“They see a race of law-makers legislating without knowing what their laws are about”

— Peter Kropotkin

Source: Law and Authority (1886), I
Context: They see a race of law-makers legislating without knowing what their laws are about; today voting a law on the sanitation of towns, without the faintest notion of hygiene, tomorrow making regulations for the armament of troops, without so much as understanding a gun; making laws about teaching and education without ever having given a lesson of any sort, or even an honest education to their own children; legislating at random in all directions, but never forgetting the penalties to be meted out to ragamufffins, the prison and the galleys, which are to be the portion of men a thousand times less immoral than these legislators themselves.

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Peter Kropotkin 141

Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scie… 1842–1921

Thomas Hodgskin (1787–1869) British writer

The law is a great scheme of rules intended to preserve the power of government, secure the wealth of the landowner, the priest, and the capitalist, but never to secure his produce to the labourer.—The law-maker is never a labourer, and has no natural right to any wealth.—He takes no notice of the natural right of property.—Manifold miseries which result from his appropriating the produce of labour, and from the legal right of property being in opposition to the natural.

p. 44
The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832)

“When the government grants preferences on the basis of race, it teaches the people that discrimination is acceptable. Our laws must reflect the principle that the government discrimination on the basis of race or sex is not to be tolerated. Americans look to our government to exemplify what is right and just. So long as the federal government recognizes people as unequal under the law, we cannot achieve the fundamental truth the American people already know: we are all entitled to equal protection of the law. This legislation will ensure that the federal government leads the way in respecting this basic American principle.”

Charles T. Canady (1954) American politician and judge

The Civil Rights Act of 1997 http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/the-civil-rights-act-of-1997 (December 1, 1997)

“We are here, not because we are law-breakers; we are here in our efforts to become law-makers.”

Emmeline Pankhurst book My Own Story

My Own Story (1914), p. 129, Hearst's International Library.

“Our opinion-makers have gone too far in promoting the doctrine that when a law is broken, society, not the criminal is to blame. Our teachers, preachers, and politicians have gone too far in advocating the idea that each individual should determine what laws are good and what laws are bad, and that he then should obey the law he likes and disobey the law he dislikes.”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

1960s, What Has Happened to America? (1967)

“A man with a club [bat] is a law-maker, a man to be obeyed, but not necessarily conciliated.”

Jack London book Call of the Wild

Source: The Call of the Wild

“T' abhor the makers, and their laws approve,
Is to hate traitors and the treason love.”

John Dryden book The Hind and the Panther

Pt. III, lines 706–707.
The Hind and the Panther (1687)

“How can you pass laws about things that nobody knows?"
"They do it all the time," says Hayden. "That's what law is: educated guesses at right and wrong.”

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Source: Unwind

“Legitimation is the process by which a legislator is authorized to promulgate such a law as a norm.”

Jean-François Lyotard (1924–1998) French philosopher

Source: The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1977), p.8

“Law And Freedom without Violence (Anarchy)
Law And Violence without Freedom (Despotism)
Violence without Freedom And Law (Barbarism)
Violence with Freedom And Law (Republic)”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

“You know what else I'm sick and tired of? I'm sick and tired of men making laws about our bodies and our choices and our lives without consulting us.”

Kate Kelly (1980) American feminist

We raised our voices here': Massive women's march headlines Utah Legislature's opening day: Rally organizers vow to track bills related to women's rights and discrimination, The Salt Lake Tribune, Steve Griffin https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=4853488&itype=CMSID, (25 January 2017)

“They see a race of law-makers legislating without knowing what their laws are about”

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Peter Kropotkin 141

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