03 Sep 2006
No Treason VI

Lysander SpoonerLysander Spooner (1808-1887) was a Massachussetts barrister noted for his vigorous and brilliant opposition to the steady encroachment of the State upon the liberty of the individual. A businessman as well as a legal scholar, he challenged the postal monopoly by setting up the American Letter Mail Company in 1844, resulting in sharply reduced postage rates, and eventually the Private Express Statues, banning private delivery of first class mail.

This little treatise had a profound effect on my political thinking when I first encountered it in 1970 in a reprint edition from the now defunct Society for Libertarian Life. It remains as powerful and fresh as when first written in 1870. Playboy Magazine called it "the most subversive document ever penned in this nation...", and that may be an understatement.

Like the Emperor in the famous fairy tale, the Constitution has no clothes when Spooner gets done with it. The excerpt below, comparing the government to a highwayman, should give you a feel for the flavor.

The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a "protector," and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to "protect" those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful "sovereign," on account of the "protection" he affords you. He does not keep "protecting" you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.

The proceedings of those robbers and murderers, who call themselves "the government," are directly the opposite of these of the single highwayman.

(No Treason VI: The Constitution of No Authority) [Lysander Spooner]

19:21 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link