David Brat Home Run

For my money, the guy is on track. Charles Cooke offers cogent perspective here.

With just seven little words, the freakout began: “The government holds a monopoly on violence.”

These were written by David Brat, a professor of economics at Virginia’s Randolph-Macon College and, now, the Republican party’s nominee for the state’s seventh congressional district. “Unusual” and “eye-opening” was the New YorkDaily News’s petty verdict. In the Wall Street Journal, Reid Epstein insinuated darkly that the claim cast Brat as a modern-day fascist. And, for his part, Politico’s Ben White suggested that the candidate’s remarks “on Neitzsche and the government monopoly on violence don’t make a whole lot of sense.” As is its wont, the progressive blogosphere lost its collective marbles too: One contributor sardonically described Brat’s claim as a “doozy,” while another contended that such opinions were sufficient for “one to question his, shall we say, cognitive coherence.”

This reaction is rather surprising, for what Brat wrote is not merely a statement of fact, but a thoroughly neutral statement of fact. “If,” Brat submitted, “you refuse to pay your taxes, you will lose. You will go to jail, and if you fight, you will lose. The government holds a monopoly on violence. Any law that we vote for is ultimately backed by the full force of our government and military.”