day no. 16,032: capitalization

"God has implanted in mankind also all that is necessary to enable it to accomplish its destinies... Away, then, with quacks and organizers! Away with their rings, and their chains, and their hooks, and their pincers! Away with their artificial methods! Away with their social laboratories, their governmental whims, their centralization, their tariffs, their universities, their State religions, their inflationary or monopolizing banks, their limitations, their restrictions, their moralizations, and their equalization by taxation! And now, after having vainly inflicted upon the social body so many systems, let them end where they ought to have begun—reject all systems, and try liberty—liberty, which is an act of faith in God and in His work." - Frederic Bastiat, The Law

Liberty is an act of faith in God. It takes self-control to leave other people alone and to conduct yourself in such a way as to not inspire the interjection of others. But self-control is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. It doesn't come naturally, only supernaturally. The impulse is to interfere and to utilize the government to force others to be or do what you prefer. But in God's economy, rights are given to His people by Him and government is set in place to ensure no one else takes those rights from them and to punish any attempt to do so as evil. Government in God's world can be small because He is big. In a world boxing God out, it is not surprising to the see size of the State swollen. Gods must be large and in charge and if you ignore the capital G (God), you will seek to capitalize the lowercase one (government). Every people appeals to their Capital. 

day no. 16,031: the answer to every prayer or the leverage to answer them yourself

"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

They say that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, but the high road to communism is paved with bad legislation. 

When government is God, it bears the weight of every failure to provide for what it promises. A god who can't keep their word, after all, is not a god at all. You don't blame your daydreams for leading you on, but you do blame your idols when they under-deliver.

The State then is either the answer to every prayer or the leverage used to answer yours prayers at the expense of others. It either is the highest power to which an appeal can be made or the greatest power one can brandish to exert power.

Socialism exists where law has become the battlefield of everybody's dreams and everybody's covetousness. It is energized by envy. It is predicated upon sin. It needs sin to exist in order to survive, so it seeks to enshrine it in our hearts by establishing it as our law.

day no. 16,030: ye the sheople

"One of the strangest phenomena of our time, and one that will probably be a matter of astonishment to our descendants, is the doctrine which is founded upon this triple hypothesis: the radical passiveness of mankind,— the omnipotence of the law,—the infallibility of the legislator: this is the sacred symbol of the party that proclaims itself exclusively democratic." - Frederic Bastiat, The Law

In other words, modern democratic policy presupposes that people won't think, act, or speak how they're supposed to without laws that compel them to think, act, or speak as they should. Therefore legislation must include incentives for proper thoughts, actions, and communications; and penalties for improper thoughts, actions, or communications. Those with the power to pass laws know what is best for us as to where we ought to be going and how best to get us there. This unholy trinity of presuppositions is nothing new. It is alive and well and killing liberty left and right. pun intended)

1. the radical passiveness of mankind: no one knows what is best for them self.

(and by "no one" the legislators conveniently exempt themselves, meaning "no one else" knows)

2. the omnipotence of the law: laws should be made that force people toward what is best for them.

(and by "people" the legislators again exempt themselves, meaning "other people")

3. the infallibility of the legislator: our laws will liberate you from previous laws.

(and by "liberate” they mean "enslave” to our new laws)

day no. 16,029: a socialist makes laws the way a capitalist makes widgets

"You would oppose law to socialism. But it is the law that socialism invokes. It aspires to legal, not extralegal plunder. It is of the law itself, like monopolists of all kinds, that it wants to make an instrument; and when once it has the law on its side, how will you be able to turn the law against it? How will you place it under the power of your tribunals, your gendarmes, and of your prisons? What will you do then? You wish to prevent it from taking any part in the making of laws. You would keep it outside the Legislative Palace. In this you will not succeed, I venture to prophesy, so long as legal plunder is the basis of the legislation within." - Frederic Bastiat, The Law

If any socialist principle of legal plunder is adopted by a system, it will be impossible for that system to resist being entirely overrun by socialism further down the line.

Capitalism is the freedom to make and to sell, to buy and to keep. Crapitalism (socialism in seed form) is the tyranny of making laws which make the making, selling, buying, and keeping of things more difficult, if not impossible. Craptialism doesn't make or manufacture anything except laws. It produces in legislation what Capitalism produces in widgets. It makes red tape and bills and acts and amendments, but nothing of substance. It still depends on someone else to make things. In fact, it now insists that they do, it's one of their new laws. And the fines for not conforming are just another revenue stream for them. Crapitalism survives off of taxes and fines for non-compliance. This is what the ol' fashioned used to call, "slavery," only now it is marketed under the guise of "liberty" because of the benefits package it secures for its servants.

A socialist makes laws the way a capitalist makes widgets.

Beware of those who spend their time and energy making laws and making it harder for anyone else to spend their time and energy freely making, selling, buying, and keeping things.

day no. 16,028: when law and morality are made to be in opposition

"When law and morality are in contradiction to each other, the citizen finds himself in the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense, or of losing his respect for the law—two evils of equal magnitude, between which it would be difficult to choose." - Frederic Bastiat, The Law

Immoral legislation forces the governed to either despise the law or to despise morality. Either they are forced to fight back against their sense of civic dutifulness or they must fight their sense of civility, but something has to give. You cannot suppress morality with laws and maintain order. Either a respect for immoral law will lead to lawlessness or a respect for morality will lead to a usurpation of immoral law. Legal immorality and illegal morality end the same way: the corruption of those who accept them.

day no. 16,027: legal fiction and narrative truth

"It (the law) has acted in direct opposition to its proper end; it has destroyed its own object; it has been employed in annihilating that justice which it ought to have established, in effacing amongst Rights, that limit which it was its true mission to respect; it has placed the collective force in the service of those who wish to traffic, without risk and without scruple, in the persons, the liberty, and the property of others; it has converted plunder into a right, that it may protect it, and lawful defense into a crime, that it may punish it." - Frederic Bastiast, The Law

When the law is used to promote what is unlawful and to punish that which is law-abiding, it ceases to be legal. It is out of step with its aim. It cannot be upheld by injustice. It is out of alignment with its standard.

The law must answer to the Law-giver. A resolution passed does not a divine mandate make. The days cannot be lengthened by legislation. Bills can be passed redefining what a day is, but they have no affect on the hustle of the heavenlies. Light travels at the same rate regardless. Executive orders have no jurisdiction over what is just.

When laws are weaponized to forbid what God commands and to command what God forbids, the laws and lesser law-makers are under condemnation and the people are obligated to fire them. Legal fiction must be edited by narrative truth.

day no. 16,026: one body or one by one?

"The whole people is above the king, and likewise taken in one entire body, are in authority before him, yet being considered one by one, they are all of them under the king." -- Junius Brutus, Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos

Kings serve the kingdom while reigning over the individuals. Kings receive authority from the kingdom. A people can exist without a king, but a king cannot exist without a people. Earthly kingdoms precede their kings. Kingdoms have their authority to declare one from among them as their king while kings have the authority to declare one a subject, but the kingdom does not answer to the king, the king answers to the kingdom. The king is free to appoint advisers to his cabinet, but he is forbidden from appointing elders to the community. They are equally accountable to their people. The people as one body are permitted to place a crown on their own head or rings upon their own fingers, but the king as one man is not permitted to cast off any of his citizens without cause.