Outcomes of State Coercion

It doesn’t take a very discerning reader to have figured out by now that one of my principal gripes about schooling in America is that we assume it must be controlled by government. This has irked me even more since the hysteria has arisen over the concern that national health care might lead this nation “into” socialism, a place where we have already been, in terms of kindergarten through twelfth grade education, for over a hundred years.

One doesn’t have to be very discerning to realize that I write from the perspective of an unashamed, Biblical Christian. A recent column by Joel McDurmon for American Vision addresses the question of whether socialism is justified in the historical practices of Israel as recorded in the Old Testament or by some of the teachings of Jesus Himself. If this kind of Biblical analysis interests you, you can read the whole article here.

I like this paragraph from near the end of McDurmon’s article:

“God kept the State out of the charity business. There’s a good reason for this. If the power of the sword ever mixed with the power to distribute bread, there would be no end to political corruption: the State would use its powers of distribution to control the people; worse, people who grew dependent upon the State’s bread would also then be dependent upon the State’s sword. Acquiring provisions would no longer be an issue of personal responsibility, but of institutionalized force. It would teach the dependent of all shapes and sizes that deriving food at gunpoint is legitimate. Thus, State socialism would be nothing short of legalized armed robbery.”

With apologies to McDurmon, consider the same paragraph, with just a few alterations:

God kept the State out of the education business. There’s a good reason for this. If the power of the sword ever mixed with the power to form minds, there would be no end to political corruption: the State would use its powers of information to control the people; worse, people who grew dependent upon the State’s thinking would also then be dependent upon the State’s sword. Acquiring knowledge would no longer be an issue of personal responsibility, but of institutionalized force. It would teach the dependent of all shapes and sizes that deriving education at gunpoint is legitimate. Thus, State schooling would be nothing short of legalized armed robbery.

I can’t imagine why this doesn’t concern more people.