If you believe the state is harmful rather than benevolent; if you believe that the state threatens individual rights and property rights, rather than protects them; if you believe that the state decreases our chances for peace and prosperity; if you believe, in sum, that the state is an overwhelming force for ill in our society, a force that makes all of us far worse off, why in the world is it unrealistic to work toward its elimination?

Notice that the charge of being unrealistic, impractical, or overly idealistic is never applied to medicine or crime prevention. Nobody says to the cancer researcher, "you should be more realistic, cancer and infectious disease will always exist. Why not just work on making the common cold a bit less severe?" Nobody says to the criminal investigator, "gee, organized crime and violence are just part of human nature, it's useless to try to prevent them. Maybe you should just focus on reducing bike thefts."

So why should we be apologetic or timid or less than fully optimistic in our fight against the state? We should not. Like the cancer researcher, like the crime fighter, we should be bold, we should be optimistic, and we should be vigorous in our opposition to government.

Jeff Deist