Great quote! I’ll use it in my “indoctrination” talks to “kids” (17-18-19 year olds) at work. I ask them to describe what government is and when they falter, I relay a similar idea, though much more clumsily than Menkin!
“Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim - when he defends himself - as a criminal.”
Frederic Bastiat
One of the two best political quotes of all time, the other being “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”