What is the ultimate end of a planet enmeshed in contradictions?

1. Destruction, war and looting are good for
the economy. Without the occasional obliteration of
lots of people and property, material and moral
progress would grind to a halt.
2. We have taxes, which people are forced to
pay, to fund a legal system to keep people from
stealing from each other.
3. To keep people from ruining their lives with
drugs, we stick them in cages along with human
predators for ten years.
4. To protect our nation that respects freedom
and life, we sometimes enslave teenagers and force
them to fight, kill and die in other countries.
5. Reading is a joy but you’ll only do it if
forced.
6. Guns in the hands of criminals are
dangerous, so to stop them we have armed agents
locate people with guns, beat them up and threaten
to kill them if they don’t disarm for the sake of
peace.
7. Slaveholders made this nation the first free
country by rebelling against an empire and making
it an independent nation. And also, this country
only became a free country when our greatest
president stopped a bunch of slaveholders from
breaking away and making an independent nation.
8. Everyone knows we need government. It’s what
the people want. The people are the government, in
fact. And we need the government to force the
people to be good, which they wouldn’t be without
the government, which is good because the people
themselves are good and want the government, which
is them, to be good.

I suspect that far fewer than I in 10 see the
venomous snakes curled up in these 8 trees.

Do you?

When the majority does see them, will they
disappear?

How many other trees with serpents are there?

Full essay.

"After 15 million human beings had perished in the war, the foremost statesmen of the world were assembled to give mankind a new international order and lasting peace . . . and the British Empire's financial expert was amused by the rustic style of the French Prime Minister's footwear." -- Ludwig von Mises, Planning for Freedom