September 2, 2012 It is important to remember that an organization of people has no authority beyond that which the individual people have. It is simply intended to be more effective in exercising that authority. Government is different from most other organizations because it acts by force. Government decrees always carry the threat of violence: "If you do this, you will be punished" or "If you don't do that, you will be punished." A way then to determine appropriate government action is The Neighbor Test*. A good neighbor will only use force against you when it is appropriate. A bad neighbor will use force against you whenever he feels it is more convenient than his other options. Applying this test to various situations can help us clarify where government should be involved, where it shouldn't be involved, and where serious discussion is needed regarding how government should act. Two common justifications for government force are the "preemptive strike" and the "inanimate person". The preemptive strike assumes your neighbor is going to do something bad. Suppose you imagine that your neighbor is going to poison you with a plate of cookies. What are your options? You could: 1. Poison him first 2. Monitor all his purchases and spy on him in his kitchen 3. Steal money from his bank account to purchase life insurance 4. Force him to always have third party certification of his cookie making process 5. Require him to have third party verification of the safety of any cookies he gives to you 6. Have all cookies he gives to you tested 7. Don't eat any cookies he gives to you 8. Let it generally be known that if you die under mysterious circumstances, a large organization will investigate and pursue justice. If I were your cookie-making neighbor, and you tried 1, 2, 3, or 4, I'd consider each one a criminal act. If you tried 5, I wouldn't bring you any cookies. If you tried 6 or 7, I'd chuckle the first time or two and then stop trying to be nice. If you tried 8, I'd recognize the general theory of government effectiveness and treat you like anyone else. Unfortunately, our government spends most of its resources on various schemes for 1 though 7 and not enough time on 8. So, the "preemptive strike" theory assumes you will do bad things to other people and must be monitored and controlled at every step. At the same time, the "inanimate person" theory assumes you won't do anything good unless you are forced to; so you should be forced to do good things "for the greater good". How would you explain public education to your neighbor? "Jim, educated kids make better adults, so here's the plan: I'm going to make you give me some money. I'll use that money to hire someone to decide how much money I should take from you to educate kids. Then I'll take that money from you and start educating kids. I'll give you a little input as to what a good education means, but not much. Even if you don't have kids, I'll still take your money because good people help others, so I'll make sure you're a good person. Besides, it's in your own best interest to live in a well-educated community. If you want to buy a different education for your kids, go ahead, I'll still take your money to educate other kids how I think they should be educated." How might a good neighbor promote education? Maybe advertise which private schools reserve a few seats for needy children? Ask for donations of books for the uneducated? Participate in the annual drive to support the free schools for underprivileged students? Personally sponsor the education of a child? These are just two examples of how bureaucrats and politicians pretend to be parents of endless masses of children. They feel they must constantly monitor us and guard us from bad behavior and force us to do things for our own good. When an adult dictates the actions of other adults and takes the fruits of their labors for his own purposes, it has a name: slavery. The path we have come down over the past century has been a gradual return to slavery. There will always be people who want to control others. How long will we support them? The following are examples of choices we can no longer make in the country. Someone else has taken that right from us. Do we continue to accept the role of slave to our master government, or do we refuse to elect those who will perpetuate this system? Legal tender laws: We cannot choose what to accept in exchange for our labor. We must accept a fiat currency that can be devalued at any time. Employment laws: We cannot decide on our own terms as either employees or employers. The relationship is largely defined for us by law. Licensing laws: We cannot choose the people who will provide services to us. They must first be vetted by a third party. Consumption laws: We cannot decide what we will eat or drink unless it falls within government guidelines. Vice laws: If a person chooses to indulge in certain vices, he is forbidden whether his actions are harmful to anyone else or not. Or he must pay a third party extra fees for the privilege. Charity laws: Minimum charitable contributions are mandated by law with no decisions about who it helps. If you want to decide, you can certainly contribute more if you still have anything left. Education laws: Your money will be taken to fund a certain type of education. You can always pay more if you want to do something different. Retirement laws: How you plan for retirement is mandated and manipulated by law. Healthcare laws: Old age and now any age prepaid healthcare is mandated regardless of need or opinions. Library laws: You will pay for libraries no matter who actually uses them or what alternatives are available. Parks and recreation laws: You may not have time to enjoy them, but someone else will while you work to pay for them. Police funding: Certain "protection" services must be paid for regardless of personal habits or need. Fire funding: Everyone must pay for other people's mistakes, carelessness, and accidents despite their own carefulness. Building laws: either you can afford to build it the way everyone else does, or you don't build. Laws, laws, laws: Every year brings new laws, so that no one can actually know all the laws and by some estimates the average American commits 3 felonies per day. In addition to unjust laws punishing the innocent, actual crimes are protected: Parents, who otherwise would be surrounded by thousands of laws enforcing parental responsibilities, are legally supported in eliminating a child they created simply because it's in an early stage of development. In addition, they frequently force others to pay for the procedure. Unscrupulous businessmen can injure customers and employees through gross negligence and hide behind a government sponsored corporate veil. The company pays fines out of their profits or simply folds while the guilty parties move on to other adventures. Many of these problems have been part of our lives for so long that a rapid shift to justice would be devastating and the solution might be worse than the problem. Or we might inadvertently replace old injustices with new ones. However, the point is that we've come a long way down the wrong road. We've seen where the road of government control leads. Sometimes it's economic collapse, sometimes foreign invasion, and sometimes civil war. We do not need any of those, so let's put on the brakes, turn around, and rediscover liberty!

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