Some Hard Truths About Political Coercion, Violence, and Hypocrisy

There are many wonderful and fulfilling aspects of living a long life. There are a great many humbling realizations too. It is a funny old world. In an essay I wrote many years ago I described the human condition as the "arrogance of youth followed by the hypocrisy of age." I think that is a reasonable one-liner on the subject. Nowhere is our hypocrisy greater than in the use of violence and coercion. The generation that protested the American war in Viet Nam has been in power in the United States since Bill Clinton took office in January 1993. 25 years!

What did this generation do? Did they bring the peace they so rightly agitated for to the world?

It seems to me that as we age we become supportive of others—the police, the military, Planned Parenthood, the IRS and other government tax agencies, the "intelligence community"—to engage in violence by proxy (original to me; feel free to use it early and often) to achieve moral, political, and personal agendas. We all know, intuitively, that using force, violence or coercion on our fellow man is evil. Somehow, the ethics of it all is improved when we hire a proxy to do the dirty work. And there are always people willing to carry a spear for money/status/prestige—and some will do it just for the fun of it—these are the proxies. Failing to reject the violent and coercive activities of proxies is complicity in their activities.

Support the War on Drugs? Support the War for Oil? Support the confiscation of private property to pay off your favorite charity case (or worse, to pay off part of your political coalition)? These are all acts of coercion or violence by proxy. We, as individuals, would not commit these acts ourselves. Why would we support policies to have others commit these acts for us?

Well, that's a complicated question. One that doesn't really need to be answered, because we must not fund and/or support others who are willing to commit acts of violence or coercion (for rank, money, a pension, status, or whatever their motivation is) for our personal moral, political, or personal agendas. Please note that the aforementioned does not preclude using violence for self-preservation for the state or self-defense for a human being, but it does preclude killing people to keep cars on the road (oil) or to prevent them from having agency over their own body (drugs). And that requires us to think for ourselves, and stop thinking that we need to thank people who got paid every Friday for their "service." The next time someone asks you to thank some government career employee "for their service" I hope you will keep this in mind:

There are people doing far more dangerous work to keep a roof over their family's head and food on the table. No drama.  No pensions. And no "thank you for your service." It is not even close. The occupations best defined as "willing to carry deadly weapons for the government and use them on their fellow man" don't make the top 10 most dangerous occupations—but they pay A LOT MORE than the statistically most dangerous occupations.

If you are called to non-violence, to reject the use of coercion and force, then you must reject violence by proxy to achieve ALL moral, political, or personal agendas and outcomes. This is as true for private property and personal agency as it is for sex. Coercion is evil. We can't get a little bit pregnant when it comes to coercion.

Of course, rejecting coercion means the acceptance of a human nature and all of our foibles, because the definition of foible is subjective—and man is exactly what he was meant to be. The idea that some special interest political group can improve on human nature through the use of government coercion is the definition of ("the) hypocrisy (of age") and ("the) arrogance (of youth"). And of evil.