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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. |