Mark, I strongly believe in the non-aggression principle. This
means that aggression is never to be
used against peaceful, non-violent
individuals. I am curious to know what your thoughts are about that? Is
it ever OK to use violence or threat of violence against non-violent,
peaceful people?
Let's say that you and your neighbor, John live on the same block. There
are 10 houses on the block. Out of the 10 houses, You and John are the
only 2 wealthy people who live there. The other 8 are all poor. Some
have families. They are all really struggling. Out of the kindness of
your heart, you decide to give some of your money and food to those
people to help them out. But, John does not. You go over to his house to
talk to him. You want to encourage him to also give money to the poor
people on your block. But he doesn't want to. Do you think it is OK for
you to use force against John in order to get him to help out? Is it OK
for you to put a gun to his head and demand that he give money to the
poor people on your block? Is it OK for you to put a gun to his head and
take his money and then distribute it to the others? Is it OK for you
to go to the poor people's houses and take a vote to determine if John
should help out? And he John refuses, is it OK to use violence against
John?
The above is a comment to me by a certain Mr. F who strongly believes in you can see what. Mr. F apparently considers that people like me will aggressively (if the situation permits) extract wealth from the poor Johns above and he hereby asked me in his comment if his worries could be justified. I strongly believe in satisfying deep cravings, so yes, Sir, Mr. F, in the situation you had described anything is possible because, unfortunately, it is a false situation from top to bottom.
Let's first start with the perceptions. Mr. F. here describes only two groups of people: wealthy and poor. There are no others. In fact, in his description those people do not possess any other qualities. They do not have faces. They do not have lives. They are abstract categories. That tells us actually about the universe many people here live in; they divide the world in only two categories: wealthy and poor. Wealthy people have a right to make live decisions, to have a good heart or bad heart, to help others or not, to be aggressive or not, etc. Poor people have no such right. They exist on that street , but only I and John, the two wealthy folks are alive for Mr. F. I wonder if he noticed the grotesque of his own description.
Furthermore, the STREET reminds of SmallVille; nothing is beyond. There are wealthy people and poor people there as a given. How did that happen? Did I or John do business on that street? How did we somehow end as the ONLY two wealthy families there? Did we decide to live on the poor street or did the poor decide to live close to us? Do we know them? Do they know us? Did we fall on that street from the outer space, the wealthy aliens, and now one of us wants to share that wealth and another does not? Who pays for our existence, for our safety, for our power, for our water? And again, what do those poor people do? Nothing? Or maybe they just earn less then us, significantly less then us but they work, they pay taxes, they live every day in the same pursuit of happiness as us? Mr. F. does not care. He is afraid of the aggression against John. Mind you, not the poor people, he is afraid of. John can protect himself from the poor with guns and police (BTW, police people are not that wealthy either). Yes, Mr. F. knows whom he should be afraid of. He is afraid of the people who like me could question the status --quo and demand accountability; the people who also could have means to exercise that perception, the ones who have wealth and know how to use it, but also have a heart. Such people he fears. Even for a moment he does not consider that he or John or me could also be a part of the poor folk. He does not consider that there could be any unjustified aggression towards them. He does not consider that if John, for instance had decided to get rid of all of us on the street by, say, polluting the wells through fracking, that's aggression pure and simple and we have to defend ourselves. In fact, if John or Mr. F. consider that due to their wealth they can do harm to humans, the way the GOP does now or that they can pretend that everyone is for himself as soon as that does not include them, like Ron Paul preaches - that's a blatant aggression of parasitism and yes, then Mr. F should be worried a lot. Parasites are to be worried, sorry.
And now one more thing. We do not live on some street of wealthy and poor. We live under the same Sun, breath the same air and we live among the people. Today I can be wealthy and tomorrow I can be poor and to prevent the Hell on Earth I would advise to somehow make sure that I and other people could survive and still live reasonably well if the worst happens. That excludes greed and stupidity. But most of all it excludes indifference and blatant selfishness , like 'leave me alone.' What happens with those who are left alone we know all too well. Stray bullets kill them. Nobody can afford to ignore other people these days. So, John, you better take a good look at your street while you still have a chance and it is not on fire. We all should. Then maybe we should understand that our wealth only makes sense as a part of wealth of all Humanity.
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