When Will They Figure It Out?
Butler Shaffer at LewRockwell.com - best essay I've read to date on the AZ shooting.
The reality to which increasing numbers of people are becoming aware, is that politics is a violent and corrupt racket that functions on generating fears among those to be ruled. Politicians and other government officials are attracted to political careers not because they want to serve others, but because they have their own visions of what would be "good" for such others, and desire the power to enforce by violence -- which is the essence of every government -- their expectations. Such people easily find -- usually within business organizations and labor unions -- people who, unable to prosper in a free market grounded in voluntary transactions, are eager to resort to state violence. "Invisible hands" must be replaced by the "iron fist."
Every piece of legislation enacted by congress, every order issued by a court, every action undertaken by government officials -- whether at a state, local, or national level -- has behind it the power to enforce such edicts or acts by the most violent methods to which such officials deem it necessary to resort. From the cop on the corner, to SWAT teams, to men and women who torture others, to assassins, to those who conduct capital punishment, to military personnel armed with the deadliest of weapons, the state -- supported by the special interests who have no qualms about employing such methods to further their interests -- is nothing if not the institutionalization of violence.