Law And Politics Essay, Research Paper

“While every law restricts individual freedom to some extent by altering the means which people may use in the pursuit of their aims. Within the known rules of the game the individual is free to pursue his personal ends and desires, certain that the powers of government will not be used deliberately to frustrate his efforts.”

- Friedrich Hayek

What is law? Webster says that is, The collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense (Law). Each of us has a natural right to defend our person, our liberty, and our 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 (Felkins). Every person has the right to defend even by force his/her person, liberty, and property. On this basis, an individual can t lawfully use force to destroy another person. Furthermore, the people of a nation (possibly through elected officials) should have the right to choose which laws are just and which ones are not.

If a nation were founded on this basis, it seems that order would prevail among the people. Furthermore, such a nation would have the simplest, easiest to accept, most limited, nonoppressive, just, and enduring, government imaginable whatever its political form might be. Under such an administration, everyone would understand that they possessed all the privileges as well as all the responsibilities of their existence. No one would have any alliance with the government. When successful we would not have to thank the politicians for our success (Donald). Moreover, conversely, we would no more think of blaming them for our misfortune than would the farmers blame them for a poor harvest due to inclement weather.

Unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its proper functions. 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 is supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights, which its real purpose was to respect. It has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense (Spooner). As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose that it may violate property instead of protecting it then everyone will want to participate in making the law, to protect their selves.

There is no country in the world where the law is kept more within its domain (the protection of every person s liberty and property) than here in America (ACLU). As a consequence of this, there appears to be no country in the world where the social order rests on a former foundation. However, even in the United States the public peace is endangered.

People say that there are those who have no money; so you turn to the law –welfare. The law, however, does not promote equality of income; the law only takes from one person and gives to another person. When the law does this, it is unjust. With this in mind, examine relief and welfare schemes. One will find that they are always based on legal theft (welfare for one person through taxation of another) or organized injustice (Guidubaldi).

Politicians confuse the distinction between government and society (Benson). As a result of this, every time one objects to something being done in government, the legislators conclude that is what is best for them must be best for all of us. For example, the people want a tax break; so the politicians, being mostly wealthy, rewrite the tax law in order certain people a break; these certain people being the wealthy which just so happens to include their selves. It is as though politicians don t want any equality in the laws.

All Americans have been given what is necessary for them to accomplish their dreams. Bestowed within us are innate abilities: intelligence, physical prowess, and hope. The constitution has provided us with law and liberty (United States). We all hope to never lose any of these things but, have the politicians inflicted so many systems and unjust laws on the people that we may never be able to fully realize our dreams? Will they ever realize that the only true laws are equal ones?

Works Cited

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Dye, Thomas R. Politics In America Third Ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Prentice Hall.

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Spooner, Lysander. Natural Law: Part First. http://www.jim.com/jamesd/spooner.htm.

10 Feb 2000.

ACLU: American Civil Liberties Union. Home Page. http://www.aclu.org/index.html.

10 Feb 2000.

Guidubaldi, John D.Ed., L.P., L.P.C.C. Minority Report and Policy Recommendations of the

United States Commission On Child and Family Welfare. July 1996.

http://users.erols.com/afc/minority1.htm. 10 Feb 2000.

Felkins, Leon. Property and Liberty: You can’t give up one without losing the other.

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Bastiat, Frederick. The Law. June 1850. http://www.jim.com/jamesd/bastiat.htm. 10 Feb 2000.

Benson, Bruce. The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State.

http://www.jim.com/jamesd/custom.htm. 10 Feb 2000.

United States. The Constitution of the United States. Bill of Rights. 1789

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