On the Purpose of Law

Neat and readable essay which should drive a stake through the heart of the Statists in the West.

...One of the most fundamental ideas of Western classical liberalism is that the state’s central government can’t pretend to adjudicate, as if for the ages, all the questions of right and wrong that arise in the consciences of men. This is why America’s Framers were so careful to place checks on the incorrigible tendency of a central government to take on that heroic project. But collectivist movements see it the opposite way. As far as they’re concerned, central governments that are out crusading with laundry lists of hortatory moral law are doing exactly what central governments exist for.

Americans have largely lost sight of how deeply collectivist and anti-libertarian it is to talk about public issues as if writing detailed laws – laws intended to coerce everyone to a single solution – is the only way to address them.

And that's only a part of it.

The above passage underlines inter alia the Law of Subsidiarity, as does the rest of the essay--which happens to begin with comments on essays on the Abortion Question.

HT: Optimistic