George Rebane
On this election day I thought it would be appropriate to post ‘The Bastiat Triangle Alliance’ (pdf available from top right column of this blog) which states my own ideological bent and lets the readers know what filters that which reaches me. From the looks of it, the coming years will see an historical assault on this structure of rights represented by the Bastiat Triangle. I believe that the health of our republic depends on how well the Triangle survives the coming “lurch to the Left”.
The Bastiat Triangle Alliance
Dear Reader – Displaying the triangle logo states that the owner of this blog/website is an ideologue of a very specific persuasion, and wants everyone who visits here to know that this site subscribes to the social and political philosophy upon which our nation was founded, the fundamentals of which are explained clearly by Frédéric Bastiat in his classic, The Law.
Bastiat argues persuasively that civilization begins with three primal or “natural rights” – security of your person, liberty in your actions, and ownership of property. These are indelibly entwined, the weakening of any one weakens the other two. In Bastiat’s words –
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 pres-ervation 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.
. . .
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.
And Bastiat goes on to argue that the corollary to this powerful idea is that when government seeks to extend its powers beyond those necessary to defend these natural rights, it begins to pervert the very principles that have given it legitimacy.
So the BTA logo is the ‘Bastiat Triangle’ of these natural rights enshrined in our Constitution. The triangle is the elemental form of strength resident in all enduring structures. However, the triangle serves this function only when all of its three members are intact and strong. And to the extent that any one of its members is weakened, to that extent the entire structure is compromised. This triangle of natural rights protectively encloses all of the derived liberties and laws of our country symbolized by the Great Seal of the United States enveloped in our national colors.
In this land over the last decades we have seen these natural rights being repeatedly assaulted and weakened. It is the aim and commission of the members of this alliance to ceaselessly draw attention to such actions, whether intended and or unthinkingly invited. In doing so we call others of good will to join us and help stem the tide now sweeping all toward a society overseen by a government that continues to pervert the very foundations upon which it was founded.
