Bastiat on The Law and its limits

Bastiat Knew the Proper Limits of Government Force - Foundation for Economic Education - Working for a free and prosperous world - Frank Hollenbeck:

February 18, 2018 - "High school students in the United States are usually required to take a course in government. They learn about the structure of government but rarely discover the appropriate role of government.... If they did, one of their required readings would be Frédéric Bastiat’s treatise The Law, a seminal mid-nineteenth-century work....

"Bastiat states that individuals are born with the natural rights of life, liberty, and property. From this notion, the only proper function of the use of force or the law is the collective organization of the natural right to self-defense of these rights....

"He then defines any illegitimate use of force or of the law as legal plunder. This is an all-encompassing term which includes any unjustified violation of the life, liberty, or property of others. Many examples abound today with regulations on labor (e.g. minimum wage laws), products (e.g. subsidies and tariffs), health care, education, or even the use of marijuana or any other drugs....

"The problem with legal plunder is that it creates hatred and discord and eats at the very fabric of society. The US Civil War was fought primarily for two reasons: slavery and tariffs. The first was a violation of liberty, the second was a violation of property....

"The law should be a viewed as a negation; if you don’t violate the life, liberty, or property of someone else, you should not see the arm of the law or care much about the role of government.... If the law were properly defined, you would not blame the government for your misfortunes nor would you credit it with your successes.... Bastiat wrote:

[I]f you attempt to make the law religious, fraternal, equalizing, philanthropic, industrial, literary, or artistic — you will then be lost in an uncharted territory, in vagueness and uncertainty, in a forced utopia or, even worse, in a multitude of utopias, each striving to seize the law and impose it upon you. This is true because fraternity and philanthropy, unlike justice, do not have precise limits. Once started, where will you stop? And where will the law stop itself?

"More important than left or right is the concept of liberty. The solution to the problem of human relationships is freedom, and it thrives most when the role of government is limited, the use of force is constrained, and the law is confined to the administration of universal justice, or, more precisely, the law is exclusively used as a roadblock to injustice."

Read more: https://fee.org/articles/bastiat-knew-the-proper-limits-of-government-force/
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You're "leaving liberty"? Were you ever there?

Leaving Liberty? You Were Never Really There in the First Place - Being Libertarian - JSB Morse:

November 24, 2017 - "It happened again — one of my acquaintances gave up on the liberty movement. He made it clear in a very public way that he’s “leaving liberty'....

"Several of my friends have said they still love liberty, but can’t devote the time and energy into being a spokesperson and a public defender of the philosophy. I can certainly understand that.... Others, however, claim to no longer identify as a libertarian or that the message of liberty no longer makes sense. And these defections are much more curious.

"They’re curious because once you really understand the principles of liberty, it’s utterly illogical to then disown them. It’s like coming to understand that 2+2=4, only to later claim, 'No, I really just feel like 2+2=5 and that’s what I’m going with from now on'....

"Libertarianism holds that all humans have certain inalienable negative rights (life, liberty, and property) and that it is illegitimate for anyone to infringe on those rights.

"Other political philosophies maintain that people have positive rights granted by the government, such as the right to education, healthcare, or to watch football without protesters. The problem is that whenever one asserts positive rights, he necessarily infringes on another’s negative rights. You can’t have a right to education at the same time that teachers have the right to free association. You can’t have the right to health care and have the right to your property that pays for that health care. You can’t have the right to watch football without protests while others have the right to free speech.

"Libertarianism isn’t simply, 'You can do whatever you want,' as some will have you believe. Libertarianism is, 'You can do whatever you want as long as that doesn’t infringe on the same right of others.' It’s a beautiful, balanced and symmetric philosophy — the only one that makes logical sense....

"Of course, the principles of liberty may allow for some uncomfortable moments.... Enemies of liberty will take situations like that and use it to tarnish the philosophy. They will claim that if you allow a white supremacist to speak, you must be a white supremacist yourself! If you think even the top 1% should be able to keep the fruits of their labor, then you must hate poor people! If you’re skeptical of government funded climate science, you must be a denier!

"Liberty-haters want to paint libertarians as racist, money-grubbing, science deniers to make them abandon the cause, and it works sometimes. If your understanding of libertarianism is 'Hey, let’s do some weed!' then you risk losing faith when someone calls you names like that. But if you fully understand the logical beauty of the libertarian framework, there’s really no going back."

Read more: https://beinglibertarian.com/leaving-liberty-never-really-first-place/
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UK celebrating 800th anniversary of Magna Carta

Magna Carta's 800th anniversary celebration | Toronto Star - Henry Stancu:

January 15, 2015 - "The Magna Carta turns 800 this June and England has invited the world to take part in a series of birthday celebrations throughout most of the year....

"Essentially a peace treaty between England’s King John (1166-1216) and a group of rebellious barons at odds with the unpopular ruler’s fiscal policies, the 'Great Charter' is considered the foundation of modern democracy and the cornerstone of western justice and liberty....

"The Magna Carta made everyone, including royalty, subject to the law. The bulk of the 63 clauses dealt with the series of grievances about ownership of land and taxation raised by irate barons and the English church against King John, but it was the 39th clause that granted all 'free men' the right to fair treatment and justice.

"Of course, only about 10 per cent of England’s population was considered 'free' under the feudal system of the time.

"Translated from Latin, the clause reads: 'No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.'

"It wasn’t even considered a prominent clause at the time, but its interpretation by future generations has made it the monumental declaration it is today.

"Those principles would later inspire the drawing up of constitutional documents around the globe, such as the U.S. Bill of Rights in 1791, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the European Convention on Human Rights in 1950.

"The famous decree had a rocky ride for a year as King John, who felt cornered into approving it, got Pope Innocent III to issue a papal bull declaring it null and void, but the king’s son and successor, Henry III, approved a series of revisions over the next decade as the monarchy continued to be at odds with the Church and the rebellious barons until the charter was accepted onto parliament’s roll of statutes in 1297.

"The revisions cut away about a third of the document’s clauses, but the 39th survived intact."

Read more: http://www.thestar.com/life/travel/2015/01/15/magna-cartas-800th-anniversary-celebration.html
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Do Rights Exist?

Do Rights Exist?: by George J. Dance, Nolan Chart

Saturday, May 11, 2013 - "Libertarians believe in universal, individual, human rights. But rights cannot be observed: we cannot see, hear, touch, or smell them, or detect them with any kind of instruments. How, then, do we justify claiming that they are not just an idea, but actually exist?

"One reasonable answer would be: we are justified in believing that rights exist if there is evidence that they do, and no evidence that they do not. The only available evidence is testimonial – people speaking and acting as if rights exist – and it is not reasonable to believe something simply because of testimonial evidence, if there is other testimonial evidence to the contrary. If, however, there is no contrary evidence – if all the testimony is to the same effect – then it is reasonable to believe the only conclusion supported by any evidence. We can observe whether that is the case regarding the existence of rights."

Read more: http://www.nolanchart.com/article10244-do-rights-exist.html
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