There is a difference between society and government

When I see people arguing about what they think the government should do, I often see them talking about how “society should do x”. In this post, I’d like to just point out that society is not the same as government. I often see people saying stuff like “WE should help the poor”, but then go and propose more government taxes on everybody else.

This is not really any different to somebody saying ”I want to have a drink”, but then going and robbing the corner store. Nobody is going to dispute the fact that you want a drink, but they are going to dispute the fact that you are now allowed to go and steal a drink.  Likewise, the fact that you claim to care about the plight of the poor does not justify your subsequent theft of other people’s money.

My main opposition to socialised programs is the use of force. I think that if we want to help people, we should be doing this for the right reasons. We should help other people because we want to, not because we’ll get shot if we don’t. Call me weird, but I think there can be such a thing as a society that doesn’t have a government.