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The law is the collective organization of the individual's right to lawful defense of his life, liberty and property. When it is used for anything else, no matter how noble the cause, it becomes perverted and justice is weakened. Thus, the law has become perverted by stupid greed and false philanthropy.

Frederic Bastiat

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Frederic Bastiat
Age: 49 †
Born: 1801
Born: June 30
Died: 1850
Died: December 24
Economist
Essayist
Magistrate
Philosopher
Politician
Baiona
Claude Frédéric Bastiat
Used
Becomes
False
Perverted
Anything
Liberty
Defense
Lawful
Matter
Causes
Noble
Weakened
Right
Justice
Thus
Philanthropy
Life
Law
Property
Anarchy
Individual
Organization
Collectives
Else
Cause
Collective
Become
Stupid
Greed

More quotes by Frederic Bastiat

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We cannot doubt that self-interest is the mainspring of human nature. It must be clearly understood that this word is used here to designate a universal, incontestable fact, resulting from the nature of man, and not an adverse judgment, as would be the word selfishness.
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Slavery, protection, and monopoly find defenders, not only in those who profit by them, but in those who suffer by them.
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There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.
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It is easier to show the disorder that must accompany reform than the order that should follow it.
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If everyone enjoyed the unrestricted use of his faculties and the free disposition of the fruits of his labor, social progress would be ceaseless, uninterrupted, and unfailing.
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If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?
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Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?
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The law commit legal plunder by violating liberty and property.
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What, then is law [government]? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
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And this is what has taken place. The delusion of the day is to enrich all classes at the expense of each other it is to generalize plunder under pretense of organizing it.
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No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony, and logic. Until the day of my death, I shall proclaim this principle with all the force of my lungs (which alas! is all too inadequate).
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The real cost of the State is the prosperity we do not see, the jobs that don’t exist, the technologies to which we do not have access, the businesses that do not come into existence, and the bright future that is stolen from us. The State has looted us just as surely as a robber who enters our home at night and steals all that we love.
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There are people who think that plunder loses all its immorality as soon as it becomes legal. Personally, I cannot imagine a more alarming situation.
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People are beginning to realize that the apparatus of government is costly. But what they do not know is that the burden falls inevitably on them.
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Legal plunder has two roots: One, as we have just seen, is in human selfishness the other is in false philanthropy.
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If goods don't cross borders, armies will.
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The politician attempts to remedy the evil by increasing the very thing that caused the evil in the first place: legal plunder.
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Taking Five and Returning Four is not Giving
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When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.
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Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough.
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