Coercion has a more negative connotation than regulation, so I would not say they are the same thing, but I would say that they are very similar. Both of these things occur when a person or group in power wants the person or group under them to behave in a certain way and will enact a punishment if their demands are not meant. I think the debate on when force should be used by the government or law enforcement actually lies in the differences between regulation and coercion.
I agree with Frederick Bastiat's The Law in that the ideal goal of the government is to protect the life, liberty, and property of its citizens. Obviously, this can only be achieved through the enforcement of fair, well-written laws by police and military. So, as long as laws are fair and well-written, regulation is a very good and important thing. Any regulation that fails to protect its citizens or harms its citizens is bad by this definition. I think that such harmful regulation can be considered coercion when it is intentionally written by those in power to benefit those in power. It's possible that some laws in the United States are unintentionally harmful to citizens, but in my opinion, it would be very rare for a law to be written poorly like that, especially after being a country for over 200 years.
I've noticed that a lot of other students in this class have written their responses about how the police force in the United States is using too much coercion. I think this position on the issue is confusing coercion with unjust actions. The reason people in power use coercion is to force those under them to obey their with threats of punishment involved. Unjust things that some police officers have done usually do not involve threats of punishment, but usually involve actions that have gone too far. Some of these incidents are policemen enacting what they think are proper punishments, but were actually wrong.
