[Read the introduction or skip to the project]

Someone once posed the question in a liberty group online, “If you could theoretically have any book completed for you to advance the cause of liberty, what would it be?” I replied, “An exhaustive list of all of the individual government atrocities compiled into hundreds of volumes.” The idea was to prove beyond all doubt that governments are indeed based on theft, violence, murder, and slavery for all those who remain in denial. 

Obviously, this undertaking would be impossible. But even attempting to list hundreds, or thousands, of these crimes could help make the case that so-called “governments,” which are thought by most people to be strictly in the business of “fighting crime,” are indeed criminals themselves — and criminals of the worst kind, given that they have declared their crimes “legal” and operate under the “legitimacy” of the “law” that idolaters have granted to them. 

Many people view the assertion that human government is inherently violent as merely theoretical or ideological. They argue that we simply “think” statism is violent, or that we have an unfounded or immature contempt for it, and need to get on board with their “actual” goal and purpose of “fighting crime.” When they do acknowledge that government agents act criminally, they believe it is due to accidents or “a few bad apples,” rather than the necessary result of the coercive and invasive nature of man-made law. They see government misdeeds as deviations from the normal “job” of “protecting and serving,” rather than as the inevitable consequences of a system that requires law enforcers to use aggressive violence to uphold the arbitrary decrees of politicians. These individuals suggest that the problems with government could be solved by simply replacing actors or providing “better training,” rather than addressing the fundamental issues inherent to the coercive nature of the system itself.

One difficulty in proving the violent nature of the State is that statism—the ideology that the human government is morally legitimate and necessary to social order—is necessarily religious and its systems and agents are “gods.” In their mind, their gods and “heroic” agents can do no wrong. This makes it immensely difficult to demonstrate to these idolaters the evils of the systems of men they are used to praising as heroes and saviors. Those who support human governments and their crimes are worshipers of the kingdoms of men. Their hearts and minds are far from the Kingdom of God. For if they knew the Lord, they would know of his warning guaranteeing the violence, taxation, kidnapping, etc., that comes along with erecting man-kings—whether calling themselves monarchies, democracies, or constitutional republics—to rule over you. 

This project aims to document numerous real-world examples of state-sanctioned violence and oppression. Its purpose is to counter the false narrative that the establishment of state systems does not result in widespread theft, exploitation, enslavement, killings, and genocide. Ultimately, the project seeks to uphold the truth of divine teachings — that setting up human kings means tyranny.

The scriptures

This project is based around chapter 8 of the Book of Samuel in the Holy Bible. 1 Samuel 8 is a sort of Christian anarchist proof-text that turning to human kings (or presidents, politicians, police) is (1) not part of God’s prescriptive or perfect will (v. 7-8) but only part of His permissive will (v. 9); is (2) decidedly rebellious against the Lord as King; is (3) based in envy of the surrounding statist regimes of the world (v. 5, 20); is (4) specifically for trusting in the protection of men for battle rather than God (v. 20); and, mostly importantly for our project, (5) will definitely lead to the destructive and plunderous effects that we’re still witnessing today (v. 10-18). 

This project is a list of acts of state violence that extends from the short but significant list that God delivered to the prophet Samuel, who had exhorted his people to turn from their idolatry when they people were telling him that they wanted a king — that is, that they wanted to be under human rulers (presidents, lawmakers, law enforcers) rather than God and His prescribed order.

While God gave us a warning of what it would mean to set up human kings and reject the Lord as King, this is a sort of empirical list of the things that have come to pass in our time. God was not lying and will not be mocked. It should be useful for those millions of Americans who are surprised that these evils that they are beginning to identify came about given that we have chosen statism over God. These are but the natural result of such systems. Better yet, they are part of God’s judgment and guarantee upon a people who are foolish enough to close to their ears to His word and chase after the kingdoms of men instead.

State “law” and crime

Such an attempt to list as many specific acts of violence should be instructive also for those police-worshipers who refuse to believe that violence is inherent in the “job” of enforcing state “laws” — who can’t believe that their false gods actually do any wrong or that “the media is just highlighting the few bad apples.” Men shamefully believe that “crime” is only committed by the “bad guys” in the public and could never apply to the government (which has only legalized their crime and exempted themselves from punishment). They’re the people who stop crime, in their minds. To them, government agents like law enforcement officers could never be considered criminals, because they’re the ones upholding “the law.” And it matters not to them if what is called “the law” has any relation to what is moral. 

This idea that whatever “government” decrees as “law” is valid is the ungodly idea of legal positivism. There is no theory of justice behind it. The “law” is here defined as whatever the State says is law is law. Thus, enforcing that “law” is legitimate and never-criminal. If the State said it is “illegal,” then it must be so. There is no wrong in putting your boot on someone’s neck or shooting them in the advancement of that cause. 

On the other hand, there is the contrasting idea of law that crime is crime regardless of whether the State enshrines it into its codes and declares it to be “legal.” This project leans on the latter understanding that law and crime exists regardless of whether or not there is a State to declare it so (or not). Thus, theft is theft even if it is called “taxation” or “fines,” murder is murder even if it is called “war” or “the officer feared for his life,” kidnapping is kidnapping even if it is called “arresting” or simply “law enforcement.” 

Therefore, this project is less interested in showing that some criminal act of government violated its own “laws” than it is in simply pointing out that these were murder campaigns. It doesn’t seem to argue that George H.W. Bush violated Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11” of the Constitution by launching a “congressionally unauthorized” war in Iraq. For if we are only basing our claims on “state law,” we are then presuming that if “congressional authorization” had been attained that such criminal acts would suddenly be “legal.” The “warrantless wiretaps” of his son, which are illegal according to the “fourth amendment,” would have been “legal” if they had a “warrant.” This is giving the criminal State too much leeway. The problem with all these acts is not that they were “illegal” by government standards (e.g., that the Bush regime’s torture of “detainees” was prohibited under “Section 2340A of Title 18 of the United States Code”), but that they were crimes no matter what any state code had to say about them. 

The violence of the State

There is another problem of the violence of the State being out of sight and out of mind for people. This is especially true in overseas wars that no one sees on a daily basis. It is also true of people who haven’t been victimized by it themselves. If the police havent personally drug them out of a vehicle and beat them, they assume it doesn’t really happen. Or that if it does it was only against someone who “should have just obeyed the officer.” They don’t see that these are routine as regularized acts of violence against people, many who are non-violent and have never harmed another man.

This project aims to confront the misconception that the state is not inherently violent, in hopes that it will change their sick minds and wicked hearts. It seeks to demonstrate that so-called “governments” routinely perpetrate genuine harms against the populace as an integral part of their existence and functioning, rather than as isolated incidents or anomalies. The nature of statism is such that these abuses are not accidental byproducts of an otherwise benevolent system intended to serve the people’s interests. Rather, they are a fundamental aspect of the state’s very existence. Those who think that “police just need better training” or even that “qualified immunity” protections should be ended don’t understand that the job of “law enforcement” is violently enforcing the edicts of politicians. They don’t see that many of these “laws” have nothing to do with stopping violence on the part of others, but merely in forcing men to obey the arbitrary decrees of Pharaohs and Caesars — to pay taxes, obtain permits, hold licenses, etc.  

Most men shamefully think that if “government” robbed someone, caged them, or killed them, that these victims were just “criminals” who were deserving of the “justice” dished out to them. There is almost no room in their minds for innocent people being punished by government. Millions of men are under the delusion that “if you don’t want to go to prison or get shot by the police, all you have to do is not commit a crime,” that “you wouldn’t have had to die if you just obeyed the officer’s commands,” or that “this could never happen to me because I’m a law-abiding citizen.” This project aims to show that innocent, non-violent people are very often the subjects of grievous abuses by so-called “governments” — and that they could be one too. “Government,” by its very nature, is robbery and violence against men who have done nothing to warrant invasions of their person or property. Many of these cases thus show that run-ins with government agents aren’t just a case of “comply or die” even. Some of them show us a case of “comply and still die.” 

Furthermore, it will highlight the relevance of God’s warning in our highly statist society today for those who may think these things were only true of the kings-of-old and that now we live under a “government by the people” and that statism isn’t plunderous anymore now that a veneer of “democracy” has been thrown over it. God’s warning in chapter eight of the Book of Samuel is just as applicable today as it ever was. It is perhaps even more relevant, given that “democratic” forms of government, which hide the inherently violent nature of States behind such propaganda as “we the people,” allow for a massive expansion of government rule by allowing the masses to take part in the plunder. 

Limitations

This list is, of course, non-exhaustive. It would be impossible to document all the state violence that had been wielded against men in the past century, much less all of history. The records don’t exist. Even if they did, we still wouldn’t be able to add them here or even fit them on a single webpage. Moreover, even if we could (theoretically) list all the names and incidences of government violence in the past century, or even in the first quarter of this century, it would be impossible for anyone to read it. (Just as no one will ever read the tens of thousands of pages of government statues, codes, and bogus laws). 

There were tens of millions of unnamed and forgotten people—God bless them—who have suffered at the hands of States in the twentieth century alone under the social engineering project called “communism.” And many more millions before that. (And most likely millions more to come). 

Our history has indeed been a struggle between those trying to live at liberty and those who want to rule over other people. Unfortunately, the latter have usually been able to win-out over the rest of the people, through the force of the sword and the lies of their lips—and more importantly from their sinful disobedience to the call to serve God and God only (Exodus 20:3). 

Man’s statist rebellion

This is an effort to get men back into the word of God, which speaks of our political captivity and the judgment that comes upon statist societies, so that we can avoid the inevitable tyranny that comes along with deciding that man’s “governments” should rule over us. 

We were told to go with God’s order and not copy the statist masses and go with God’s order, as the men who failed to listen to Samuel went on to do.

“When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations” (Deuteronomy 18:9).

Setting up kings, supporting their wars, waving their flags, and apologizing for the regime, as Americans do today, is the stuff of ungodly nations of people. But men didn’t want to hear the word of God and resist statism, as became evident in 1 Samuel 8. 

“They rejected His statutes and His covenant which He made with their fathers and His warnings with which He warned them. And they followed vanity and became vain, and went after the nations which surrounded them, concerning which the Lord had commanded them not to do like them” (2 Kings 17:15). 

1 Samuel 8 text

In the Biblical story, the people (the Israelites) became envious of the worldly system of statism that was around them. In this period described, there was a sort of decentralized, anarchistic society of patriarchs (1 Samuel 8:1), as God had raised up before (Judges 2:16), and as men had rebelled from before (Judges 2:17-19). God had saved His people and they rebelled over and over (Psalm 106:43). But they wanted to be like the nations around them who worshiped at the altar of the false god State, like the Egyptian system of political slavery from which God had rescued them from (Exodus 7:4-5, 12:51, 13:14, 18:1, 20:2, etc). And so they begged, “Make us a king to judge us like all the nations” (1 Samuel 8:5). 

Instead of having the Lord as their King, their sin was to seek man-kings instead. Samuel saw how ungodly the people were for turning toward human kings rather than the Lord to solve their problems.

“The thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord” (1 Samuel 8:6).

To chase after human kings and political systems was to set out against God. As the Lord made clear, “They have rejected me as their king” (1 Samuel 8:7). 

God does not approve of statism, but He allows men to make the sinful mistake of going this route and then pay the price for it. He doesn’t prevent men from bringing evils upon themselves, so that they may (ideally) learn from their errors. Indeed, He turns His back on those who turn their backs on Him by turning to human rulers.

“Ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day” (1 Samuel 8:18). 

By the time they asked Samuel for a king, God had long been aware of this evil desire in men’s hearts.

“Just as they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking Me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you” (1 Samuel 8:8).

How terribly sad it is that men choose men to rule over them when God wants nothing more than for us to walk with Him out of our political enslavement. 

But he warns us of the consequences, which are so manifest and tragic today that it would be impossible to list all of them. As He did for the disobedient souls of that day, God has also warned us of all the things human ruler-gods would do if we chose to put ourselves under their rule. As He said to Samuel, before granting them their wishes for a king, “show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them” (1 Samuel 8:9). 

And Samuel listed all the things (included in the main text of this project) that were sure to come if the people sought man-kings over God as their King. 

It is quite obvious in the scripture (1 Samuel 8:11-17) that seeking man-kings leads to plunder, taxation, diversion of wealth from private uses to the military machine, government control of all property, conscription, slavery, and endless political schemes. Taxation is what you find yourself living under when you seek man-kings instead of God. Tax slavery is “justice” for the sin evil of coveting your neighbor’s property through the socialist system of government that pose as public benefactors but exercise authority over the people.

Our project

This is our “extended version” of 1 Samuel 8 — as if God, through Samuel, had kept talking into our time. I pray that it will only please God that we have assembled a list of things that powerful men have perpetrated against His kingdom. They were able to get these schemes over on us and take us for a spoil because we have, in disobedience to God, erected kings (e.g., presidents, lawmakers, law enforcement agents, etc). This is how we got here, to where a list such as this is possible: men never listen to God.

“The people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us” (1 Samuel 8:19). 

Men refuse to repent from their evils and change their ways. They hate the truth when it hits them and they fight against it. They don’t believe the warning of God’s prophets that statism systems always invite judgment and bring destruction.

Although men have been warned of the evils that would come upon them if they decided to live under man’s system of statism instead of freedom under God, they still chose the evil path, and so God has let us have our own sinful ways good and hard.

“The Lord said to Samuel, Hearken unto their voice, and make them a king” (1 Samuel 8:22). 

People don’t want to believe statism is evil, rebellious, and destructive. They have bought into the propagandist’s lies that the State is a good, benevolent, and wise institution that exists solely for the purpose of “the people” and society — or at the very least that it’s a “necessary evil.” Better yet, they have bought into the idea that the State is god.

Most of the crimes perpetrated by these people who call themselves “the government” (who are most often exempt from ever being considered criminal in the minds of the masses and in their own courts) are hidden or thought to be “exceptions” rather than the rule. They think that these plunderers protect us, save the poor from poverty, and solve various social problems that are alleged to be present in a private and voluntary solution without their rule. They didn’t want to believe in God’s word, His prophecy of what happens if we choose the path of statism. 

Building off the word of God, this project aims to give solid proof that the State is in fact an attack on people, property, and liberty. If God’s warning wasn’t enough, then this is a list of things empirically that kings—the State, its soldiers, its police officers, its judges, its prosecutors, its bureaucrats, etc—will do to us. This is our attempt to list (hopefully) thousands of those things, in no specific order or degree of their evils. 

Reading this

While we are willing to list any act of state violence that can be verified at any point in history, most of the entries for this project will probably be twenty-first century victims of statism, if only because there will be articles we can link to for them. Moreover, most of these entries will be victims of the American regime, perhaps in part to make an example for all those foolish Americans who think that such violence is only the stuff of Soviet Russia, North Korea, or Nazi Germany. 

For smooth and consistent reading, and as a way to quickly digest the evils, I have decided to provide the information as an endnote rather than put it in the main text. This will also allow us to provide multiple citations and news stories for the incident if necessary. As it is too time-consuming to provide jump-links around the page, simply use your own in-page search tool for the numbered reference “[#]” and find the only other one on the page if you would like to see the reference. 

Submissions

This project will best succeed as a community effort, as it’s not possible for one person to assemble thousands of names easily and do the research. We would like to see Christians and non-Christians submit information for us. It’s greatly unfortunate that secular libertarians probably care more about the problem of state violence than the average Christian, even though the Biblical warnings came long before any modern philosophers would elaborate on the inherent aggression of statism. But their work in exposing the violence of statism is valued, too. 

It would be best if you would try to go ahead and write it out as we have done on the main page, coming up with your own emphasis of the incident, so long as it’s accurate — starting with “He will…” Try to keep it short and to the point, but make sure to include the main evils of the situation. If it’s good enough, we can keep it as it is. For the footnote, include names of the victims, location, the year, and as many supportive links for those incidents as you can. These do not even need to be incidents with individual victims, though I feel those really drive the point home. They can be any evil that governments set up against their people or perpetuate against society as a whole. And the people need not have died as a result of the state terrorism. They need only to have been victimized by these terrorists. 

It might be better to submit those who were absolutely innocent victims, i.e., those who complied with everything the tyrants asked of them and were still killed, lest the statists claim “the officer had to shoot him because he had a gun in his center console or he wasn’t obeying orders.” However, those incidents should be included too, because “officer fear,” “he ran away,” or “he’s got a gun” is no excuse for murder either. 

Moreover, the aggressors (e.g., police) need not be prosecuted or convicted as a result of incidences that are clearly criminal. We all should know by now that immunity laws for police, judges, prosecutors, etc., very often protect these criminals from their use of violence and evil against people, and that the system is made to work for them. We know they are often able to plead down their cases when they end up in courts (which they control). We know that police crime is treated differently than crimes committed by civilians, and that the police cult has a code of silence that helps keep them from being reported by fellow officers in the first place.

However, if the aggressors were actually charged as part of their crimes, then this is fine too, for it should prove to the statist even more that such acts were clearly criminal, since a stamp-of-approval from the State’s court-gods is the only thing they believe in. 

Furthermore, it is best to show cases that are clearly the State vs. innocent and unknown victims. While we could cite hundreds of cases of police murdering their spouses in fits of rage and jealousy, or of them abusing and murdering their children, these aren’t exactly the type of state-vs-public scenarios that we find best to cite. They aren’t on-the-job abuses that demonstrate the inherent violence of men who are acting as agents of the State, as promised by God, but more so a reflection of the type of people who serve Pharaohs and Caesars. 

And, of course, the crimes need not be committed by police officers. They are simply the easiest to cite because their aggression is so abundant. We can cite any such acts of tyranny and terror committed by government agents, such as the schemes and orders of presidents, acts of torture by soldiers, corruption by politicians or judges, or just governments in general. 

Submit lists of criminal acts by the government to our email with the title “Samuel Eight Submission” or something of the like. Submit as many entries as you can. A handful at a time is better than a couple. We will not be giving credit to those who submit incidents and links, but God bless you for helping to further prove God’s word as the truth. The Lord sees it.