Ammon Bundy associate LaVoy Finicum was gunned down after emerging from his car with his hands raised. From the video it appears to be another case of trigger-happy Federal agents eager to kill. It’s tragic that it ended in even one death, but when you take up arms against the State, this outcome should be expected.
I don’t want to analyze the details of the Bundy rebellion, I want to make a point, which is this: government loves when it’s critics pick up weapons against it. The State thrives when its enemies put down logic, reason, and persuasion, and instead pick up a gun. Violence is not the answer to restoring liberty; passionate persuasion is. Peaceful, passionate, relentless persuasion on behalf of liberty is what the State fears most of all. The case against the oppression the political class inflicts on the citizenry is airtight, it does not need violence to back it up. On the contrary, resorting to a feeble show of force increases the credibility of the State.
The State is always looking for the excuse to extinguish the lives of its critics. If you pick up a gun and threaten violence against it, you’ve given them exactly what they were looking for: the excuse to murder you. Just like an out-of-control cop who is looking for any reason to beat you into submission, so the State looks for any reason to destroy your life. Don’t give them that reason.
The political class fears a peaceful, articulate, organized, unstoppable movement for greater liberty, not a ragtag group of armed men who storm a deserted wildlife refuge.
