Most analysis I read is an effort to illustrate what is wrong with our society and its government. I’m more interested in the ideas and actions necessary to reverse the degeneration and re-establish Rightful Liberty.
In prior essays, I argued a case for recovery of Rightful Liberty through a return to the common-law. In so doing, I explored the demise of Liberty as a consequence of the replacement of common-law by statute, ordinance and regulation.
If my argument was and is valid, one should be able to identify a point in time before which Rightful Liberty prevailed under common-law, and after which Liberty was infringed by transformation of law into its’ current form of legislative acts.
We must identify the features of the common-law that promoted individual liberty in an age before our liberty was substantively infringed. We must find indicators in common-law action that signify a change from a ‘concern for justice’ to a principle focus on torte.
The title of this essay is a clue to my findings: creation of legal arguments that promote a concept of ‘public duty’ above individual rights; establishment of ‘civic virtues’ as obligations men owe to society.
More @ NC Renegade
Could it be the assault taking place on our (natural) rights to property is at the base of our dissatisfactions? Whether the conscious state realizes this 'taking', or a mere suspicion of loss looms in the subconscious, could it be no more than Americans waking to the fact that a theft of their liberties has occurred? It was Adams who insisted on the substitution of the phrase "pursuit of happiness", in lieu of Jefferson's choice of the word "property".
ReplyDeleteYes and thanks.
Delete