-Caveat Lector-
On 99-09-30 07:42:18 EDT, Das GOAT pointed out:
> ..."the Law" is what's killed JUSTICE,
> each and every step along the way.
More accurately 'legislation' (i.e., the words and
scribbles of shysters and scoundrels masquerading
around a 'da gubbmint') is what killed natural law
and 'natural justice' every step along the way:
Natural justice is either law, or it is not.
If it be law, it is always law, and nothing
inconsistent with it can ever be made law.
If it be not law, then we have no law except
that which is prescribed by the reigning
power of the state; and all idea of justice
being any part of our system of law, any
further than it may be specially prescribed,
ought to be abandoned; and government
ought to acknowledge that its authority rests
solely on its power to compel submission,
and that there is not necessarily any moral
obligation of obedience to its mandate.
On this principle, then -- that mere will or
power are competent to establish the law that
is to govern an act, without reference to the
justice or injustice of the act itself, the
will and power of any single individual to
commit theft, would be sufficient to make
theft lawful, as lawful as is any other act
of injustice, which the will and power of
communities, or large bodies of men,
may be united to accomplish.
[...]
If our governments would but themselves
adhere to natural law, there would be little
occasion to complain of the ignorance of the
people in regard to it. The popular ignorance
of law [that is, just law] is attributable
mainly to the innovations that have been made
upon natural law by legislation; whereby our
system has become an incongruous mixture of
natural and statute law, with no uniform
principle pervading it. To learn such a
system, - if system it can be called, and
if learned it can be, - is a matter of very
similar difficulty to what it would take to
learn a system of mathematics, which should
consist of the mathematics of nature,
interspersed with such other mathematics
as might be created by legislation, in
violation of all the natural principles
of numbers and quantities.
> When will we ever realize that "the law" is
> SUBSEQUENT to our rights and liberty, NOT the
> SOURCE of these, and seldom if ever the GUARANTOR
> of our freedoms?
The ultimate truth on this subject is, that
man has an inalienable right to so much
personal liberty as he will use without
invading the rights of others. This liberty
is an inherent right of his nature and his
faculties. It is an inherent right of his
nature and faculties to develop [sic]
themselves freely, and without restraint
from other natures and faculties, that
have no superior prerogatives to his own.
And this right has only this limit, viz.,
that he do not carry the exercise of his
own liberty so far as to restrain or infringe
the equally free development of the natures
and faculties of others. The dividing lines
between the equal liberties of each must
never be transgressed by either. This
principle is the foundation and essence
of law and of civil right. And legitimate
government is formed by the voluntary
association of individuals, for the mutual
protection of each of them in the enjoyment
of this natural liberty, against those who
may be disposed to invade it.
[...]
Everybody has a natural right, as individuals,
to punish other men for their crimes; for
everybody has a natural right not only to
defend his own person and property against
aggressors, but also to go to the assistance
and defense of everybody else, whose person
or property is invaded. The natural right
of each individual to defend his own person
and property against an aggressor, and to go
to the assistance and defense of every one
else whose person or property is invaded,
is a right without which men could not exist
on the earth. And government has no rightful
existence, except in so far as it embodies,
and is limited by, this natural right of
individuals.
[...]
It is impossible that a government should
have any rights, except such as the
individuals composing it had previously
had, as individuals. They could not delegate
to a government any rights which they did not
themselves possess. They could not contribute
to the government any rights, except such as
they themselves possessed as individuals.
[...]
What, then, is legislation? It is an
assumption by one man, or body of men, of
absolute, irresponsible dominion over all
other men whom they can subject to their
power. It is an assumption by one man, or
body of men, of a 'right' to subject all
other men to their will and their service.
It is an assumption by one man, or body of
men, of a right to abolish outright all the
natural rights, all the natural liberty of
all other men... to arbitrarily dictate to
all other men what they may, and may not do;
what they may, and may not, have; what they
may, and may not, be. It is, in short, the
assumption of a right to banish the principle
of human rights, the principle of justice
itself, from off the earth, and set up their
own personal will, pleasure, and interest in
its place. All this, and nothing less, is
involved in the very idea that there can be
any such thing as legislation that is
obligatory upon whom it is imposed.
[...]
The greatest of all crimes... are committed,
not so much by men who violate the laws, as
by men who, either by themselves or by their
instruments, *make* the laws; by men who have
combined to usurp arbitrary power, and to
maintain it by force and fraud, and whose
purpose in usurping and maintaining it is
by unjust and unequal legislation, to secure
to themselves such advantages and monopolies
as will enable them to control and extort
the labor and properties of other men, and
thus impoverish them, in order to minister
to their own wealth and aggrandizement. The
robberies and wrongs thus committed by these
men, in conformity with the laws -- that is,
their *own* laws -- are as mountains to
molehills, compared with the crimes committed
by all other criminals, in violation of the
laws.
> The Founding Fathers of our revolutionary nation
> must be rolling over in their graves!
The practical difficulty with our government
has been that most of those who have
administered it have taken it for granted
that the Constitution, as it is written,
was a thing of no importance; that it
neither said what it meant, nor meant
what it said; that it was gotten up by
swindlers... who said a great many good
things, which they did not mean, and meant
a great many bad things, which they dared
not say; that these men, under the false
pretense of a government resting on the
consent of the whole people, designed to
entrap them into a government of a part,
who should be powerful and fraudulent enough
to cheat the weaker portion out of all the
good things that were said, but not meant,
and subject them to all the bad things that
were meant, but not said. And most of those
who have administered the government, have
assumed that all these swindling intentions
were to be carried into effect, in place of
the written Constitution....
--Lysander Spooner
see also:
II. LEGAL INDETERMINACY AND NEED FOR NATURAL LAW
by Randy E. Barnett; Austin B. Fletcher Professor
at Boston University School of Law
<http://lysanderspooner.org/PLJ1II.htm>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<http://www.geocities.com/philately.geo/>
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