http://lexrex.com/informed/otherdocuments/thelaw/main.htm

If you've read this and have some thoughts to share, I'd enjoy a discussion. :)

I have read this. There is nothing that I could possibly add to "http://lexrex.com/informed/otherdocuments/thelaw/main.htm".

The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish!

I read the following:



If that's his basic position and the rest of his book is just a justification of this position then I basically agree. I'm not sure if I agree with his specific justifications, but overall I agree with his conclusion.

I've known this since my early teens. It's not news to me.

The law perverted!1 And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made2 to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become3 the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils4 it is supposed to punish!

I also enjoy the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville, who was philosophically very similar to Bastiat.

Havent seen you in a while Spidercmb

Hey mirrormirror...I was waiting for a download to finish and got bored. How have you been?

Pretty good. How are you doing?

Getting by.

If that's his basic position and the rest of his book is just a justification of this position then I basically say: (smile!)

1. Pervert as a verb is transitive. "The law IS perverted" would make more sense.
2. Make is a transitive verb too. Again, it would make sense in the passive.
3. Become is present tense; change of tense here is not warranted; and if it is the present tense, then since it's third person singular (the law), it is in conjugated incorrectly.
4. This sentence needs a verb.
5. (Unmarked but obvious) each sentence is an exclamation.

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The law of ideas is language, syntax in particular. It may or may not be true that law has been perverted, but the author is doing the language in the rear big time.

I care about language more than about law. Law is logical, it is almost immediately obvious what is against the law and what is not, especially if someone spends some time in the society of a particular set of laws. Language ought to have been the same way, and I wonder about the capacity of a person to recognise a perverted or ineffectual or unjust legal system, when he or she can't recognise the workings of another system, which is much simpler than law, and which has been with the author much longer than the author's awareness of law.

Please call me an egghead, or a pedantic nit-picker or any other name. I also know names. We can have a mud-slinging contest if you like.

I would like to avoid that. If you want to enter into that, I'll read the article and give it my best and tell you precisely what I think of it.

For starters:

It is not the function of law to punish the evil. That is the function of religions, deity and morals.

Law is a system of consensus of rules that define how each one in a society should behave. If you say law is perverted, then you say that the consensus is perverted. Law is applied to all, and it is made by the representatives of most. If law was made a different way, then law would be the will of a few. I don't think that's the case.

Perversion means, broadly, "deviation from the norm." The law is made by the representatives of the most, so it IS the norm, by definition. Therefore law is not perverted.

Perversion means, broadly, "deviation from the norm." The law is made by the representatives of the most, so it IS the norm, by definition. Therefore law is not perverted.