I just finished reading Judge Andrew Napolitano’s It is Dangerous To Be Right When the Government Is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom, and the Insta-Review is simple: If you claim to love the Constitution, If you claim to love Liberty, If you claim to love America, If you claim to love God, if even a single one of the previous fits you, READ THIS BOOK!
Even as a former Libertarian Party official and founder of my own somewhat influential libertarian leaning political blog, I was not overly aware of the Judge’s positions prior to reading this book, even though his work is frequently cited among my political allies and genuine personal friends. The reason is simple: I detest talk radio and TV pundits with a passion – I don’t watch ANY of them, not even ones I would agree with, as it seems I would with the Judge.
In this book, the Judge starts by explaining what the concept of “Natural Rights” and the “Natural Law” are. Quite simply, they are the innate rights we all share as individual humans, whether you believe – as the Judge explains – that these rights came from our Creator or simply because we are human.
From that foundation, the Judge proceeds to tackle a wide range of issues, from cause celebres of the right (immigration, abortion, gun rights, etc) to cause celebres of the left (unions, free speech, privacy, etc), and a whole lot of stuff in between. In each case, he explains what the relevant Natural Law is and how government in the United States actively infringes upon that Law. In other words, this is a book that is bound to have some chapters that will piss off dang near everyone in the country, other than those of us with a pre-existing commitment to Liberty, pure and simple. (You can typically, though not exclusively, find us in the Libertarian Party.)
And because of this, it is a book that every single American needs to read.
Quite simply, the Judge makes the case for freedom in some ways I’ve previously discussed within my own activism, but also ways I had never thought of before, such as when he presents the case for immigration as a property rights issue or when he quotes the man I personally recruited into political blogging at my former website, Tom Knighton (now of Laws-N-Saugages.com), regarding prostitution and the idea that [..]ALL men pay for sex somehow, someway – whether it be cash or a wedding ring.
I’ll add in just a couple of quotes from the book that I sent out via my Kindle, and I’ll close:
Drugs and victimless crime:
A prime example of a victimless crime is the private consumption of alcohol, or any drug for that matter. These substances surely affect one’s person, but in what way are they invading or assaulting another’s body, rights, or property? One might argue that they lead to dangerous behavior when one is in an altered state, but until a person whose judgment is impaired actually invades or assaults another’s body, rights, or property, he should not be punished, and the act of consumption itself should be free from regulation as an application of the right to do to one’s body as one chooses
Guns on school property:
The lack of media coverage on the advantages of guns on campus feeds into the ignorance of Americans with regard to firearms in government-owned schools. Just fifteen years ago, many states allowed concealed-handgun permit holders to carry guns on school property, and there were no major incidents.
Minimum Wage and Illegal Immigration:
Alternatively, if the minimum wage were eliminated, the opposite effect would occur; employers would pay people who live here legally fair market value–not the government-mandated amount–for the work they do. And as a result, immigrants would be less inclined to move here for fear of not finding work.
Prostitution, aka “Austin 3:16 writ large”:
I can rent my body to the owner of a coal mine for thirty years, who will use my work to strip the earth of natural resources, but a woman cannot rent her body to the same coal mine owner for a few hours of private time? Why? Because the government says so, that’s why.
In conclusion, YOU NEED TO READ THIS BOOK. I don’t care what your political beliefs are, this book WILL challenge them. (For example: I tend to be skeptical of many of my friends claims about the Fed and more specifically, “sound money”, but the Judge makes a compelling case for that as well.)
And I leave you with two final quotes from the Judge:
Do we have a two-party system in America today? I think not. We have one Big Government Party. It has a Republican wing that prefers war, deficits, assaults on civil liberties, and corporate welfare; and a Democratic wing that prefers war, taxes, assaults on commercial liberties, and individual welfare. Neither wing is devoted to the Constitution, and members of both wings openly mock it.
No longer shall Americans sit idly by at home and accept the status quo while injustice surrounds us. It is time to start peacefully fighting the injustice that takes place in our state legislatures as well as in Washington, D.C.
This review of It is Dangerous To Be Right When the Government Is Wrong by Andrew Napolitano was originally published on October 20, 2011.
