A large percentage of the citizenry is feeling puzzled and devastated by the election and what has happened since. All those who view the War in Iraq as unconscionable aggression are now watching as it not only continues but escalates to even a greater level of horror, fueled by what seems to be a mandate from the American people. The gay community is in shock at the declaration by voters of 11 states that marriage will be defined only as union between a man and a woman. Democrats in general cannot believe that their desires may have been swamped by a conservative religious doctrine.

I dare say that it's probably difficult to find many people who are pleased with the election results. The whole body of conservatives (in the traditional sense) who voted for Bush because they hate socialism are now waiting to see whether Bush will do more that pleases them or more that they dislike.

The point I want to make to those who feel defeated by the election results is this: when you seek to gain by the use of force, don't be shocked when others turn it around on you. When you look to government and seek the enforcement of your preferences on others, you invite others to respond forcefully in return. When you urge government to implement your "programs", you're granting the use of force against those who don't agree with you. That attitude is now coming back to haunt you.

I've said it before and I'll say it again now when it should be even more obvious: Democrats, liberals, progressives, socialists, (however you identify yourself)... have, more than any other body of citizens, sought constantly to increase the power of our government in order to force your will on others. You self-righteously demanded that your social programs be implemented through government, by force, funded by money stolen from all of us, whether we agreed with those programs of not. In so doing, you granted to government the power, and the ever-increasing funding, to do with us what it would.

Now you are faced with the disgusting spectacle of seeing that power turned back against you because your "opponents" may now be in control. You sought to exercise forceful "mob rule" when you were in the majority, but now a different mob is in charge. You eagerly pushed power into the hands of government, blanking out the truth that you were effectively pushing all of us into forceful bondage. By believing that force is moral if the cause is good, you've laid the basis for the use of force for causes that others believe are good. Just as you forced others to support what you thought was good, they will now force you to support what they think is good. Should they care any more for your beliefs than you cared for theirs? Should they care that you object to being forced to support what you believe is immoral any more than you cared about forcing them to support what they believed to be immoral?

Gay rights are a particularly good example. Gays have every right to form any sort of union they want as long as they harm nobody else. The underlying problem is that "marriage" was ever given ANY special privileges under the law. It is an issue that never should have involved government in any way. Gay couples want the same rights as heterosexual couples, and that's completely justified, but the solution is not to ask government to grant special, equal rights to gay couples, but to ELIMINATE the special rights that heterosexual couples receive. Libertarians have said this for 30 years, but most of the gay community bowed to the "liberal approach" of demanding that gays be granted equally unfair rights. Gays fell into demanding a forceful political solution to their inequality. Lured in by Democrats eager to have their votes, they sought to force all others to accept, and pay for, the same special rights that were wrong in the first place. The use of force now appears to have backfired on gays, and that shouldn't surprise any rational person.

Government is force. All government actions are taken with the use of force.... enforced at the point of a gun. Looking to government to force onto others to do what you believe is good is an initiation of force, and it's perfectly legitimate for those being forced to respond with force. Seeking government action is, in effect, a challenge to fight... an open invitation to war. Government action is mob action. To this point, our internal war has been limited to the political arena, but I fear it will not stay there. After many decades of pushing for a government big enough to do what they want, the feel-good, socialist liberals among us are now in despair that government is big enough to do what they DON'T want... even things they despise.

We are now supposedly a nation of blue states and red states... a polarized, divided people. Americans have been "choosing up sides" between Democrats and Republicans, both of whom have preached that giving them government power is the answer to all our problems. That means that FORCE is what they're pushing. They encourage us to vote for them... to consent to the use of force against others. We've been indoctrinated toward that end from kindergarten on, but that is not a valid excuse for allowing it to continue to happen. You don't personally treat your neighbors that way, and you should not treat other Americans that way.

It is far past time for all Americans to realize that the use of force results only in still more force. If you want to do "good deeds", correct societal ills, injustice or unfairness, do it OUTSIDE of government. There are very few, if any, government activities that can't be done better without involving government... done without the use of force. There is no other way to return our nation to the sane greatness it once was. Two evil parties have consistently led us in the wrong direction, with only slight variations in their themes, and they are, together, taking turns destroying us. Force-mongering politicians, of either party, will never voluntarily reduce their own power. It's up to each of us to recognize and acknowledge that neither of those parties has anything to offer except continued divisiveness and destruction. We must each remove our consent and our support from them. Every time you think they have "won" something for you, we have all lost.

The title of this article, "Liberals: Are there flies on your road?" relates to an African proverb: "He who shits in a road will meet flies on his return". Christians have a similar saying "As you sow, so shall you reap". We've been talked into using force against each other by people who profit from it, and who exempt themselves from that force.

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence -- it is force.  Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and fearful master."  --  George Washington

"The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests." -- Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize winner, Economics