Growing up in Northeast Ohio roughly 20 years after the Kent State Massacre, I was always confused about exactly why this event happened. We were taught the facts in
school, but there was never any commentary given on the subject. What a huge missed opportunity to place the seeds of freedom and limited government in the minds of young people! Why not explain to children that government is meant to protect all citizens, and we always need to be aware of when governments become to overpowering and intrusive. Unfortunately, it honestly feels like this type of event could happen again at any moment, and sadly it very likely will sooner rather than later. ~ Ron Paul U.S.A.
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Today is the anniversary of the Kent State shootings by the Ohio National Guard. The shootings should serve as a reminder to us all of what underlies all political processes: violence. The political process should more aptly be named the process of violent imposition, because any edict, no matter how small or inconsequential, is ultimately enforced with the threat of death.
Take these examples: If you receive a parking ticket, and you feel it is unjust so you refuse to pay it, eventually a bench warrant will be issued for your arrest. Similarly, if you refuse to fight a foreign war of aggression against your consent through the imposition of a draft, an arrest warrant will be issued. In both cases, should you resist arrest, the arresting officer will escalate his use of force, even up to the point of killing you.
Every law carries the ultimate threat of death for continued disobedience. Resistance to the state is always met with violent force, and any escalation of resistance may be met with lethal force. All projects, laws, and bureaucracies created by the state are funded through the threat of violent force.
The Kent State shootings, in which no National Guardsmen were charged with any wrong doing after killing several unarmed girls and boys that were hundreds of feet away from them, is a symptom of a disease called the state. Because violence underlies everything the state does, it is impossible to "fix" the state to become some kind of benevolent force for good. As Milton Friedman used to say, the badness of means will ultimately corrupt the goodness of intentions. It is simply not possible to do "good" without doing equal "bad" as far as the political process is concerned.
Even now, you do not have a choice about paying for Predator drones that fly around killing innocent women and children. Should you refuse to pay for this, you will be thrown into a cage and society will demonize you. After being released from prison, you'll have a difficult time finding work and voting, and you won't be able to defend yourself with a gun.
Yet, so many still believe in the process. So many have been brainwashed to ignore the horrors of what the process creates because they continue to buy into the delusion that violence can be used for the greater good if only the "right" people are put into positions of power, if only the "right" laws are passed.
The present condition of society will deteriorate into chaos as the monetary system implodes and the state attempts to maintain its power. You should not fear this, for it is
a process that is natural and necessary for the evolution of humanity. Nature inherently forces man to confront his mistakes and provides him the opportunity to get it right. Getting it "right" involves love and compassion, rejecting the use of force to organize society and forming voluntary interactions that force us to serve one another at all times. Getting it "right" means compassion for all people, including tax evaders, tax collectors, heroin addicts, heroin dealers, and everyone else in society.
The creation of the state will always end in the collapse of a given society. This process of collapse may take years, decades, or even centuries, but all states always succumb to the bad means upon which they were founded. Arguing that this is not so does not change the reality of what is.
We can learn from our past mistakes and reject the use of violence to organize our society, or we can continue down the same path humanity has been on since man first became self-aware.
Source: POLICYMIC
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