The fact that political disagreements can “get ugly” is a feature of politics, not a bug. If politics, the authorized use of violence in society, stuck to protecting everyone’s property rights equally, there’d be no cause for disagreements to get ugly. Everyone already agrees that theft, assault, rape, kidnapping, murder, et cetera, are wrong and should be dealt with using violence, if necessary. But politics moved far beyond this “proper role” a long time ago. Politics is now concerned with what privileges, economic protections, and entitlements people should have at the expense of others. Everything about politics today pits neighbor against neighbor and class against class. How can it not when political systems around the world are organized around the practice that one size must fit all, or else? The solution to keeping political disagreements from getting ugly is to prevent political disagreements in the first place. The way to do that should be obvious. And that’s today’s two cents.
On Politics II
