Last week, President Obama floated the idea of mandatory voting.
My friend Jeff Stewart summed it up neatly.
Problem: Not enough voters.
Solution: Guns
I can already see some of you rolling your eyes. “The president wasn’t suggesting shooting people who don’t vote.”
OK. Not directly. But in truth, guns lurk in the background behind every government action.
Still rolling your eyes? Think I’ve wandered far into the high grass of hyperbole? Stop and think about it. In order for the government to accomplish anything, it must compel its citizens to action. Compulsion requires coercion. Coercion ultimately requires force.
It might start with a fine. But what compels somebody to pay up? The threat of jail. And what keeps people in jails?
Guns.
You can justify the use of coercion and violence by government if you chose to. But you cannot deny it exists.
Ironically, some of the most vociferous supporters of government coercion generally condemn the use of violence. They pride themselves on peaceful activism. They would be appalled if somebody accused them of violent tendencies. Yet they don’t balk at delegating violent acts to others so they can get their way politically.
The gun control crowd perhaps counts as the most hypocritical. They don’t oppose guns. They just oppose you having guns. They are all for the government having weapons and using them to take yours away.
By all means, do your best to justify government violence and coercion. Make the moral and ethical case for it. But please stop denying it exists.
