I watched this morning the Mark Steyn interview April blogged about and there was an aspect of it that really bothered me. The basic item is that people don’t realize that all state action is inherently violent. When chatting with my friend Christopher this afternoon it really became clear to me.
Here we have three complainants objecting to Mark Steyn’s claim that Muslims want to “violently” impose Sharia law upon the west. “We want no such thing!” they objected. “Once we are in the majority we will just vote to impose sharia law, and not one drop of blood needs to hit the ground! It is non-violent!” (That’s not an exact quote, but it’s basically what they said.)
That is simply false. Everything the government does, when it taxes people, when it tells you that you can’t jaywalk, is inherently violent. Even if no actual violence takes place when you write your check to the treasury, it is an inherently violent act because you are writing that check because of the implicit threat of violence — you will go to jail if you don’t pay, and if you refuse to go to jail, they will kill you. Now that isn’t to say that all government action is illegitimate. It may well be appropriate for the government to use the threat of violence in order to prevent jaywalking, or to collect taxes, but don’t be fooled into thinking that the act of enforcing the law is somehow a non-violent act, just because no actual violence takes place.
If the sharia-loving Muslims end up gaining a majority population in Western countries and vote to impose sharia law upon everyone, then perhaps no one will be killed getting to that point. But the simple fact that a majority is imposing their religion upon a minority through the power of the state is an inherently violent act. This must not be denied.
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