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Too Much Government
Aug. 6th, 2007 01:10 amby CES Wood
"The last end of the state is not to dominate men nor to restrain them by force and fear; rather it is to free men from fear that they may live and act freely with full security and without injury to themselves or their neighbors. The end of the State, I repeat, is not to make rational beings into brute beasts and machines. It is to enable their free bodies and their free minds to function safely. It is to lead men to live by and to exercise a free reason, that they may not waste their strength in hatred, anger and guile nor act unfairly toward one another. Thus the end of the State is real liberty." Spinoza
Compare these words of a great philosopher with the monster "State: we live under today. A state which gives us wars and prohibition and forbids any discussion of any better ‘state.’ There is no freedom in anything. What we delude ourselves with as ‘freedom’ is merely the permission of the state to do what it allows, which is no freedom. Let us not be misled by seeming exceptions. The Spanish Inquisition was an effort to control by force religious opinion and to compel ‘heretics’ to the will of the rulers. But the church and the state that did this were one and the same. Both rested on property in the hands of a privileged class. Heresy was a crime against the church and state, punishable as a dangerous rebellion against church and state. Witches were criminals by the law of God and Man - as interpreted by man."
printed in 1931
"The last end of the state is not to dominate men nor to restrain them by force and fear; rather it is to free men from fear that they may live and act freely with full security and without injury to themselves or their neighbors. The end of the State, I repeat, is not to make rational beings into brute beasts and machines. It is to enable their free bodies and their free minds to function safely. It is to lead men to live by and to exercise a free reason, that they may not waste their strength in hatred, anger and guile nor act unfairly toward one another. Thus the end of the State is real liberty." Spinoza
Compare these words of a great philosopher with the monster "State: we live under today. A state which gives us wars and prohibition and forbids any discussion of any better ‘state.’ There is no freedom in anything. What we delude ourselves with as ‘freedom’ is merely the permission of the state to do what it allows, which is no freedom. Let us not be misled by seeming exceptions. The Spanish Inquisition was an effort to control by force religious opinion and to compel ‘heretics’ to the will of the rulers. But the church and the state that did this were one and the same. Both rested on property in the hands of a privileged class. Heresy was a crime against the church and state, punishable as a dangerous rebellion against church and state. Witches were criminals by the law of God and Man - as interpreted by man."
printed in 1931
