May 25, 2013
americanthinker.com
By Gary Horne
Recent abuses of power are a reminder that the barbarians are still with us, using the power of progressive government to punish anyone who dares oppose them. Barbarians have no regard for others and depend on plunder for their existence, as they have throughout history, taking from the productive by force.
J. Bronowski described the barbarian Genghis Khan in The Ascent of Man:
From AD 1200 to 1300 they made almost the last attempt to establish the supremacy of the robber who produces nothing and who, in his feckless way, comes to take from the peasant (who has nowhere to flee) the surplus that agriculture accumulates.
Modern plunderers realize they don't need Genghis Khan's horsemen, and can use the power of the state in place of the sword. Known by various names, the left, liberals, socialists, communists, progressives, et al., these new plunderers are able to corrupt the civilized rule of law, enlisting government as plunderer-in-chief. The most aggressive American plunderer is the radicalized Democratic Party, whose hold on power depends on distributing the loot. This, of course, requires the use of force. There is no box to check on the tax return, "I agree to contribute to the Plunderer's Fund."
The victim of plunder is not free, as Mark Levin remarks in Liberty and Tyranny:
In the civil society, private property and liberty and inseparable. The individual's right to live freely and safely and pursue happiness includes the right to acquire and possess property, which represents the fruits of his own intellectual and/or physical labor. As the individual's time on earth is finite, so, too, is his labor. The illegitimate denial or diminution of his private property enslaves him to another and denies him his liberty. Read More
