Officials Are Still Persons

It was because this practice of the principle of violence was on a lesser scale than ever before attempted that accounted for the mighty surge that was America's. Here, in this country, was a greater release of free human energy than history reveals in any other instance. *The best treatise I have ever read on the function of organized force and the principles that should guide its limitation, is Frederic Bastiat's The Law (lrvington-on-Hudson, N. Y.: Foundation for Economic Education) . 13 No Aggression Personally, I am opposed to the initiation of violence in any form, by anybody, or by any agency, government or otherwise. I cannot make inspired violence square with ethical concepts. Aggressive coercion, whether socialized medicine or initiating war with Russia, is at odds with principles which seem right. How this brute force can be used and be considered moral, except to restrain violence otherwise initiated, is beyond my capacities to reason. Even the American theory of government, which has always ap pealed to me, raises two questions to which, thus far, I have been unable to find answers: 1. Can violence be instituted, regardless of how offi cial or how limited in intention, without begetting violence outside officialdom and beyond the prescribed limitation?