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Bob here's the connection to 911 and Aurora I think most miss...
A good antidote, this, for those political superstitions which so
widely prevail. A good check upon that sentiment of power worship which
still misleads us by magnifying the prerogatives of constitutional
governments as it once did those of monarchs. Let men learn that a
legislature is not "our God upon earth," though, by the authority they
ascribe to it, and the things they expect from it, they would seem to
think it is. Let them learn rather that it is an institution serving a
purely temporary purpose, whose power, when not stolen, is at the best
borrowed.
Nay, indeed, have we not seen that government is essentially immoral?
Is it not the offspring of evil, bearing about it all the marks of its
parentage? Does it not exist because crime exists? Is it not strong, or,
as we say, despotic, when crime is great? Is there not more liberty,
that is, less government, as crime diminishes? And must not government
cease when crime ceases, for very lack of objects on which to perform
its function?
Not only does magisterial power exist because of evil, but it exists
by evil. Violence is employed to maintain it; and all violence involves
criminality. Soldiers, policemen, and jailers, swords, batons, and
fetters, are instruments for inflicting pain; and all infliction of pain
is in the abstract wrong.
A good antidote, this, for those political superstitions which so
widely prevail. A good check upon that sentiment of power worship which
still misleads us by magnifying the prerogatives of constitutional
governments as it once did those of monarchs. Let men learn that a
legislature is not "our God upon earth," though, by the authority they
ascribe to it, and the things they expect from it, they would seem to
think it is. Let them learn rather that it is an institution serving a
purely temporary purpose, whose power, when not stolen, is at the best
borrowed.
Nay, indeed, have we not seen that government is essentially immoral?
Is it not the offspring of evil, bearing about it all the marks of its
parentage? Does it not exist because crime exists? Is it not strong, or,
as we say, despotic, when crime is great? Is there not more liberty,
that is, less government, as crime diminishes? And must not government
cease when crime ceases, for very lack of objects on which to perform
its function?
Not only does magisterial power exist because of evil, but it exists
by evil. Violence is employed to maintain it; and all violence involves
criminality. Soldiers, policemen, and jailers, swords, batons, and
fetters, are instruments for inflicting pain; and all infliction of pain
is in the abstract wrong.
