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Too Much Freedom

It's been said that when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. For politicians, bureaucrats, and many activists, when the only tool they have is coercion, the cause of every problem looks like too much freedom.

Make no mistake: if you are committed to accomplishing your social goals by using government power, then by definition your only tool is the hammer of coercion. An observation often attributed to George Washington has it that "Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force." And when people choose to use government to accomplish their goals, they are choosing to use force, not reason and certainly not eloquence.

True to form, governments at ...

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