Jeff Tucker has written a fantastic and fiery essay on stop signs on the Mises site. An excerpt:
In some ways, then, it is true that the stop sign — as with every regulation by the state — embodies all that is wrong with the public sector. The rules are made to benefit the state. You are on the hot seat if any policeman says that you have done wrong. The pretense of a fair trial is a complete farce, as you have to tangle with judges who hate you, waste several days of work, and throw yourself on the mercy of the court. Once you are entangled in the web, you can't really get out.
And who makes the rules? The central planners make the rules, and the public be damned. The rules are there to serve the state, not us, and the stop sign that is oddly placed in order to extract revenue makes the point very well.
When you are stopped, you become aware that the imbalance between the citizens and the state couldn't be more obvious. Deliver an insult and you are arrested. Try to run and you are gunned down. Fail to pay and you end up in the slammer. And maybe the cop will find something else about your life to be suspicious of. Whatever they want to know, you must tell them.
Government is not reason; it is force. What was the actual social rationale for that stop sign in the first place? You dare not ask, for then you are questioning the elites who are in charge of your life. And why was it removed? It's not for you to question why; it is for you to do or die. It was there and now it is gone. All "law-abiding citizens" must change with the arbitrary dictate of the traffic masters.
All government rules are backed by violence. The government reserves the right to kill you for disobeying any of its dictates no matter how trivial they may appear. The State can jail you, beat you, or even kill you for failure to pay a parking ticket. Ludwig von Mises made the same observation in Omnipotent Government:
He who says "state" means coercion and Compulsion. He who says: There should be a law concerning this matter, means: The armed men of the government should force people to do what they do not want to do, or not to do what they like. He who says: This law should be better enforced, means: The police should force people to obey this law. He who says: The state is God, deifies arms and prisons. The worship of the state is the worship of force. There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men. The worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.
America has become a barbaric nation in which each day new arbitrary laws appear at every level of government. We are becoming a nation of criminals simply because the State is outlawing everything. The absolute power of the State has so thoroughly corrupted our rulers that they are willing to threaten fines, imprisonment, beatings, and death for idling. How can people call themselves civilized when they are willing to accept such draconian measures simply because someone leaves his car running?
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