{"id":38389,"date":"2026-01-27T19:51:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T01:51:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=38389"},"modified":"2026-01-27T19:51:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T01:51:21","slug":"unless-you-oppose-all-coercion-resistance-claim-rings-hollow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=38389","title":{"rendered":"Unless you oppose all coercion, \u2018resistance\u2019 claim rings hollow"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m appalled at pictures of protesters lately holding up signs proclaiming that they\u2019re part of a \u201cResistance\u201d movement. These left-wing progressives are sincere in opposing Trump\u2019s version of government oppression, but they want their own version of oppression as a replacement.<\/p>\n

If you resist oppression by one jackbooted thug \u2014 but not oppression by another \u2014 you\u2019re just a partisan political hack, not someone standing for genuine freedom. I can\u2019t take your \u201cresistance\u201d seriously unless you oppose oppression from all sides and stand for the natural rights of every individual to make his or her own voluntary choices \u2014 whether you agree with that person or not.<\/p>\n

For centuries, hardly anybody questioned the notion that everyone had a duty to obey whatever king or other thug had seized control of a territory. That was accepted as obvious, even though it seems ludicrous to us now.<\/p>\n

Today, hardly anybody questions the idea that all individuals must rightly obey the will of a majority of people around them. If you ever look honestly at the moral reasoning behind this idea, you will find it\u2019s no more reasonable or moral than forcing people to obey a king.<\/p>\n

If you truly want to resist government \u2014 which is simply organized oppression \u2014 you need to do it all the time, not just when you\u2019re angry about losing an election and having \u201cthe other side\u201d ruling over you. If you really want to resist government coercion, those of us who support a voluntary system will welcome you.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not what you want. You like coercion \u2014 when your team is in charge and it\u2019s other people being forced to obey.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the most dangerous common delusion that most people hold:<\/p>\n

\u201cI know how everything and everyone ought to be \u2014 and anybody who doesn\u2019t agree with me is stupid or evil, so he should be forced to obey my side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Few people are honest enough or clear enough in their thinking to be that blunt, but that is the essence of their attitudes.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t bother to debate socialism anymore for the same reason I don\u2019t debate whether fascism and theocracy are good political systems. Socialism cannot exist unless you force people to comply with your preferences for their lives. If you favor any such coercion over people who prefer to peacefully live their lives in their own ways \u2014 whether your coercion is in the name of socialism or nationalism or religion or democracy or anything else \u2014 your idea is evil, no matter what you call it.<\/p>\n

You have no right to impose your system on me or anyone else. I don\u2019t care what you call it. I don\u2019t care that you supposedly have good intentions. I don\u2019t care if you think you\u2019re smarter or wiser or more moral than the rest of us. Forcing others to obey your will for their lives is evil, no matter what you call it.<\/p>\n

People commonly imagine they could fix the ills of the world if they merely had the power to force others to obey. This is despite the ample evidence that top-down solutions rarely (if ever) work better than the solutions which emerge from individuals working voluntarily in the framework of their natural rights \u2014 their freedom of choice and property rights.<\/p>\n

The delusion that your brilliant solution could stop a societal problem through force is so common that almost nobody questions it. That\u2019s why majorities seize the power to force their will on everybody else and few question whether it\u2019s moral or pragmatic. True Believers never notice the unintended consequences of their coercion and they always think bad side effects can be cured by more coercion.<\/p>\n

Never do they step back and say, \u201cWe should have left people alone to decide for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only people who scare me as badly as Trump are the anti-Trump people who take Trump\u2019s buffoonery and evil as validation of their own desires to force everyone to obey their political whims. Anti-Trump coercion is just as evil as Trump coercion is. The moral path is rejecting coercion and embracing voluntary choice and freedom.<\/p>\n

Political power is necessary only if you intend to force people to obey you against their will. No force or coercion is necessary for free people to make voluntary agreements among themselves about how to live \u2014 and to leave each other alone. Political power in the name of individual liberty is a contradiction in terms.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump is a political cancer, but fighting him by embracing a different form of political coercion is like saying, \u201cI don\u2019t want cancer, but heart failure would be fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n

A more polite and socially sophisticated form of coercion is just a different form of evil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m appalled at pictures of protesters lately holding up signs proclaiming that they\u2019re part of a \u201cResistance\u201d movement. These left-wing progressives are sincere in opposing Trump\u2019s version of government oppression, but they want their own version of oppression as a replacement. If you resist oppression by one jackbooted thug \u2014 but not oppression by another Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-38389","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-9Zb","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38389"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38395,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38389\/revisions\/38395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}