Contributor
Gary M. Galles
Mr.
Galles is a professor of economics at Pepperdine
University. [go to Galles index]
|
“ Instead
of checking crime, the law itself [has become] guilty of
the evils it is supposed to punish!”
“…law…is
the collective organization of the individual right to lawful
defense.”
“
Each of us has a natural right--from God--to defend his person,
his liberty, and his property...the common force that protects
this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose…Thus,
since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person,
liberty, or property of another individual, then the common
force…cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person,
liberty, or property of individuals or groups.”
“…
no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy
the rights of others…the same principle also applies
to the common force that is nothing more than the organized
combination of the individual forces.”
“The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful
defense…to do only what the individual forces have a natural
and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties…to
cause justice to reign over us all.”
“ But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its
proper functions...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...to exploit the person, liberty,
and property of others.”
“When [people] can, they wish to live and prosper at the
expense of others...men will resort to plunder whenever plunder
is easier than work…the proper purpose of law is to use
the power of its collective force to stop this fatal tendency
to plunder instead of to work. All the measures of the law should
protect property and punish plunder.”
“ It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change
and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into
an instrument of plunder...”
”
...if law were restricted to protecting all persons, all liberties,
and all properties…if law were the obstacle, the check,
the punisher of all oppression and plunder…If the law
were confined to its proper functions…those who voted
could not inconvenience those who did not vote.”
“Under the pretense
of organization, regulation, protection, or encouragement,
the law takes property from one person and
gives it to another...”
“[When] law may be diverted from its true purpose--that
it may violate property instead of protecting it…The law
has come to be an instrument of injustice.”
“Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in
it…Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges,
police, prisons, and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers...”
“ 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. “
“No legal plunder:
This is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability,
harmony, and logic.”
“...can anything more than the absence of plunder be required
of the law? Can the law--which necessarily requires the use of
force--rationally be used for anything except protecting the
rights of everyone? I defy anyone to extend it beyond this purpose
without perverting it and, consequently, turning might against
right. This is the most fatal and most illogical social perversion…”
“When justice
is organized by law--that is, by force--this excludes the idea
of using law (force) to organize any human
activity whatever... For truly, how can we imagine force being
used against the liberty of citizens without it also being used
against justice, and thus acting against its proper purpose?”
“When a portion of wealth is transferred from the person
who owns it--without his consent and without compensation, and
whether by force or by fraud--to anyone who does not own it…an
act of plunder is committed…this act is exactly what the
law is supposed to suppress, always and everywhere. When the
law itself commits this act that it is supposed to suppress…plunder
is still committed.”
“ We must remember that law is force, and that, consequently,
the proper functions of the law cannot lawfully extend beyond
the proper functions of force.”
“ When law and force keep a person within the bounds of justice,
they impose nothing but a mere negation. They oblige him only
to abstain from harming others. They violate neither his personality,
his liberty, nor his property. They safeguard all of these.
They are defensive; they defend equally the rights of all.”
“…
the purpose of the law is to prevent injustice from reigning…Justice
is achieved only when injustice is absent.”
“
But when the law, by means of its necessary agent, force, imposes
upon men…the law is no longer negative…It substitutes
the will of the legislator for their own wills...they lose
their personality, their liberty, their property.”
“ Try to imagine a regulation of labor imposed by force that
is not a violation of liberty; a transfer of wealth imposed
by force that is not a violation of property...you must conclude
that the law cannot organize labor and industry without organizing
injustice.”
“…
as it takes from some persons and gives to other persons…the
law…is an instrument of plunder.”
“How did politicians ever come to believe this weird idea
that the law could be made to produce what it does not contain…?”
“…is not liberty the freedom of every person to
make full use of his faculties, so long as he does not harm other
persons while doing so? Is not liberty the destruction of all
despotism…is not liberty the restricting of the law only
to its rational sphere of organizing the right of the individual
to lawful self-defense; of punishing injustice?”
…
I do dispute [legislators] right to impose these plans upon
us by law--by force--and to compel us to pay for them…They
need only to give up the idea of forcing us to acquiesce...that
we be permitted to decide upon these plans for ourselves; that
we not be forced to accept them, directly or indirectly, if
we find them to be contrary to our best interests or repugnant
to our consciences.”
“ It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over
our persons and property. The existence of persons and property
preceded the existence of the legislator, and his function
is only to guarantee their safety.”
“ It is not true that the function of law is to regulate our
consciences, our ideas, our wills, our education, our opinions,
our work, our trade, our talents, or our pleasures. The function
of law is to protect the free exercise of these rights, and
to prevent any person from interfering with the free exercise
of these same rights by any other person.”
“Since law necessarily
requires the support of force, its lawful domain is only in
the areas where the use of force
is necessary.”
“
Every individual has the right to use force for lawful self-defense...collective
force…cannot be used legitimately for any other purpose.”
“ Law is solely the organization of the individual right of self-defense
which existed before law was formalized.”
“
The mission of the law is not to oppress persons and plunder
them of their property...Its mission is to protect persons
and property…if the law acts in any manner except to
protect them, its actions then necessarily violate the liberty
of persons and their right to own property.”
“
In this proposition a simple and enduring government can be
conceived…a government whose organized force was confined
only to suppressing injustice.”
“
Under such a regime, there would be the most prosperity--and
it would be the most equally distributed. As for the sufferings
that are inseparable from humanity, no one would even think
of accusing the government for them…And if government
were limited to its proper functions, everyone would soon learn
that these matters are not within the jurisdiction of the law...”
“Law is justice. And it is under the law of justice--under
the reign of right; under the influence of liberty, safety, stability,
and responsibility--that every person will attain his real worth
and the true dignity of his being. It is only under this law
of justice that mankind will achieve…God’s design
for the orderly and peaceful progress of humanity.”
“... whatever the question…whether
it concerns prosperity, morality, equality, right, justice,
progress, responsibility,
cooperation, property, labor, trade, capital, wages, taxes, population,
finance, or government...The solution to the problems of human
relationships is to be found in liberty.”
“
Which countries contain the most peaceful, the most moral,
and the happiest people?...where the law least interferes with
private affairs; where government is least felt; where the
individual has the greatest scope, and free opinion the greatest
influence…where individuals and groups most actively
assume their responsibilities, and, consequently, where the
morals of admittedly imperfect human beings are constantly
improving…the happiest, most moral, and most peaceful
people are those who most nearly follow this principle: Although
mankind is not perfect, still, all hope rests upon the free
and voluntary actions of persons within the limits of right;
law or force is to be used for nothing except the administration
of universal justice.”“...leave people alone. God
has given organs to this frail creature; let them develop and
grow strong by exercise, use, experience, and liberty.”
“Away with the
whims of governmental administrators...now that the legislators
and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted
so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they
should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty;
for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works.”
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