Let us imagine that you and I are neighbors. You live in the house next door to mine. At your house you are growing some plants that I find really ugly but which you find pleasant and enjoyable.
However, I am not satisfied with merely being able to grow plants that I find pleasant and enjoyable in my own yard. What should I do to take care of my problem? Oh, who gives a damn what you think? I know what I’ll do!
I will come over to your house and demand that you clear the plants I find objectionable from your property. If you do not, I tell you, I will come into your yard myself, cut down the plants and spread a toxic chemical poison where they were to make sure they don’t grow back. And I’m going to charge you $200/hour for my trouble.
Are you going to get to work yourself removing your plants? No? Then do you have your checkbook at the ready to pay me the money I am trying to extort from you? No? Fine, if you do not pay up within thirty days, I will come and steal the money from you.
Am I a good neighbor? A decent person at all? Flying Fucking Spaghetti Monster, I hope that everyone reading this still believes that kind of behavior is unneighborly and utterly indecent. We are in a terrible time in this world if anyone thinks that is an appropriate way to treat his or her fellow human beings.
Oh, wait. We are in that terrible time. It’s just that when people are too cowardly to do the obviously indecent with their own hands, they ask the worst “neighbor” of all- government- to do it so that they can go on feeling good about themselves. Government isn’t really a neighbor- it’s a bully neighbors can call on to put the smackdown on their fellow neighbors when they are too lazy or cowardly or intolerant to go face to face to discuss issues important to them, negotiate mutually acceptable solutions, or HORRORS! possibly not always get their way.
I love this short story by Warren Bluhm: Wildflower Man. That link will take you to an .mp3 file in which Warren reads his story. It is a little sadder today for me seeing that it is not only not confined to the realm of fiction, but it is taking place less than an hour away from me. This is why I have chosen to avoid the big cities even here in Montana.
Voting, making something law, sending the government to do the dirty work- none of that can magically make decent the blatantly indecent.
