Liberty and the Magistrate
The citizen should not dutifully accept government intrusion as the price of community life.
1720-1723
King George I 1714-1727
The citizen should not dutifully accept government intrusion as the price of community life.
1720-1723
King George I 1714-1727
In the early eighteenth century, some argued that those who enjoy the benefits of living in our society should accept that the authorities will police our spending, our behaviour and even our opinions as they think best. But the benefits of society do not come from having our liberties curtailed, objected John Trenchard MP. They come from having them protected.
original spelling
BY Liberty, I understand the Power which every Man has over his own Actions, and his Right to enjoy the Fruits of his Labour, Art, and Industry, as far as by it he hurts not the Society, or any Members of it, by taking from any Member, or by hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys.
The Fruits of a Man’s honest Industry are the just Rewards of it, ascertain’d to him by natural and eternal Equity, as is his Title to use them in the Manner he thinks fit: And thus, with the above Limitations, every Man is sole Lord and Arbiter of his own private Actions and Property — A Character of which no Man living can divest him but by Usurpation, or his own Consent.
The ent’ring into political Society, is so far from a Departure from this natural Right, that to preserve it, was the sole Reason why Men did so, and mutual Protection and Alliance is the only reasonable Purpose of all reasonable Societies.