Resisting tyranny depends on the courage to not conform.
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Samizdata quote of the dayNovember 10th, 2021 |
 7 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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Yes it does.
When the law is immoral, unjust or evil, then civil disobedience becomes a duty.
As you know Longrider – the law is the effort to put in formal form (in the circumstances of time and space) the principle of justice, this being to not aggress against the body or good of others.
The difficulty we face is that the word “law” has become perverted – to mean the commands of the state.
Even the Common Law (so called “Judge made law” – although judges do not “make” law, they FIND it) has become perverted by Collectivist “Social Justice” ideas which are not compatible with the principle of justice.
The “legal fiction of the invitee” being one of, sadly, many examples. Where a trespasser (indeed even a burglar – a robber) is treated as being “invited” by the property owner so that they can sue them if injured. True that is a perversion of the Civil Law, not the Criminal Law, but perversions are creeping in to the Criminal Law.
As for the idea that any command of the state is “law” (if, say, this command comes in the shape of an “Act of Parliament”) if that is new definition of “law” then the old Oxbridge entrance exam question “why should we obey the law?” has an easy answer. If (if) the definition of “the law” is the commands (the will of the state), such as “all red headed people must be killed” then one should NOT obey the law – indeed it is a moral disgrace to obey the law, indeed not to actively resist the law.
This can be lot more than Civil Disobedience. If the command of the state (this perverted definition “law”) is, for example, “all red headed people must be killed” Civil Disobedience is NOT enough – one must actively oppose the murder of all red headed people, by all means necessary (including lethal force).
The state does not make such things as murder crimes, they were crimes before any state existed. And nor can the state (nor anyone else) make a crime lawful – by (say) “passing a Statute”.
The purpose of a Statute by the High Court of the Monarch in Parliament is not to “make law” – it is to find out what the law is. It is to apply the principle of natural justice (that one should not aggress against the body or goods of others) to the circumstances of time and place.
This has been lost sight of – and that is the source of the terrible threat that faces civilisation.
To put in other terms – “Legal Positivism”, the doctrine that “law” is the commands the state, undermines the moral authority of “the law”. A series of arbitrary commands has no moral authority – it is based upon nothing apart from force (fear of violence from the state).
As for “public opinion” (so horribly manipulated by Behaviour Modification teams, “Nudge Units”, and-so-on), if “public opinion” violates natural justice (again the classic example “all red haired people must be killed” scream the public) then following “public opinion” is a moral disgrace.
In this context “public opinion” must not just be not-followed – it must be actively opposed.
Law is discovered and from which derives our passive Rights: Liberty; freedom of speech, of association, of movement, to engage in economic activity; to own property; sovereignty of the individual.
Legislation is invented and in 99%+ cases subverts, or over-writes the Law and removes or limits our passive Rights and protection for political gain by giving some groups advantages and powers over others or the majority at the expense of the latter.
Exhibit A: last 18 months.
Parliament’s primary role is to protect the citizen from the State by ensuring no legislation is contrary to either the letter or the spirit of the Common Law.
FAIL.
John B. I agree with all you say here.
Some Members of Parliament (a few) have stood up for fundamental liberties, but as an institution it most clearly failed. As it has been gradually failing for about one and a half centuries – as the state has grown in both size and scope.
On the specific matter of Covid – the Swedish Constitution proved to be of utility in defending basic rights (little pun there), hence the government there is trying to find ways round it. They do not care that the death rate from Covid in Sweden, in spite of them not really bothering with treatment, is about 50th in the world (far lower than the death rate in lockdown Britain or lockdown United States) – because this was never really about Covid (it was about doing what the “international community” has long wanted to do – but had to have an excuse to do).
Various American State Constitutions (forget the Federal Constitution – it depends on a Supreme Court that is out-to-lunch a lot of the time, they were not even prepared to hear the cases of blatant Election Fraud in relation to the 2020 election even after many State Attorney Generals brought a case), were found wanting. A Constitution that can be overridden by the cry of “plague, plague” is not worth the parchment it is written upon.
After all the Premier of Victoria in Australia (a servant of the People’s Republic of China – the leading power of the “International Community” at least as far as Dr Klaus Schwab and his World Economic Forum and United Nations, are concerned) is giving himself the power to declare a “Pandemic” when there are NO CASES AT ALL – it is just so nice to able to scream “pandemic” and then get to enslave and abuse the population as much as you like (at least so thinks Premier Andrews).
In Texas last week the people voted (overwhelmingly) to stop the cry of “plague, plague” (or the cry of “Climate Change” or any other “emergency”) being used to subvert basic liberties, sadly we do not have any way of defending basic liberties in the United Kingdom. We have an “unwritten Constitution” which has turned out to mean “we do not have a Constitution”.
As Roger Sherman said in reply to those (at the Constitutional Convention) who wanted to give the Federal Government the power to create Paper Money “in an Emergency” – it is precisely “in an Emergency” that government needs to be most carefully limited.
Americans are still waiting for the “Emergency” that allowed the government (and its friends the Credit Bubble bankers) to cheat ordinary citizens of their gold in 1933, to be lifted.
And foreign governments are still waiting for Mr Nixon’s “Emergency” of 1971 to be lifted – they are still waiting for the physical gold they were promised for these paper Dollars.
It is 88 years since 1933 and 50 years since 1971 – it is time to accept that the “Emergency” is never going to end. And that the Dollar, far from being “the world reserve currency”, is not really money at all – it is a Credit Bubble SCAM. A scam that benefits a tiny elite at the expense of everyone else – the Cantillon Effect, but on a scale that Richard Cantillon could not have dreamed of in his worst nightmares.
“And the British Pound?”
You work it out – from the same first principles of honest money and honest finance.