The Top 40: June 2016 Archives

The Top 40: June 2016 Archives: The Perversion of the Law

The law in America no longer confines itself to its proper functions as it has become the chief weapon of injustice acting in direct opposition to its own purpose. As the French classical economist Frederic Bastiat noted in his famous essay The Law, “It has been used to destroy its own objective. It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect.” Bastiat continues, “The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense.”