One of the sacrifices you make in order to live in a civilised society is to hand over to the Government of your country an absolute legal monopoly on the use of force. The state is the only entity in Ireland – or France, or Germany, or Italy, or the UK – to have the legal right to impose its will upon you physically, whether that be through depriving you of your liberty or physically coming into your home and dragging you out of it. Even in circumstances where compulsion is ordered in a civil matter (a good example would be Wilson’s Hospital School’s attempts to stop Enoch Burke from entering its grounds) the authority of the state is required to take action.
Obviously, this is a sacrifice that comes with downsides. When you think about it, almost the entire power of the state to compel you to behave in a certain way comes from that monopoly on the use of force. That monopoly is, in fact, the entire source of the state’s raw power. When we say politicians are “power hungry”, what do we mean? What is the power they seek? It’s ultimately the power to lock you up and take away your physical liberty if you do not comply with their edicts.
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