[at-l] Energy Central News Article

[malcolm at malcolmfuller.com (Malcolm Fuller)]

Weary wrote:

>> "...Unless of course it portends to land uses 
>> you don't favor, and then your fervent beliefs 
>> take a hunnert-n-eighty degree turn for gummint
>> control."

> What, me inconsistent? Naw! Well, I vaguely 
> remember being inconsistent once. I forget the
> details.

> Governments, however, do allow us to do collectively,
> those things we can't do individually.

Which is, at the fundamental level, the ability to 
safely rob your fellow man of his property and freedom
so that they may serve *your* values.

"The Law Defends Plunder

"But it does not always do this. Sometimes the law 
defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the 
beneficiaries are spared the shame, danger, and scruple
which their acts would otherwise involve. Sometimes the
law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, 
prisons, and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers,
and treats the victim -- when he defends himself -- as
a criminal. In short, there is a legal plunder, and it
is of this, no doubt, that Mr. de Montalembert speaks.

"This legal plunder may be only an isolated stain 
among the legislative measures of the people. If so,
it is best to wipe it out with a minimum of speeches
and denunciations -- and in spite of the uproar of the
vested interests.

"How to Identify Legal Plunder

"But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite
simply. See if the law takes from some persons what 
belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom
it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen
at the expense of another by doing what the citizen 
himself cannot do without committing a crime.

"Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only
an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for 
further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a 
law -- which may be an isolated case -- is not abolished
immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into
a system."

Frederick Bastiat
The Law, 1850

http://www.lexrex.com/informed/otherdocuments/thelaw/main.htm

[...]

> Free enterprise can only exist in the presence of
> strong, democratic governments. 

That must explain the absence of an underground economy
in this country.

MF