Confessions of a Resister - A Good Place to Bomb

LFET ^ | Pierre Lemieux

[Sir Gawain]

Confessions of a Resister

A Good Place to Bomb

by Pierre Lemieux

Compared to our forebears, we have become sissies. I am not even thinking of our American or French revolutionary ancestors but simply of our plain English forebears under the King's peace. A little story will perhaps illustrate what I mean.

It happened in Hull, Québec, during a winter day of 1999. My seminar at the University of Québec at Hull was receiving a guest speaker from another continent. My girlfriend and I had just met him at his hotel in order to take him to lunch before he was to deliver his paper. I had never met him before, had read only one or two articles of his, and had no idea of his political opinions. I suspected that, as a good economist, he was a free-market, classical liberal, or perhaps a conservative — but that's all.

We had just exchanged a few welcome words when we saw the grey and green gothic building across the Ottawa River. "This is the federal parliament," I said. "You know 20 years ago, this was a nice place to visit." I had vivid memories of my wife and I walking around the parliament buildings with our children in the early 80s. At that time, it still seemed that we were able to live large parts of our lives without constantly bumping into licenses, ID papers, forms, reports, prohibitions, and tens of thousands of laws and regulations. Or, at least, it had been so just a few decades before.

A nice place to visit . . . "Now," I continued, "it is a good place to . . ."

I stopped dead in my tracks. I was not sure I wanted to go where my rhetorical momentum was leading me. First because my statement would be somewhat premature. Second, because I was not there to make flashy political points, but to bring our foreign guest to a relaxing lunch.

With a shrewd smile, our academic guest finished my sentence: ". . . a place to bomb!" We immediately knew he was a friend.

Now, resistance is not an idea that should be entertained lightly, but it is not one to be overlooked either. Of course, I am not talking of blind terrorism, which is always condemnable. The main objection to violent, targeted resistance against the tyrannical state and its minions is that it would violate systemic expectations, i.e., the expectations that the system has led most people to have and to believe legitimate. We cannot completely ignore what Vico called "the common opinion of mankind." The little bureaucrat or the subsidized businessman is an accomplice of the tyrant, but only to a degree.

The great Lysander Spooner himself gives an example of what, I think, may not be done:

And the men who loan money to governments, so called, for the purpose of enabling the latter to rob, enslave, and murder their people, are among the greatest villains that the world has ever seen. And they as much deserve to be hunted and killed (if they cannot otherwise be got rid of) as any slave traders, robbers, or pirates that ever lived.[1]

Everybody with a pension plan or even a savings account is an indirect purchaser of government securities. It may well be legitimate to not reimburse government bondholders, but it is another matter to shoot them. Spooner's parenthetical remark suggests that he himself entertained some doubts on this matter.

Resistance Is the Only Barrier to State Power

For any responsible citizen, resistance — even violent resistance — must remain an open option. Indeed, the possibility of resistance is, ultimately, the only barrier to state power. We have become sissies in the sense that most of us are now unable to just imagine having, someday, to fight for our liberty. The state knows it and, thus, constantly shrinks our liberties. Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780) was the famous, and rather conservative, English jurist who wrote the classic Commentaries on the Laws of England, a master work on the principles underlying English law.[2] Blackstone understood the potential danger of power for "English liberties," and the need for a "distrust of abuse of power." But he was no revolutionary. In legal terms, his distrust could only translate into "a superior coercive authority" within the state apparatus. Cases of "public oppression," he explained, are "cases which the law will not, out of necessity, suppose. . . . The supposition of law therefore is, that neither the king nor either house of parliament (collectively taken) is capable of doing any wrong; since in such cases the law feels itself incapable of furnishing any adequate remedy."

The constitution (for this is how Blackstone labeled the legal traditions of England) provided safeguards under the form of "certain auxiliary subordinate rights of the subject, which serve principally as barriers to protect and maintain inviolate the three great and primary rights, of personal security, personal liberty, and private property." The auxiliary rights "of every Englishman" included the right "of applying to the courts of justice for redress of injuries," and "the right of petitioning the king, or either house of parliament, for the redress of grievances."

And then, there was "[t]he fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject . . . that of having arms for their defense . . . [which] is a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression." Anthony de Jasay put that idea in other terms: "Self-imposed limits on sovereign power can disarm mistrust, but provide no guarantee of liberty and property beyond those afforded by the balance between state and private force."[3] But the old Blackstone himself considered the possibility of revolution: if oppressions ever happen, he wrote, "the prudence of the times must provide new remedies under new emergencies." In other words, formal legality would have to be transgressed.

What would have conservatives like Blackstone thought of their descendants, deprived of so many traditional English liberties, and prepared to be stripped even more of them?

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References

[1] Lysander Spooner, The Constitution of No Authority (1879), in No Treason And A Letter to Thomas F. Bayard (Colorado Springs: Ralph Myles Publisher, 1973), p. 49; available at http://www.lawcasella.com/spooner/NoTreason.htm (visited May 6, 2002).

[2] William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 17th edition, 1966).

[3] Anthony de Jasay, The State (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998), p. 205.

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Pierre Lemieux is visiting professor of economics at the Université du Québec à Hull (Canada), and research fellow at The Independent Institute (Oakland, CA). E-mail: PL@pierrelemieux.org.

[Sir Gawain]

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[Restorer]

I suspected that, as a good economist, he was a free-market, classical liberal, or perhaps a conservative — but that's all.

We.. there's a false dichotomy, at least in America. The values most American conservatives want to conserve are those of classical liberalism.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Thanks for posting this interesting article, Gawain.

[redrock]

"For any responsible citizen, resistance — even violent resistance — must remain an open option."

Hmmm...wonder why most people have forgotten this very basic premise.

redrock-Constitutional Terrorist