Earlier this month I mentioned that I had started building a library of foundational documents of American liberty. I'm nearing the end of John Locke's The Two Treatises of Government and it has been tough reading. I've discovered that in order to understand I need to read it out loud, which is the way that the Ancients read, or so I've been told. That's made it slow, but I'm definitely glad to have put in the effort.
I thought that I'd just provide an excerpt or two as food for thought. Also, it's neat to think that our Founding Fathers had read these words and found in them inspiration to begin the American experiment.
This first one calls to mind a number of issues: eminent domain, abortion, taxes.
For no Body can transfer to another more power than he has in himself; and no Body has an absolute Arbitrary Power over himself, or over any other, to destroy his own Life, or take away the Life or Property of another.
I like this second one because it reminds me that society is not the master of men, but men of society. We the people are over our government, not the other way around. We form a society, not so that it will rule our lives, but so that it will protect our lives and property (the pursuit of happiness) from being impinged upon by the lawless.
And he that has right on his side, having ordinarily but his own single strength, hath not force enough to defend himself from Injuries, or to punish Delinquents. To avoid the Inconveniencies which disorder Mens Properties in the state of Nature, Men unite into Societies, that they may have the united strength of the whole Society to secure and defend their Properties, and may have standing Rules to bound it, by which every one may know what is his.
So what happens when it is society itself that seeks to steal from those it was created to protect? Or, put another way, are you as free as you think you are?
Cross-posted at HammerSwing75. Comments welcome.
