Whether or not the famous aphorism “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence – it is force” has been correctly attributed to George Washington, it may be a good thing to keep in mind, in the aftermath of the charges and countercharges about incivility in political discourse. Virtually everything the government does requires the use or threat of force. The point is, in activities other than defense and civil/criminal justice, government initiates force. In 1794, many citizens of western Pennsylvania and elsewhere in Appalachia established small distilleries to make liquor from their grain so the enhanced value of their labor could be shipped to the East, since shipping the grain was uneconomical. The distillers defied the whiskey tax and some of them terrorized the tax collectors, so action was required. President Washington personally led an army, comprising more soldiers than he had led into any battle of the Revolution, to Pittsburgh in order to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion and resume collection of federal taxes on the whiskey trade. Washington’s action has been credited with solidifying the authority of the federal government, and there can be no doubt that was its effect, whatever one’s opinion about the permissible limits of federal government authority.[1] The Whiskey Rebellion and its suppression provide an object lesson for any government program. Recalcitrant citizens who do not want to participate in Obamacare must be forced to do so, just as people who do not like Social Security have been forced to participate.
Those who think that compromise with a proposal for a government program is the obvious solution need to step back and realize that a lower tax is still a tax, and a lower subsidy still requires taking money by force, or the threat of force, from someone to give to someone else. From this perspective, it appears the voices of reason and eloquence are the ones who will leave the people at peace. Those who would impose their will on others are the voices of force. The initiation of force is not compatible with reason and eloquence.
[1] Some whiskey rebels were taken to Philadelphia for trial; some disappeared into the frontier; others secured amnesty by signing an oath: “I do solemnly promise, henceforth to submit to the laws of the United States, that I will not directly or indirectly oppose the execution of the Acts for raising a Revenue on Distilled Spirits and Stills, and that I will support as far as the laws require the civil authority in affording the protection due to all officers and citizens – September 11, 1794.” Some signed only after striking out “henceforth” or “solemnly.” We could wonder whether “indirect” opposition to the tax would include simply speaking against it. Plausibly, the drafters of the oath proposed to distinguish between allowable opposition to the Act itself and the forsworn opposition to its “execution.”
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