What Is the Most Basic, Most Severe Violation of Freedom?

NONVIOLENCE, 2 Feb 2026

Alejandro A. Tagliavini - TRANSCEND Media Service

27 Jan 2026 – Nature, which predates humankind—in fact, human beings are the result of a spontaneous, natural development—clearly has an order: the Earth revolves regularly around the sun, which provides it with essential energy for life, and thus everything in the universe develops spontaneously—intrinsically—for the growth of life.

In a video from Natureisspeaking.com, with the voice of Julia Roberts, “Mother Nature” asserts that “I am already over 4.5 billion years old, I am prepared to evolve, I don’t need humans, but rather they need me. No matter what humankind does, if it follows me, it evolves with me; otherwise, it destroys itself.”

The Greeks already knew this, as did Aristotle, who defined violence as the extrinsic force that attempts to divert the intrinsic—spontaneous—natural development of life.

Violence is equivalent to taking away freedom, diverting the intrinsic development—against one’s will— of a being. Therefore, violence and freedom are logical opposites. Logic is a science, not my opinion. In fact, efficiency in the market (and in society in general) is maximized when relationships are free, without coercion, since interactions only occur if each party receives what best suits them in the exchange.

So, as “Mother Nature” aptly stated, if humankind follows her, it evolves with her; otherwise, it destroys itself. Hence the inefficiency of the state, since the state arrogates to itself the monopoly on violence with which it imposes “laws” that go against nature and, precisely for that reason, need to be imposed by force.

It could be said, following logic, that statism and violence constitute a tautology, and it goes without saying that this is always the case, because exceptions or mitigating circumstances would entail a logical contradiction.

Corollary: the principal enemy of freedom is violence, and its most brutal expression, wars that begin with the arms race. This must be made perfectly clear to unmask the conservative, and in many cases even neo-fascist, right wing, which falsely claims to fight for freedom, generally out of ignorance, though often hypocritical.

In 1870, one of the greatest thinkers in the Americas, father of the Argentine Constitution, Juan Bautista Alberdi, and in my opinion the greatest Argentine national hero if not the only one, wrote in his most important work, “The Crime of War,” that “the right of war is… the right of homicide, of robbery… of devastation… this is war… the right of crime, a frightful and sacrilegious contradiction.”

To say that they will use violence to defend freedom is a definitive demonstration of primitivism in the sense of an irrational attitude arising from primal impulses and, therefore, incoherent. And its result, consequently, is the opposite of what is intended.

Two examples of military actions heavily promoted by the interested states suffice, to the point that today most of the public opinion repeats the official narrative without any objective analysis.

On the one hand, Trump’s recent Rambo-style intervention in Venezuela. The real result has been, at least in the medium term if not definitively, a notable consolidation of the Chavista regime, burying the democratic aspirations of Corina Machado and keeping most political prisoners incarcerated.

On the other hand, World War II (WWII). The conservative actor Charlton Heston stated: “I remember returning from overseas on a sunny, victorious morning at the end of WWII… we thought that freedom would quickly spread throughout the world, that it would be free of war and tyranny. We were wrong. It was (Soviet) tyranny that prospered.”

Undoubtedly, the Nazi madness ended, but an even worse one emerged: Stalinism, which spread communism, terrorism, and guerrilla warfare throughout the world, installing the Castros in Cuba, who, in turn, support Chavismo. This tyranny finally fell, logically and peacefully, following Mother Nature’s advice: “If man does not follow me, he destroys himself,” collapsing under its own weight.

Donald Trump’s latest initiatives, such as his aspirations to control Greenland or the highly ironic creation of a state-run—and therefore coercive—”Peace Council” that would compete with the UN, have led to a 50% increase in military spending, a decision announced after the success achieved by US forces in Venezuela.

According to SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute), US military spending in 2024 was already at USD 997 billion, making it not only the highest in the world but also representing 37% of global military spending. China follows with military spending of USD 314 billion, a third of what the US spends. Washington allocates 3.4% of its GDP to military spending, while Beijing allocates 1.7%, exactly half.

I don’t think it’s accurate to say that the Chinese communist state has no imperialist ambitions, but, ironically, it seems they have become convinced that the path forward is free trade and not weapons, which, on the contrary, would hinder their stealthy but rapid advance across the globe.

The other primitive, fallacious argument, contrary to logic, and therefore contrary to science, particularly used by the right wing, is that evil exists, that it has its own independent existence.

This sets back human thought by more than a thousand years, since Saint Augustine of Hippo already knew that evil does not have its own existence, but is merely the absence of good. From his theological perspective, he argued that if evil existed, it would have had to be created by God—Lord of all creation—and this is absurd, since God—infinite goodness—cannot create evil.

Evil, science says, is the absence of good, just as darkness does not have its own existence, but is the absence of light. Darkness is the absence of light waves and is reversed by turning on the light, by sending light waves. Evil, science says, does not have its own existence since good is the natural development of the cosmos, of life, and it is inconceivable that nature would develop against itself; it simply makes no sense.

In terms of the science of physics, it is illogical to think of a force that acts against itself; either there is nothing, or there is a force, negative or positive, but this refers only to the direction and the frame of reference.

And of course, the “advantage” of saying that evil exists is that they can argue that they must punish the bad guys. And who are the bad guys? Well, those who suit their egocentric, violent interests.

Precisely, these enormous military expenditures are paid for with taxes that fall most heavily on the most vulnerable, since, for example, businesses pay them by raising prices, and the poor absorb those increases. In fact, the State is thus the greatest creator of poverty, if not the only one.

So “the bad guys” are those who don’t pay these taxes and those who protest because they are being impoverished, and they are repressed, obviously, with the weapons that they themselves finance. They remind me of the madness of the Iranian State demanding a “bullet fee,” a payment to be able to recover the bodies of those killed by state forces.

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Alejandro A. Tagliavini – Member of the Advisory Board of the Center on Global Prosperity, Oakland, California. www.alejandrotagliavini.com

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 2 Feb 2026.

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