Bad People
March 2, 2009
Most people spend so much time worrying about how society is going to deal with the “bad” people, that they’ve completely lost sight of what happens to the good people — if they ever had sight of the good people to begin with. And if you forget about the good people, you’re leaving the door wide open for those you fear the most.
I don’t give a damn what happens to anyone who is objectively “bad,” and therefore, I find it foolish, counterproductive, and wasteful (among other things), to arrange a societal framework round these folk.
If you look closely you’ll see that a society of laws, when organized in such fashion, quickly becomes the antithesis of just. As the law itself is used increasingly to define what is (or is not) “bad”, people vie to control the law in order to wield its awesome power over others, and class warfare is born! Viz., good people shouldn’t need a ruler, although some of them they may feel they should have one nonetheless. Yet, who has the strongest incentive to rule over otherwise good individuals, but he who is least fit for the duty?
Only an evil man finds it necessary or advantageous to rule over good men.
And the law as an apparatus of control is a necessary condition for the establishment of tyranny.
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“The rule of law” is always set up as the best thing, the ideal, the barometer of what is good and wrong, but law can be used for evil, too, and it doesn’t guarantee any good outcomes, much less people’s liberty. Nice article.
In the words of Robert Lefevre:
“If men are inherently good, we don’t need government. If men are inherently bad or apathetic, we don’t dare form one.”
Sigh… so true, but if only it were so easy to make folks see it.
I See Good People!
Fuck the law, we don’t need it.
The main problem is the fact that the State creates more supposedly bad people than bad people that actually exists.
Anarcho-pragmatiste March 3, 2009 3:47 pm
The main problem is the fact that the State creates more supposedly bad people than bad people that actually exists.
No. The main problem is that the State allows bad people to find a home.
If there are .01% of society – I made that up, but it does not diminish the point – that wish to control others, how would that percentage increase when you move closer to those centers of power that allow these folks to exercise that power?
@ Gilligan –
I think what AP meant was that by decree, the state creates an entire class of people deemed “bad” in the eyes of the law.
It is also true that the actual number of truly bad actors increases to some extent, as consequences of state interference/intervention, and also that the state magnifies the capacity (and incentives) for any of these individuals to do wrong.
Ah. Thanks for the clarification, David.
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