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What Is Law ?
What, then, is law? It is the
collective organization of the individual right to lawful
defense.
Each of us has a natural
right—from God—to defend his person, his liberty, and
his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and
the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon
the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but
the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an
extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to
defend—even by force—his person, his liberty, and his
property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to
organize and support a common force to protect these rights
constantly. Thus the principle of collective right—its
reason for existing, its lawfulness—is based on individual
right. And the common force that protects this collective right
cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than
that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual
cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or
property of another individual, then the common force—for
the same reason—cannot lawfully be used to destroy the
person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups. Such a
perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our
premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual
rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to
destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual
acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of
others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also
applies to the common force that is nothing more than the
organized combination of the individual forces? If this is true,
then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the
organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the
substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this
common force is to do only what the individual forces have a
natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties,
and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause
justice to reign over us all.
Clark Simmons, Webmaster
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