“Food for Thought” is an original column appearing sporadically, by Norman Imberman.
If everyone preached and actually lived by the Golden Rule they would realize that political action produces victims, which is antithetical to the Golden Rule. People of faith should understand this better than most. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you AND do not do unto to others as you would not want them to do unto you. Those are words to live by. In effect they are saying, try to make all of your solutions Win-Win solutions. Stop and consider if someone will find himself in a Win-Lose situation by your approval, and if so, do NOT sanction it.
All political voters in effect give tacit permission to the politicians to hire gunmen (police, FBI, CIA, HLS) to visit harm upon their fellow man, through the use of force or the threat of the use of force. Each voter believes that he/she can be excused from such immoral behavior by thinking of it as “good coercion”, although some folks never acknowledge it as coercion at all because “it’s in the Constitution” and how can that document be wrong? Good coercion is an oxymoron. (Self-defense is not coercion).
When people are taxed (robbed) they are in a win-lose situation of harm. When people lose their homes to eminent domain (robbery) it’s a win-lose situation of harm. When men are drafted (kidnapping) it’s a win-lose situation of harm. When a woman prefers to terminate a pregnancy and the State prevents it or harms her and her surgeon who performs it, that too is coercion and a win-lose situation of harm. When businesses are told what they can and cannot charge for their services or products (coercion) it’s a win-lose situation of harm. When workers cannot bargain for wages that they are willing to accept (coercion) it’s a win-lose situation of harm. When people want to open a business but must pay a fee to the State or else they will be prevented from opening that business (coercion) it’s a win-lose situation of harm. When doctors must accept fees mandated by the State (coercion) it’s a win-lose situation of harm. (I suppose freedom of choice remains in effect only if it’s the “right” choice).
Most of the suffering in our country is the natural consequence of making a mockery of the Golden Rule. Almost everyone pays lip service to the Rule but hardly any live by it. The major crime of political voting is antithetical to the Golden Rule. How in all good conscience can a person condemn the activities of the Mafia and other hoodlums when they coerce “protection money” from businesses but condone the same activity when it’s performed by the State? How can a criminal activity suddenly and magically be transformed into a humanitarian act by the sweep of the pen of the legislators? That’s a rhetorical question since their standard answer is — “because it’s in the Constitution or it’s for the common good.” The common good is an abstraction. It doesn’t exist. There are only individual goods.
Another major cause of the present tragic situation in which we find ourselves is the devastating condition of the halls of education, which in reality are halls of indoctrination and mis-education. Our universities are actually halls of occupied territory. Most interviewed members of the millennium class believe that George W. Bush was responsible for more deaths than Lenin or Stalin. Only an indoctrinated mind can come up with such a belief.
Whenever I bring up this subject I receive vociferous responses that vilify me, which is what can be expected from those who were indoctrinated. They become defensive. But, once in awhile someone will take a step back and think about what I am pointing out and realize that they are guilty of accepting their mis-education and indoctrination as the “truth”, and which starts them on a path of thinking for themselves. That’s what I call intellectual honesty. It happened to me. I was a product of the public school and university indoctrination system. At age 31 someone said the same things to me as I am repeating here, which led me on a road less traveled, and which turned out to be an extremely exciting and illuminating path. Don’t get your backs up upon reading this. Instead, give it some thought and then take a risk and read more about the subject of voluntaryism on the internet, especially Everything-Voluntary.com. You may like where it brings you.
The following books are also of great value in understanding the destructiveness of any State: The Law by Frederic Bastiat, Restoring the American Dream by Robert Ringer, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, Taming the Violence of Faith, subtitled, Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis by Jay Snelson.
