The Law
The Law: Should be Required Reading in Washington, D.C.
By Penfist
September 3, 2016
by Frederic Bastiat. Written in 1848 as a response to socialism in
France, this book essay is just as relevant today as it was then.
“What, then, is law? It is the collective organisation of the individual right to lawful defence.
Each of us has a natural right from God to defend his person, his
liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of
life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent
upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but
the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an
extension of our faculties?
If every person has the right to defend – even by force – his person,
his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have
the right to organise and support a common force to protect these
rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right – its reason
for existing, its lawfulness – is based on individual right. And the
common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have
any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a
substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against
the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common
force – for the same reason – cannot lawfully be used to destroy the
person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.
Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our
premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights.
Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the
equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can
lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not
logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common
force that is nothing more than the organised combination of the
individual forces?
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If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law
is the organisation of the natural right of lawful defence. It is the
substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common
force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful
right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain
the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.”
My copy of The Law is filled with highlighted yellow phrases. Among them:
“But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its proper
functions. And when it has exceeded its proper functions, it has not
done so merely in some inconsequential and debatable matters. The law
has gone further than this; it has acted in direct opposition to its own
purpose. The law 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. 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 defence into a crime,
in order to punish lawful defence.
How has this perversion of the law been accomplished? And what have been the results?
The law has been perverted by the influence of two entirely different
causes: stupid greed and false philanthropy. Let us speak of the first.
Every legislator should be forced to read Bastiat’s The Law once a
month for their entire term and write a synopsis of how they have upheld
the ideas contained within it. The tome should be taught in our school
systems. It should be drilled into every citizen’s head from birth until
death.”
When he was alive, Bastiat called the United States the one nation in
the world that came close to applying the law in a just manner. If he
could visit us today, he would puke all over the steps of Congress. He
would barf in the halls of the White House. He would upchuck in
lobbyists offices all over Washington, D.C. When he was done throwing
up, I do believe Bastiat would start a revolution.
He would definitely take on our current system of governance because
we’re turning into Socialism Lite ‘Less Filling, More Taxes.’
“Socialists look upon people as raw material to be formed into social
combinations. This is so true that, if by chance, the socialists have
any doubts about the success of these combinations, they will demand
that a small portion of mankind be set aside to experiment upon. The
popular idea of trying all systems is well known. And one socialist
leader has been known seriously to demand that the Constituent Assembly
give him a small district with all its inhabitants, to try his
experiments upon.
In the same manner, an inventor makes a model before he constructs
the full-sized machine; the chemist wastes some chemicals – the farmer
wastes some seeds and land – to try out an idea.
But what a difference there is between the gardener and his trees,
between the inventor and his machine, between the chemist and his
elements, between the farmer and his seeds! And in all sincerity, the
socialist thinks that there is the same difference between him and
mankind!
It is no wonder that the writers of the nineteenth century look upon
society as an artificial creation of the legislator’s genius. This idea –
the fruit of classical education – has taken possession of all the
intellectuals and famous writers of our country. To these intellectuals
and writers, the relationship between persons and the legislator appears
to be the same as the relationship between the clay and the potter.
Moreover, even where they have consented to recognise a principle of
action in the heart of man – and a principle of discernment in man’s
intellect – they have considered these gifts from God to be fatal gifts.
They have thought that persons, under the impulse of these two gifts,
would fatally tend to ruin themselves. They assume that if the
legislators left persons free to follow their own inclinations, they
would arrive at atheism instead of religion, ignorance instead of
knowledge, poverty instead of production and exchange.”
Read The Law.
It will change all your assumptions about what the role of government
should be in your life in only 76 pages. When you’re done, make your
friends read The Law. If they won’t, stop being friends with them. Send a
copy to your Representatives and Congressmen and ask them what the hell
they think they’re doing with this country of ours.
Reprinted from Amazon.com.
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