People v. State

I haven’t watched Fox News Channel since shortly after the Iraq War began. I now believe that I’ve been missing one thing and one thing only by my absention: Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano. I’d heard from places like lewrockwell.com that he was one of the really good guys, but didn’t realize just how good until reading this excerpt from his new book Dred Scott’s Revenge. I have to wonder whether his law-abiding, jackboot-licking colleagues at Fox News comprehend just how radical of an anarchist they’re consorting with. Here’s the last few paragraphs of the excerpt (but read the whole thing):

Whatever any government does (unless it is preserving freedom by enforcing the natural law) should be suspect. Government either compels behavior or forbids behavior. Some behavior should be compelled (driving safely, for example) and some behavior should be forbidden (violating another’s right to life, liberty, and property, for example). Whatever else the government does, no matter what it claims the goal is and no matter the stated justification, because it curtails human freedom it should be suspect and presumed to be unlawful and unconstitutional. If these libertarian principles had been accepted throughout history, then slavery-an obvious violation of natural rights-and all the evils it has spawned would never have existed here.

The real culprit throughout our racial history has been the government. The government-local, state, and federal-at virtually every turn, in every generation, and in innumerable ways, selectively chose to enact and enforce laws based on the natural law or on positivism, depending on race. Relying on the laws of positivism, the government permitted, condoned, and protected the most horrific abuse imaginable to blacks, and to some of the whites who protested.

Without a fundamental, obvious public rejection of positivism and embrace of the natural law by the government, the courts should presume that what the government seeks to do is unconstitutional; the government should be compelled to justify constitutionally, under the natural law and morally, whatever it wants to do, whenever and wherever it wants to do it. When the government protects freedom and respects natural rights, it is doing its job. When it ceases to protect freedom and when it violates natural rights, it is the duty of the people to alter or abolish it.

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