What Kind of a Person Are You, Judge Yarbrough?

What kind of a person would abduct innocent people, people who lost nearly everything, from the remains of their homes, robbing them of the rest of their property? Who out there believes that if those people are "permitted" (as if they needed a permit) to return to their homes, anything of their property will be left?

Will it be the first time in recorded history that law enforcement officers succeed in protecting an abandoned neighborhood from looters? If they do, how many homes will have been bulldozed with everything in them because government agents declared them unsafe?

Even if neither of the above outrages happens, does it make any difference? Initiating the use of force is wrong per se.

Whenever one person initiates the use of force against another person, the result is disaster. Committing such a crime "to help" the victim even adds insult to injury.

Every individual values things differently. No man can make a decision for another man, much less enforce it.

As I'm writing this, 250 innocent individuals on the Bolivar Peninsula are desperately trying to save what can be saved of their treasured possessions. Instead of helping them, their government schemes to kidnap or murder them.

Now you may say the government will give those people money towards rebuilding their homes. Tax money, by the way.

Bear in mind that nobody, particularly no government, has the right to take anything by force from anyone to give it to someone else. If individuals want to donate money for rebuilding, that's fine. But there can be no right to hurt one person to help another.

Nevertheless, for the sake of the argument, let's ignore the fact that it's tax money. So the victims of the hurricane and of government aggression will get money from said government. Does that make any difference?

Imagine some dude trying to move his, well, uh, say, his stuffed lizard collection to higher ground. Now some jackbooted thugs drag him from the remains of his home "to help him," "for his own good," "because it's in his best interest," "to save him from himself." After all, it is obvious to every collectivist on earth that he should not be risking his life for his stuffed lizard collection.

The actual motives of the collectivists may vary. The worst fascists among them truly believe his life belongs to "the people," that he should not be allowed to "throw away" his life, because his labor is needed to benefit his fellow man. Less extreme collectivists may believe they have the right or even the duty "to save him from himself" if he does something they regard as insane and suicidal.

Yet the facts remain: Even if the jackbooted thugs don't murder that dude for "resisting" them, his stuffed lizard collection will have been spoiled by mold by the time he's allowed to return to his home. If it hasn't been bulldozed in the first place.

Even if the federal government were to turn over its entire multi-trillion dollar budget over to him, there's no way he could buy another stuffed lizard collection like the one he lost. Well, he has the money. But maybe he liked his stuffed lizard collection better than all the money in the world.

Maybe he loves his stuffed lizard collection so much he will risk his life to save it. Who are you to make that decision for him, you fascists?

Many, if not most, of you so-called human beings out there may believe that no man should value his property above his life. But who are you to tell anybody what to do with his life, what value to assign to what entity?

It's his property, not yours. It's his life, not yours.

How would you like it if I were to make decisions for you there in front of your computer? If your wife were trapped in rising water, and you're setting out to save her — how would you like it if I forced you at gunpoint to stay and watch her drown, because I believe you should not value your wife's life above your own?