-- Men are born free, and since they begin with no government, they must therefore institute government by voluntary agreement, and thus government must be their agent, not their superior. Since volition is a function of the individual, the individual has the precedent right. Then even if it was presumed that government did equate roughly with the moral shortcomings of humanity, it should still be limited and subsidiary. If everyone were invariably honest, able, wise, and kind, there should be no occasion for government. ....But since human beings will sometimes lie, shirk, break promises, fail to improve their faculties, act imprudently, seize by violence the goods of others, and even kill one another in anger or greed, the government might be defined as the police organization. In that case, it must be described as a necessary evil. It would have no existence as a separate entity, and no intrinsic authority; it could not be justly empowered to act excepting as individuals infringed one anothers rights, when it should enforce prescribed penalties.... As such, the least practicable measure of government must be the best. Anything beyond the minimum must be oppression -- Isabel Paterson (1886-1961), philosopher and author of The God of the Machine.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 19:05:01 +0000
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