Marriage and liberty
Writing by abuhatem on Thursday, 5 of June , 2008 at 12:52 am
Kudos to J.H. Huebert of the libertarian political blog LewRockwell who writes about the recent ruling of a French court on annulling a marriage contract because one spouse breached contract by deceiving her husband about her virginity. Liberty necessarily entails, and classical liberal theory affirms whether one is a libertarian or not (and I certainly am not) that mutually agreed un-coerced contracts must be enforced unless they break laws or entail an injustice. Huebert writes:
All hail France! Or at least one French judge, for treating marriage for what it is, a contract — and finding a breach where the would-be bride misrepresented herself as a virgin.
Of course many French people are outraged, as they so often are when private property and contract rights trump “secular” (that is, socialist) values.
Huebert sounds like the great French political theorist Frederic Bastiat and his arguments, in front of a tidal wave of French opposition, for private property rights. France has never been the same since it suffered the birth pangs of the Enlightenment in the French revolution. Every political ideology that exists today has its roots in the French revolution; and every revolution since the French revolution has gone through its steps.
“Secular values,” moral relativism and socialism characterize France now who still revere the odious John Jacques Rousseau to this day. Those who oppose this marriage contact’s annulment oppose freedom. The step children of Rousseau would rather have a theocracy of their nihilistic and atheistic postmodernism than true liberty and justice. This attempt at replacing true spirituality with obedience to State power bears great resemblance to Rousseau’s notion of the civil religion.
But if the French to this day want to find aids in removing the stench of Rousseau, they will find no better advocate for liberty than Frederic Bastiat who despised the forceful government imposition of secular moralities termed “progress” or “modernity” over a century ago, and instead said try liberty! Bastiat writes:
Socialists look upon people as raw material to be formed into social combinations. This is so true that, if by chance, the socialists have any doubts about the success of these combinations, they will demand that a small portion of mankind be set aside to experiment upon. The popular idea of trying all systems is well known. And one socialist leader has been known seriously to demand that the Constituent Assembly give him a small district with all its inhabitants, to try his experiments upon.
In the same manner, an inventor makes a model before he constructs the full-sized machine; the chemist wastes some chemicals — the farmer wastes some seeds and land — to try out an idea.
But what a difference there is between the gardener and his trees, between the inventor and his machine, between the chemist and his elements, between the farmer and his seeds! And in all sincerity, the socialist thinks that there is the same difference between him and mankind!…
While mankind tends toward evil, the legislators yearn for good; while mankind advances toward darkness, the legislators aspire for enlightenment; while mankind is drawn toward vice, the legislators are attracted toward virtue. Since they have decided that this is the true state of affairs, they then demand the use of force in order to substitute their own inclinations for those of the human race.
Open at random any book on philosophy, politics, or history, and you will probably see how deeply rooted in our country is this idea — the child of classical studies, the mother of socialism. In all of them, you will probably find this idea that mankind is merely inert matter, receiving life, organization, morality, and prosperity from the power of the state. And even worse, it will be stated that mankind tends toward degeneration, and is stopped from this downward course only by the mysterious hand of the legislator. Conventional classical thought everywhere says that behind passive society there is a concealed power called law or legislator (or called by some other terminology that designates some unnamed person or persons of undisputed influence and authority) which moves, controls, benefits, and improves mankind.
Those that wish to nullify mutually agreed un-coerced and fully volitional contracts due to the vacuous cause of contradicting “modern secular values,” want a secular theocracy by the secular religion and values they propose. Instead, why not try liberty France? If the French truly believe they have “progressed” vis-a-vis the rest of the world, then they won’t oppose simple freedom.
Category: Political philosophy
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