A reader asks:
“Why is it per se wrong to work for the government? Let’s say you’re working as a firefighter. Or a teacher (presuming you aren’t indoctrinating your students with statism, of course). Or a librarian in a public library. Or a doctor who works at a government hospital. Or someone who builds roads for the government. I could probably think up more examples, but . . I don’t see any NAP violation, at least as such, in taking any of the above jobs.”
It is very wrong, dear reader.
It’s just that most people don’t realize it – because they only see one half of the equation. The “good” – but not the bad.
This dangerous illusion must be dispelled.
The fact that a “good person” (not meant ironically) does “good work” (again, not meant ironically) with resources taken by force from an unwilling victim doesn’t negate the fact that a victim has been created. This is the essential point.Someone else has been harmed – perhaps even killed – in order to provide the alleged (or even actual) good.
At minimum, some other person – some victim – has been cowed into submission using the implied threat of physical violence.
It doesn’t get more wrong than that.
Actually, it does.
Because violence by proxy – via the flim-flam of the ballot box and by having other people do the actual dirty work on our behalf – allows us to blank out the true knowledge of what’s going on. It is very hard – for most people – to contemplate threatening to assault their next-door neighbor for almost any reason. Even if your own wife or mother desperately needed food, obtaining it by kicking in your neighbor’s door and forcibly taking it at gunpoint is something very few psychologically normal people could do without experiencing extreme pangs of moral guilt. Particularly if the their victim attempted to defend himself and it became “necessary” to actually harm – or kill – him in order to obtain their “help.”
But when people use the ballot box or other mechanisms of “democracy” to do the same thing, they feel ok about it because they are not forced to confront the reality they have victimized other human beings.
Very bad, indeed. It normalizes moral obscenity.
Moreover, a principle has been established – and a precedent set – when one accepts blood money for whatever purpose.
