The Government protects against imagined problems by taking preemptive action which is almost always in excess of that which is reasonably requiredImagine a crop failure... It might be argued that it is reasonable to help the suffering parties by removing grain from surrounding (unaffected) farmers. This, it could be argued would be a reasonable thing for the State to do (a justifiable use of force). Ignoring the question of whether those farmers wouldn't give up their plentiful harvest voluntarily and the reason why they might be reluctant to do so... we assume for the moment that this is a reasonable action, to forcibly transfer the crop.
This would be a reactive action to crop failure. It is not preemptive. A preemptive action would be to collect all crops as a matter of course and only redistribute them according to who produced them (or by other means of measuring ownership or virtue) in the instance that there is no crop failure.
So to do this would be to assume the worst and then remove the State from the scenario only when the worst has been shown not to have happened.
It is analogous to the situation in War. How can it be argued that War is wrong? We can only argue that peace is better and therefore aim to de-escalate the problem.
If rather than taking preemptive action, we take only reactive action then this will lead to peace (and liberty)...
We seek to justify ourselves to others by arguing that our actions are pardonable, if only because a greater wrong has been perpetrated on us. If we weaken the strength of the argument that a previous wrong forgives a further wrong then the State is weakened.
If we allow and encourage the population to forgive and forget past slights and wounds we move closer to a peaceful world.
To forgive is to teach the perpetrator that perceived wrongs against them are not worthy of being upset over.
To forgive is a good example to set... Because the State is preemptive our only hope it that they grow tired and give up.
8th February 2009
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