If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
To say that we mutually agree to coercion is not to say that we are required to enjoy it, or even to pretend we enjoy it.
The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected.
The legitimacy of coercive acts in a democracy arises from the process by which they are justified and by the degree to which we regard decisions as rational. If the justifications proceed properly, through recognized public institutions, and if they make sense to us, they are legitimate.
Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.
Law is any application for the official use of coercion that succeeds.
Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge.
The majority is not society, is not everyone. Majority coercion over the minority is still coercion.
Because politics rests on an irreducible measure of coercion, it can never become a perfect realm of perfect love and justice.
Coercion may prevent many transgressions; but it robs even actions which are legal of a part of their beauty. Freedom may lead to many transgressions, but it lends even to vices a less ignoble form.
Coercion, after all, merely captures man. Freedom captivates him.