No, I first heard about Bastiat's The Law on Doug Wilson's Plodcast (7/15/20) where he mentioned it during his book review section.
"The law perverted! The law—and, in its wake, all the collective forces of the nation—the law, I say, not only diverted from its proper direction, but made to pursue one entirely contrary! The law become the tool of every kind of avarice, instead of being its check! The law guilty of that very iniquity which it was its mission to punish! Truly, this is a serious fact, if it exists, and one to which I feel bound to call the attention of my fellow citizens." -- Frederic Bastiat, The Law
Bastiat argues that God has bestowed on every man the right of personality, property and liberty. The only thing the government has to do to ensure you have these is nothing. It is a negative right. It does not require any action on behalf of anyone else for you to possess. Government's occupation is the protection of these God-given rights. It's lane is limiting itself in order to maximize man. But what Bastiat sees happening is government using laws to limit personality, property and liberty, thus using as a means of restriction what was meant to be a means of freedom.
"I cannot possibly conceive fraternity legally enforced, without liberty being legally destroyed, and justice legally trampled under foot. Legal plunder has two roots: one of them, as we have already seen, is in human greed; the other is in misconceived philanthropy." -- Frederic Bastiat, The Law
Bastiat is opposed to plunder, which he defines as forcibly taking away someone else's personality, property or liberty. The worst brand of plunder he perceives is that of legal plunder performed under the auspices of law. When that which was meant to protect is employed as the vehicle of tyranny, trouble is brewing. This, of course, is the essence of socialism which utilizes laws which empower them to plunder people they determine unfit for the rights God has given them. This can be motivated, obviously, by bald greed or envy in desiring what someone else has and uses whatever means possible to obtain it or it can be motivated, more dangerously, by misguided philanthropy which doesn't understand its own envy.
"When a portion of wealth passes out of the hands of him who has acquired it, without his consent, and without compensation, to him who has not created it, whether by force or by artifice, I say that property is violated, that plunder is perpetrated. I say that this is exactly what the law ought to repress always and everywhere. If the law itself performs the action it ought to repress, I say that plunder is still perpetrated, and even, in a social point of view, under aggravated circumstances." -- Frederic Bastiat, The Law
Theft is theft, even it is the government using law to do it. Plunder is plunder even when performed by law. It is robbing someone of something God gave to them. It is using what God provided (the law) to take what God has provided (the right to personality, property and liberty).
"I am attacking an idea that I believe to be false—a system that appears to me to be unjust; and this is so independent of intentions, that each of us profits by it without wishing it, and suffers from it without being aware of the cause." -- Frederic Bastiat, The Law
One of the most difficult hurdles to overcome in attempting to correct this overreach is first accepting how much it would cost you to stop profiting off of plunder. Much of what we enjoy is systematized plunder. Many programs we benefit from would not exist if plunder were abolished.
"When law and force keep a man within the bounds of justice, they impose nothing upon him but a mere negation. They only oblige him to abstain from doing harm. They violate neither his personality, his liberty, nor his property. They only guard the personality, the liberty, the property of others. They hold themselves on the defensive; they defend the equal right of all. They fulfill a mission whose harmlessness is evident." -- Frederic Bastiat, The Law
When government is godly, it seeks to limit itself. It is aware of its ability to overreach and takes explicit measures to keep itself from doing so and resisting the insistence of others that it overreach on their behalf.
"In fact, it is not justice that has an existence of its own, it is injustice. The one results from the absence of the other." -- Frederic Bastiat, The Law
Injustice is the law of the land in a sinful world. If nothing is done, injustice reigns. So it isn't that the government should do nothing, but that it should only operate inasmuch as it works against injustice. Injustice here being defined by infringing upon one's God-given rights of personality, property and liberty.
"Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds Government and society. And so, every time we object to a thing being done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of education by the State—then we are against education altogether. We object to a State religion—then we would have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by the State then we are against equality, etc., etc. They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the cultivation of corn by the State." -- Frederic Bastiat, The Law
Socialism is the political manifestation of egalitarianism just as feminism is its sexual manifestation. It states that if education is important then the government should be involved, if religion is important, the government, again, should be involved. It puts itself in the place of God as the creator and sustainer of essential rights. It assumes the role of father and husband to a people in providing and protecting them rather than entrusting these to God the Father and His Son, the bridegroom.
"This is the high road to communism; in other words, legislation will be—as it now is—the battlefield for everybody’s dreams and everybody’s covetousness." -- Frederic Bastiat, The Law
Once it is realized that this is how the game is played, the battlefield becomes which laws are passed and which laws are enforced. Some laws are on the books but not enforced. Some laws are not on the books, but enforced as ferociously as if they were. Policing is inescapable. It is not a matter of whether we will have police, but what will be policed. Legislation becomes a battle over definitions. At the end of the day, it is a fight over the dictionary which ultimately matters. What "hate" and "help" means determines who is arrested and who is applauded.
"Which are the happiest, the most moral, and the most peaceable nations? Those where the law interferes the least with private activity; where the Government is the least felt; where individuality has the most scope, and public opinion the most influence; where the machinery of the administration is the least important and the least complicated; where taxation is lightest and least unequal, popular discontent the least excited and the least justifiable; where the responsibility of individuals and classes is the most active, and where, consequently, if morals are not in a perfect state, at any rate they tend incessantly to correct themselves." -- Frederic Bastiat, The Law
A place where the government is least felt is a place you want to be. Where personal responsibility is high and outside interference is low. This is the place God would have us pray for.
1 Timothy 2:1-2
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.
A faithless generation entrusts its justice to godless systems of plunder in order to secure a false sense of freedom. Not only is it faithless in looking to Washington, D.C. instead of the New Jerusalem, but it is also faithless in marching against Heaven's decrees in an attempt to create a new heaven and earth of its own.
Galatians 5:1
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
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