We Debate Perversion Of Plunder

Discussing a photo op for the status quo of plunder — an alleged presidential debate — a colleague asked what voters wanted in a candidate.

Well, they want the one who promises the most, the one who will pervert the law and plunder other citizens.

Candidates on stage two years before an election is a measure of the loot involved. It is a measure of perversion.

We believe in the natural rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. These ensure human survival and progress.

Existence we call life. To carry on our existence, we apply our faculties to resources. This we call liberty. Application of faculties to resources results in assimilation. This we call property.

Hungry, Jack applies his faculties. He surveys his resources. He sees a rock and a buffalo. He then exercises his liberty in the pursuit of happiness. He picks up the rock, thus acquiring property, stalks the beast a full day and hammers it between the horns, acquiring more property: dinner, an after-dinner coat and horns for his hat.

Through intelligence, when humans exercise their natural rights, progress follows.

Jack invents the wheel. He tames a horse. He hooks both to a chariot, with which he now slays a buffalo in an hour, leaving time to take his girlfriend parking. That's progress.

This morning, Jack's girlfriend Jill assimilated a cup of Starbucks by the same principles.

The rights of the individual — life, liberty and pursuit of happiness — precede laws. They are the reason laws are made. Jack, Jill and others formed a common force to defend their individual rights, the exercise of their liberty to acquire buffalo and Starbucks.

The collective power of law defends the rights of the individuals who formed it. It acts in the individual's place. If that is so, then the collective power cannot legitimately exercise any power beyond what the individual could do.

Any collective action beyond the defense of individual life, liberty and pursuit of happiness contradicts the reason for law's existence.

Of necessity, we pick a person or a group to legislate the law. Then, regrettably, human nature perverts the law from its intent.

We have among us two types.

The first type satisfies his needs and wants through his own labor. The second finds an easier, less painful path, as humans naturally will do. He satisfies his wants by plundering the labor of others.

When plunder becomes easier and less dangerous than work, plunder prevails.

Notice what our candidates discuss. It is wars on global warming, drugs and terrorism, "free" government services, tougher regulation or "rights" for this group or that.

We get the same rhetoric we have heard for generations, only more of it, as selfish interests thrust their hands into the pockets of their fellows, trying to get their cut of the loot.

Conflict arises as selfish interests fight for favor. Other citizens see this perversion with growing contempt for law, now an instrument not to protect rights but to plunder the rights of others.

The false philanthropists say to Jack, "We take your dollar — the sweat of your labor, your life, liberty and pursuit of happiness — for good works, to give to one in dire need."

Jack replies he has needs of his own. He notes that the one in need got only part of his dollar. The rest went to lobbyists, politicians and bureaucrats who haggled over it in Georgetown restaurants, chatted it up in limousines and split the take in office suites. Jack says he could have given more himself.

Once, a few plundered the many. More so, the many plunder a few.

We might have a real debate: Can our rights withstand a relentless assault of perverts?

Phil Lucas is executive editor of The News Herald in Panama City, Fla. Contact him at plucas@pcnh.com. To find out more about Lucas and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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