[Libertarian] The Gun in the Room
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
The Gun in the Room
by Stefan Molyneux
“Put down the gun, then we’ll talk.”
One of the most difficult – and essential – challenges faced by libertarians is
the constant need to point out “the gun in the room.” In political debates, it
can be very hard to cut through the endless windy abstractions that are used to
cover up the basic fact that the government uses guns to force people to do
what they do not want to do, or prevent them from doing what they do want to
do. Listening to non-libertarians, I often wish I had a “euphemism umbrella” to
ward off the continual oily drizzle of words and phrases designed to obscure
the simple reality of state violence. We hear nonstop nonsense about the
“social good,” the “redistribution of income,” the “education of children” and
so on – endless attempts to bury the naked barrel of the state in a mountain of
syrupy metaphors.
It is a wearying but essential task to keep reminding people that the state is
nothing but an agency of violence. When someone talks about “the welfare state
helping the poor,” we must point out the gun in the room. When someone opposes
the decriminalization of marijuana, we must point out the gun in the room. When
someone supports the reduction of taxes, we must point out the gun in the room
- even if one bullet has been taken out.
So much political language is designed to obscure the simple reality of state
violence that libertarianism sometimes has to sound like a broken record. We
must, however, continue to peel back the euphemisms to reveal the
socially-sanctioned brutality at the root of some of our most embedded social
institutions.
I was recently involved in a debate with a woman about public schools.
Naturally, she came up with reason after reason as to why public schools were
beneficial, how wonderful they were for underprivileged children, how essential
they were for social stability etc etc. Each of these points – and many more -
could have consumed hour upon hour of back and forth, and would have required
extensive research and complicated philosophical reasoning. But there was
really no need for any of that – all I had to do was keep saying:
“The issue is not whether public schools are good or bad, but rather whether I
am allowed to disagree with you without getting shot.”
