Sunday, June 26, 2011

~~on Clarence Darrow

What a brilliant man.  I knew Clarence Darrow's name from the famous, or infamous, Monkey Trials.  Didn't know much else about him.  Went to book club this past weekend and we were fortunate enough to J.H. Huebert as a guest speaker, author of month's book choice, "Libertarianism Today."  During book club, he mentioned Clarence Darrow's short book called "Resist Not Evil."  Darrow was an anarchist, believing that man has been brainwashed since the earliest time to believe that government was necessary to keep order and peace in the world.  He believed that the opposite was true - government causes chaos, injustice and murder.

Darrow recognized that governments are born out of and survive through aggression.  From the time of the earliest savages, the man with the biggest club became the ruler of all, not to protect the smallest, weakest of them, but to enrich his own life, claiming for himself the fruits of the labor of the ruled.  Of course he needed help to subjugate those that he ruled over by recruiting lieutenants and helpers, bribing them with a piece of the action.  Thus was born the earliest governments.  Yes, this is a simplistic view and Darrow does a much better job in describing it in this book.

Though this was written back in 1902, much of what he writes is applicable today.

http://mises.org/books/resist_not_evil_darrow.pdf

No comments:

Post a Comment