A Proper Response

The other day someone sent around an e-mail suggesting that violence could solve many of today’s massive social and economic problems.  From a certain perspective, that is correct.  The idea that “violence never solved anything” is, frankly, just plain wrong.  Violence solves a lot of problems.  It just usually leaves you with much bigger problems than you started with.

Dan'l Webstah

We think a better solution to solving today’s massive social problems is first to secure to every citizen the economic power that underpins and supports political power.  As Daniel Webster observed during the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1820, “Power naturally and necessarily follows property.”

Once ordinary, everyday people have been economically empowered, the political power and social power necessary to engage in acts of social justice will follow, and the system can be restructured in a manner consistent with the demands of human dignity.  And by “people” we do not mean the collective, the State, the community, or however else someone disguises collectivism, but every individual child, woman, and man.

It is critical to keep in mind that we cannot do wrong in order to do right.  You cannot empower some people at the expense of others, or by attacking or abolishing the institutions of the common good such as life, liberty, or property.

Pius Ex Eye

The end does not justify the means, nor is it in any way moral to sacrifice the life, liberty, property, or reputation of a single innocent person to gain even the greatest good.  The common good, that vast network of institutions within which people work to become more fully human, is not something to be manipulated in furtherance of personal or individual interests.  As Pius XI pointed out, “[T]he common good of all society will be kept inviolate. By this law of social justice, one class is forbidden to exclude the other from sharing in the benefits.” (Quadragesimo Anno, § 57.)

We cannot be like Caiaphas and decide that it is expedient that a single man should suffer so that the nation (i.e., our personal interests) should not perish.  Our presumption must be that someone is innocent until and unless proven guilty.  Not suspected, not suggested, not anything except actual, verifiable, and tangible proof of wrongdoing that is contrary to human law.

Better that one man suffer than I not get my way.

Unless we KNOW someone is guilty, and can PROVE it in a court of law, then we cannot convict him or punish him in any way.  This is why something like calumny is a mortal sin that “cries to heaven for vengeance” and demands reparation.  It is also, ironically, the most difficult for which to make reparation.  Once we have destroyed another’s reputation — and accusing someone of crimes or sins we cannot prove is damage — we can never call it back or undo it.

We may dislike someone or some group intensely, and firmly believe that everyone in that group should be killed or have his or her liberty, property, or reputation taken away, but without proof that a law has been broken, and that a particular individual is personally guilty of a specific crime, we are worse than that person could ever be if we go after him or condemn him unheard or without evidence.  By trying to enforce our personal opinion as to what constitutes God’s Will, we have put ourselves in the place of God.  But we are not God.  Human law is our concern, not divine law.

Hobbes's "Mortall God": The State

That being the case, it would be much better to suggest to people that they set aside their hates and even their preconceptions, and investigate a practicable proposal that has the potential to empower every single human being with capital ownership, and thus the power to resist the growing intrusion of the State into every aspect of civil, domestic, and even religious life.  This is outlined in the foreword to the Just Third Way Edition of Fulton J. Sheen’s Freedom Under God, and presented in detail in Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen.

In our opinion, it would be better to recommend that people investigate the claims of the Just Third Way objectively and read these books, than to advocate violence or incite to violence — and spreading hate about “the politicians,” “the banksters,” “the Jews,” “the rich,” “the neo-cons,” or any other of today’s popular whipping boys, does nothing except inspire people to violence and make it more difficult to discern a feasible political and economic solution when it does come along.

To demonstrate your support your rejection of violence in thought and word as well as deed as an acceptable or viable alternative to acts of social justice, consider showing up at the annual Rally at the Fed in Washington, DC, on Friday, April 11, 2014.

#30#