If you love your neighbor, set them free

 Lysander Spooner (19 January 1808 – 14 May 1887). Photo: Public Domain

Today (January 19, 2023) is the 215th birthday of the American thinker Lysander Spooner. His influence on my view of life, ethics, and politics cannot be underestimated. I will present four impactful quotes from him.

1. "No one has yet ever dared advocate, in direct terms, so monstrous a principle as that the rich ought to be protected by law from the competition of the poor."

Spooner said this in protest of a Massachusetts law regarding lawyers. Spooner had never graduated from college, but he studied law for three years under practicing lawyers before opening his own office. This was illegal; college graduates could study law for three years before admission to the bar but non-graduates had to study for five years.

Spooner argued, correctly, that the requirement discriminated against those who could not afford college. He was persuasive, as Massachusetts repealed the requirement.

Regrettably, however, politicians still pass laws and regulations restricting access to certain lines of work. They use fake excuses like "consumer protection." But the only thing consumers need to be protected from is fraud. 

If a potential client hires you because you falsely said you graduated first in your Harvard class, that is prosecutable. But if you're honest about your qualifications (or lack thereof) and the client takes you on anyway, how is that my concern? Why is the government's permission required?

Spooner later competed with the United States Post Office with his American Letter Company. Serving the northeastern seaboard, he charged as much as 75% less than the Post Office. His company was forced to close because Congress passed a law in 1851 establishing a monopoly for the U.S. Post Office, outlawing competition. 

But if I receive a letter from an alternative delivery service, how is anyone else hurt? How is it a crime? Why is it outlawed?

2. For more than six hundred years—that is, since the Magna Carta in 1215—there has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge, what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust, oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such laws.  - An Essay on the Trial by Jury (1852)

This is called "jury nullification." Jurors do not have the power to repeal an unjust law, but they can refuse to enforce it in the case they're deliberating. Just one person who believes the law is unjust can force a hung jury and mistrial. 

The defense is barred from telling jurors that they have the power to say "not guilty" if they believe the law is unjust. But they do have that power, and it's important that everyone called to jury duty knows it.

3. But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain—that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist. No Treason (1867-1970)

Spooner's larger argument in No Treason is that the Constitution isn't binding on us since we did not consent to it. Even if we disregard that argument, it's still true that under the Constitution the people "pay for being cheated, plundered, enslaved, and murdered."

The federal government, in my opinion, does things that the Constitution doesn't even authorize. Just two examples:

• The President starts wars because he's "commander-in-chief" even though the Constitution grants only Congress the power to "declare" war. 

• The power of Congress to regulate power "among the several states" apparently includes federal raids on people who grew their own medicine for personal use in their own homes.

Spooner is right: my opinion on what the Constitution "means" hardly matters because it's been powerless to prevent the evils done by the people in the offices it created.

4. Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another.

Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property.

In vices, the very essence of crime—that is, the design to injure the person or property of another—is wanting.

For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth. - Vices Are Not Crimes (1875)

One can gamble and be peaceful. One can get high and be just. If someone, after indulging in a taboo pleasure, causes harm to others, then it is the harm that he creates that should be addressed.

To attempt to prevent harm by prohibiting the vice is to make criminals of those who've never harmed anyone. 

Spooner's philosophy came from a rationalist conception of natural rights and natural law. But it is in tune with a spiritual or empathetic understanding of human relationships as well.

If I want to "love my neighbor as myself," living in unity or universal oneness with others, the government shouldn't stand in the way.

I should be able to hire my neighbor to be my interior decorator even if he doesn't have a license for the job. I should be able to buy homemade jam from another neighbor even if the health inspectors hadn't come by her kitchen. 

I shouldn't prevent my low-income neighbor from getting a payday loan just because I think interest rates are too high. I shouldn't prevent my neighbor from having multiple spouses. Or from paying for sex.

In my view, it is not a loving act to call the cops on my neighbor even if she does things I wouldn't do, or that I think are unhealthy.

I would hope I put my neighbor above the "sanctity" of the law.

I would hope I put my neighbor above the "public interest."

I would hope I put my neighbor above the Constitution or country.

One can't truly love another without valuing their freedom, and Lysander Spooner wrote about freedom with clarity and force.

James Leroy Wilson writes Daily Miracles, The Daily Bible Chapter, JL Cells, and The MVP Chase. Thanks for your subscriptions and support! You may contact him for your writing, editing, and research needs at jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com.