Actually, I was thinking of Bastiat's prediction of the Civil War some 10 years before it occurred. You can read The Law in one sitting, its in my profile, check it out.
Perverted Law Causes Conflict
As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose — that it may violate property instead of protecting it — then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious. To know this, it is hardly necessary to examine what transpires in the French and English legislatures; merely to understand the issue is to know the answer.
Is there any need to offer proof that this odious perversion of the law is a perpetual source of hatred and discord; that it tends to destroy society itself? If such proof is needed, look at the United States [in 1850]. There is no country in the world where the law is kept more within its proper domain: the protection of every person's liberty and property. As a consequence of this, there appears to be no country in the world where the social order rests on a firmer foundation. But even in the United States, there are two issues — and only two — that have always endangered the public peace.
Slavery and Tariffs Are Plunder
What are these two issues? They are slavery and tariffs. These are the only two issues where, contrary to the general spirit of the republic of the United States, law has assumed the character of a plunderer.
Slavery is a violation, by law, of liberty. The protective tariff is a violation, by law, of property.
It is a most remarkable fact that this double legal crime — a sorrowful inheritance from the Old World — should be the only issue which can, and perhaps will, lead to the ruin of the Union. It is indeed impossible to imagine, at the very heart of a society, a more astounding fact than this: The law has come to be an instrument of injustice. And if this fact brings terrible consequences to the United States — where the proper purpose of the law has been perverted only in the instances of slavery and tariffs — what must be the consequences in Europe, where the perversion of the law is a principle; a system?
Not bad for a guy dying of TB.
What tax is not slavery and plunder? Are judges and soldiers just going to volunteer their time and supply their own gear?
Actually, I was thinking of Bastiat's prediction of the Civil War some 10 years before it occurred.
He didn't need to be Ms Clio to see that one.
The protective tariff is a violation, by law, of property.
But a property or ad valorum tax is not a violation of property.
Slavery is a violation, by law, of liberty.
And an income tax is not slavery. Neither is inflation, the hidden tax.
A tariff is a sales tax that is levied on imported goods. The only people who are punished by a tariff are those who are not patriotic. Libertarians are the antithesis of patriot because their politics is similar to that of a locust, in that they descend upon a fruit filled plain and selfishly grab all they can get. A tariff makes prices of widgets more expensive because imported widgets have to jump a price hurdle, this allows domestic manufacturers to compete with domestic manufacturers and occasionally the price is higher. As I have observed before though, when a person purchases a widget in this country, they not only get a widget, but they also get a military, a healthcare and legal system, stable currency, high quality of life, a retirement, protection against criminals, maintenance of rights and liberty worldwide, religious freedom, etc. Those imported widgets you get nothing and often times actually build up enemy nations who will later be your landlord and oppressor. A tariff therefore acts as a protection against stupid and selfish people who occupy the land. Bastiat, like most pseduo-intellectuals was trying to be the smartest person in the room, but was a total ignoramous when it came to understanding morality and human nature.
Not bad for a guy dying of TB.
The guy lived in an intellectual and moral vacuum.
Regardless, you seem to be a fellow that appreciates Bastiat but don't realize that you have sided for slavery, because China is a slave nation paying slave wages. But that doesn't bother you because you can send your money to be divied up by the PLA for nuclear weapons to be aimed at your head - and you saved a buck or two on that widget. So when it comes to tariffs or slavery, tariffs to protect our nation, or slavery to go against our nation - you choose slavery and going against our nation. Are you a libertarian?
It is a most remarkable fact that this double legal crime — a sorrowful inheritance from the Old World — should be the only issue which can, and perhaps will, lead to the ruin of the Union. It is indeed impossible to imagine, at the very heart of a society, a more astounding fact than this: The law has come to be an instrument of injustice. And if this fact brings terrible consequences to the United States — where the proper purpose of the law has been perverted only in the instances of slavery and tariffs — what must be the consequences in Europe, where the perversion of the law is a principle; a system?
Not bad for a guy dying of TB.
Hey given teh other quotes from Bastiat I am surprised he got Slavery rtight but really in 1850 that was a gimmie even many in the south admitted the peculiar institution was morally wrong. But one for two for someone who call prtectionism a violation of liberty is not bad. Now if you had cited an economist who actually had some respectability I would say one for two was not good. He got Slavery right he got tariffs wrong. Of course the association of tariffs with slavery was in actuality proslavery peopel were anti-tariff becuase they believed tariffs were part of a system taht would destroy slavery and the pro tariff peolple eventually did do that via a civil war.