Sunday, April 4, 2010

Bastiat

Today's quote comes from the very first Anarcho-Capitalist Frederic Bastiat.

"The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else"

I think this quote is extremely relevant for today when so many in our society feel entitled to live by the state and when people speak out against the welfare state they are attacked by the state. Bastiat noticed this as well.

"Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim - when he defends himself - as a criminal."

If I choose not to pay my taxes because I know they will go to provide entitlement to someone else the police will arrest me and a judge will fine me or send me to prison. The state is so readily abused that I question the need for it at all.

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