“Salvation by Force”

 “Salvation by Force” or What Politicians Really Think of the People (You)

No believer in force truly respects his fellow-men.  He always slightly despises them, even while he serves them.  They tend to become for him mere material for carrying out his views.  His views may be honestly and sincerely held; they may be excellent in themselves; but when he uses force on their behalf he commits the capital mistake of exalting himself and his views into the first place, and of degrading his fellow-men, with an intelligence and conscience like and equal to his own, into the second place.  Thus it comes about that the user of force loses all hold on moral principles; he becomes a law, and a very defective law, to himself; and thus it comes about also that politics – which are simply the method of force – are in every country not only the battlefield of opposed fighters, but the hotbed of intrigue and corruption.

Auberon Herbert’s essays, The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State