But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.
Frederic BastiatThe law has been perverted through the influence of two very different causes-naked greed and misconceived philanthropy.
Frederic BastiatWhat, then is law [government]? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
Frederic BastiatThe worst thing that can happen to a good cause is not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended.
Frederic BastiatWhen plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.
Frederic BastiatIf the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?
Frederic Bastiat