abilities of others to reason is ignored, the only kind of reasoning possible is to act violently, to act destructively, in a contest of attrition. At this point the only way people intent upon not recognizing their common grounds have to do is to suffer enough to recognize that they require mercy when they would not show any previously.
This is the war waged by the advocates of government. This is the war waged by the dissenters of government who refuse to show mercy now. And this is the war that so many people do not realize starts with themselves. They are making the choice internally to recognize the value they have placed upon themselves; to recognize the value others have placed upon themselves too, or not at all.
Instead people go around trying to control the actions of others through fear in order to protect the value they have on themselves. They justify horrendous acts of violence and death towards others in the same jurisdiction of government they are beneath because these other people might also hurt them. They hide behind reason and logic that is shallow. But they do not realize how frail their logic is.
Do they realize that by investing in the respect of others that such respect will in some form be reciprocated thus the return on investment in the initial individuals life is the result; the result of respecting others. Essentially we respect ourselves by respecting others. We serve ourselves by serving others.
How could advocates of government recognize this when what they champion is taught as the only legitimate means to protect themselves? They also are not actually taught the purpose of why they want protection. And they certainly are not taught how to figure out a means to maximize their ability to work with others in order to maximize their efficiency.
Maybe now some government supporters will understand why so many dissenters are angry. Maybe now so many angry dissenters will understand why so many supporters are seemingly oblivious. And maybe both will begin to understand their common ground is being nescient about why they do what they do and the fact that they both want peace, security, and prosperity.
That is something that can only be achieved when we seek to find the Humanity in others and patience and humility in ourselves.
-JLD
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