Government Is Force Michael Moore - Road to the Middle Class

"But government is force," I said to him. He was incredulous.

Michael Moore: Why do you see it as force?

Me: Because government takes money with force from people and gives it to others.

Moore: No, it doesn’t, actually. The government is of, by, and for the people. The people elect the government, and the people determine whether or not they’ll allow the government to collect taxes from them.

It takes one to know one, and the best-selling author of Stupid White Men would know.

Or maybe he wouldn’t. In his stage persona as a slacker schlub Michael Moore unwittingly tells the story of how the progressive movement of Peace and Justice has betrayed slacker schlubs like the one he plays on TV.

Michael Moore in Roger and Me faced the awful truth about union jobs and turned away. How could General Motors CEO Roger Smith close auto plants and put good working people out of work? FDR told folk like Moore’s parents and grandfather that they and theirs had lifetime jobs at General Motors with good union wages and benefits and had nothing to fear but fear itself. How could General Motors turn around and close plants and lay off union workers and teeter on the edge of bankruptcy?

Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine faced the awful truth about government education and turned away. How could middle-class kids shoot up their wonderful public school? It must be the level of violence in the United States, or aggressive US foreign policy—or maybe sport hunters, or defense contractors, or Michigan Militia members, or maybe the stultifying conformism in Littleton, Colorado, or maybe a “climate of fear.” It couldn’t be that public education had failed.

Now Michael Moore in SiCKO faces the awful truth about government-controlled health care and turns away. After half a century of government regulation and spending in health care he is shocked to encounter horror stories of for-profit insurance companies denying coverage to sick Americans. How could this be? It’s simple. Government doesn’t regulate enough. It should take over the whole system like single payer Britain and Canada. It could not be that in the land of single-payer the government health system is worse than evil HMOs, and denies not merely coverage but actual health care with waiting lists.

No wonder that Michael Moore really doesn’t know the difference between freedom and compulsion. Whether as slacker schlub or as gifted left-wing agitator, he cannot admit that his way of building a better world is with the clunking fist of force.

At least Michael Moore is good for something. He and his lefty friends have done a fine job over the years pointing out the hypocrisies of the United States government. Noam Chomsky has pointed out that the global superpower is indeed a wielder of power, and it uses propaganda and manipulation to “manufacture” consent. Howard Zinn has written a People’s History of the United States to remind us that the United States did not experience a virgin birth and committed outrages upon everyone from native Americans to African slaves and union workers. In Bowling for Columbine Michael Moore shows us that US foreign policy has resorted to force numerous times since World War II.

What our lefty friends cannot admit is how their progressive program of Peace and Justice is from first to last a program of force and compulsion.

That is why Michael Moore maintains that when “the people elect the government” the stain of force is washed away from government action. “The people” do not do force. Only imperialists and fascists are into force.

Sorry Michael. Government is force, even genuine democratic government. Everything government does involves compulsion.

When Democrats set up a government pension plan and force everyone to contribute, that is force, even though it achieves a noble aim of assisting people in their old age.

When Democrats set up a government health care program for seniors and force the workers to support it, that is force, even though it achieves a noble aim of relieving seniors of most health care costs in their old age.

When Democrats stand in the schooolhouse door at the bidding of government school workers and block all reform of a failing government school system, that is force.

And the question every Democrat must be forced to answer is: Why? Why is your vision for America always about force?

Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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Faith & Purpose

“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990

Mutual Aid

In 1911... at least nine million of the 12 million covered by national insurance were already members of voluntary sick pay schemes. A similar proportion were also eligible for medical care.
Green, Reinventing Civil Society

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

Living Under Law

Law being too tenuous to rely upon in [Ulster and the Scottish borderlands], people developed patterns of settling differences by personal fighting and family feuds.
Thomas Sowell, Conquests and Cultures

German Philosophy

The primary thing to keep in mind about German and Russian thought since 1800 is that it takes for granted that the Cartesian, Lockean or Humean scientific and philosophical conception of man and nature... has been shown by indisputable evidence to be inadequate.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West

Knowledge

Inquiry does not start unless there is a problem... It is the problem and its characteristics revealed by analysis which guides one first to the relevant facts and then, once the relevant facts are known, to the relevant hypotheses.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Logic of the Sciences and the Humanities

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches… they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Living Law

The recognition and integration of extralegal property rights [in the Homestead Act] was a key element in the United States becoming the most important market economy and producer of capital in the world.
Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital

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