Pamphlets Across Anthos

[Nicodemus 6]

In every nation, in various cities, in pubs, outside stores, near noticeboards, and secretly tucked into some library shelves, are several pamphlets. Each one contains the same writing, but they all seem to vary widely in both the quality of the penmanship, and the age of the paper. It is apparent that these are all, the dozens and dozens of them, hand copies that have taken a very long time to duplicate. On the front of each pamphlet, in large letters is the word: Law. Underneath, in small cursive is a name unheard-of, clearly a pen name: Niphred Feld.

 

Law
 

The races have been given by God the gift which includes all others. This
gift is life: physical, intellectual, and moral life. But life cannot sustain
itself without action. The creator of life has assigned each individual the
responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting it. In order that one
may accomplish this, he has provided all with a stunning array of capabilities,
and he has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the
application of our capabilities to these natural resources we convert them into
products, and use them. This process is necessary in order that life may run
its appointed course.

Life, capabilities, and production, in other words: individuality, liberty,
and property, these are what define all races. Regardless of the slyness of
artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all legislation,
and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men
have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property
existed at the start that induced the races to make laws.

So then, what is law? It is the collective union of the individual right to
protect oneself.

Each of us has a natural right to defend his person, his liberty, and his
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. For what are our capabilities but the extension of our individuality? And
what is property but an extension of our capabilities? If every person has the
right to defend, even by force, his person, his liberty, and his property, then
it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common
force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective
right, indeed its basis for existing and its legitimacy, is based on individual
right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot
logically have any other purpose or any other mission than this. 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.

If what has been said is true, then the Law is the organization of the
natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for
individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual
forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties,
and properties.

If any nation were founded on this basis, it seems to me that order would
prevail among the people, in thought as well as in deed. It seems to me that
such a nation would have the simplest, easy to accept, economical, nonoppressive,
just, and enduring government imaginable, whatever its political form might be.

But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its appropriate role.
And when it surpasses its proper functions, it does not do so merely in a few unimportant
and debatable matters. 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 was supposed
to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to
respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the corrupt
who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others.
It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has
converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense.

((This is a recreation of several main parts, especially the intro, of a mid-1800's essay by Frederic Bastiat. It is, quite obviously, without copyright, but I have still changed parts, both for the sake of prose, and to change references to 'men' to races. I also changed a lot of it so I don't get unduly attacked about plagarism.))

 

[Sentlit 108]

A small smile appears on Cyrus' face as he reads one of the pamphlets that he found tucked in between a few books at a local library. He mumbles to himself, "I should meet this Niphred Feld. He is a brilliant man." He then folds up the pamphlet, tucking it in his belt.