Don’t endow the state with moral authority
Updated: Jul 6, 2022
It is one thing to say that you are pro-life or pro-choice. It is another to say that the state should legalize or illegalize abortion.
It is one thing to suggest that we should help the poor financially. It is another to suggest the state does it for us.
It is one thing not to discriminate against people on stupid grounds. It is another to suggest that the state morally polices everyone and punishes those it deems discriminatory.
It is one thing to want educational access for everyone. It is another to get the state to jump into education.
People are welcome to have their stances and opinions. They are welcome to act according to their opinions. They can help the poor financially or pay their employees a higher wage if this is what they want. However, they shouldn’t force others to do the same. The moment you try to enforce your morality via the hand of the state, you endow the state with moral authority. You put the state on a pedestal. And this is almost irreversible. Once the state occupies the moral high ground, it never relinquishes it. This is the beginning of a statist civilization. Most countries on Earth today are deeply statist. They look to the state for the matters of right and wrong.
I have my inclinations and stances, but I would never want the state to enforce my stances. Let’s say, for example, I incline towards the pro-life stance, but I won’t want the state to actively seek out women who aborted their babies and imprison them, for this would grant them moral authority. Moral authority is like an addictive drug. Once a man gets it, it fills him with so much pride that he becomes blind to his shortcomings. It rots him to the core. Moral highness is a shortcut to soul sickness.
If we want to bring people to reason and conscience, we must do so via reason and conscience, not via force. We must be more reasonable, talk more reasonably, and awaken the voice of conscience in our fellow beings. Only a tyrant hopes to bring people in line by force. And we mustn’t feed the tyrant within us by getting the state to enforce our opinions/ideas or we would manifest a tyrant outside us.
Don’t endow the state with moral authority.
