“And it is under the law of justice, under the reign of right, under the influence of liberty, security, stability, and responsibility, that every man will attain to the fullness of his worth, to all the dignity of his being, and that mankind will accomplish with order and with calmness — slowly, it is true, but with certainty — the progress ordained for it.”

— Frédéric Bastiat, “The Law”

Often, people ask me about a reading list. One of the writings I recommend is the 1850 essay titled “The Law” by French economist Frédéric Bastiat. The importance of this philosophical masterpiece is that it was written as a response to the 1848 Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Bastiat saw the dangers of the centralized economic theory of Marxism and also its perversion of the real and true intent of the law.

Bastiat writes, “the law is the organization of the natural right (John Locke) of lawful defense; it is the substitution of collective (security) for individual forces, for the purpose of action in the sphere in which they have a right to act (personal defense and security), of doing what they have a right to do, to secure persons, liberties, and properties, and to maintain each in its right, so as to cause justice to reign over all.” In simple paratrooper language, the law exists to protect that which we as individuals have a natural right to protect: our life, liberty, and property.

And governments are formed to serve as the collective agency of protection, safeguarding those natural rights. However, Bastiat was astute enough, as he read Marx, to realize that there was a philosophy arising that was antithetical to the intent of the law. He saw that Marxism would pervert the law and defined it as such. He stated, “The law has been perverted through the influence of two very different causes, naked greed and misconceived philanthropy.”

We incessantly hear from the Marxist left in America about paying a fair share and that people should not have a certain amount of wealth. The question is simple: who are they to decide?

“Man can only derive life and enjoyment from a perpetual search and appropriation; that is, from a perpetual application of his faculties to objects, or from labor. This is the origin of property. But also, he may live and enjoy (Marxists), by seizing and appropriating the productions of the faculties of his fellow men. This is the origin of plunder.”

Bastiat would go on and state that when the latter becomes the policy of government, it devolves into what he terms legal plunder.

This is what the so-called Democratic Socialists of America have in their policy platform. This is a Marxist tenet, “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” The first principle of a socialist economic model, a derivative of Marxism, is wealth redistribution, forced, legal plunder. This is non-compliant with the free market enterprise capitalist economic system of America. The leftists are embracing this and strongly telling us exactly who they are and their objectives for our Republic. The law for the left is their ideological agenda, not our Constitution, and certainly not to safeguard our individual life, liberty, and property. We all know that one of the Marxist maxims is the abolition of private property. Ya know, home ownership is a tool of white supremacy, according to Zohran Mamdani’s tenant tsar, Cea Weaver, whom he defended.

But it is not just the war against individual manifest destiny that the Marxist left is prosecuting. It is their delusional and maniacal crusade against American individual safety and security. As Bastiat aptly described, the government exists to protect our lives, liberties, and property. Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence asserted that in order to secure these rights, our unalienable rights endowed to us by the Judeo-Christian faith heritage God, governments are established. These Marxists do not see it that way; hence, they are advocating for those in our country illegally, those who have broken our law by entering without authorization, and committing follow-on crimes.

Leftists flood the streets over an illegal immigrant being shot, yet where were their voices when Americans are killed by criminal illegal immigrants? I did not see much outrage over the shooting death of 18-year-old Sheridan Gorman, Rachel Morin, Jocelyn Nungaray, Laken Riley, Katie Abraham, DeCara Thompson, Mollie Tibbetts, Kate Steinle, Chloe Polyn, Stephanie Minter, or the recent killing of a Pennsylvania law enforcement officer at the hands of a Haitian illegal immigrant. These leftists take to the streets and rant about “Abolish ICE,” which translates to them wanting to abolish the law on immigration enforcement. In essence, they are saying, we do not want borders; we welcome anyone into America.

Along with that, these Marxists want to abolish the very framework of our government as established in our rule of law, the U.S. Constitution. They do not believe in the three branches of government; nope, they only want a Congress, minus a U.S. Senate, which they want to abolish, and the eradication of the executive branch, which, when in power, they should appoint. The Supreme Court, well, it will be packed with “justices” according to their whim. They want the abolishment of the Electoral College because their desire is a pure democracy. America is a Constitutional Republic. And in many leftist states, they are already seeking to undermine the law with the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC). Then again, it was the Democrat party that supported secession back in the early 1860s.

The Marxist left, allied with Islamists, has no regard for The Law, only for their ideological agenda, which undermines The Law. As the Executive Director of the American Constitutional Rights Union and a Veteran who took an oath to support and defend our Constitution, our Law, I will resolutely speak out against Marxism and Islamism in our Republic. Neither is conformant, consistent, or compatible with our Constitution, and neither is aligned with Bastiat’s definition of The Law.

My hope is that you will read Bastiat’s essay, which enables you to refute Marxism in America.

Steadfast and Loyal.

Republished from ACRU Action Fund.