Bastiat's Prophecy: The Weaponization of the Law From Athens to America

In 399 B.C., Socrates stood trial before an Athenian jury. His life was on the line. The Father of Philosophy faced charges of corrupting the youth and impiety. During his defense, Socrates issued a declaration that has echoed across time wherever tyranny threatened:

Do not be annoyed at my telling the truth; the fact is that no man in the world will come off safe who honestly opposes either you or any other multitude and tries to hinder the many unjust and illegal doings in a state. 

Socrates refused to beg for his life.

The trial lasted just one day and concluded with a guilty verdict of 281 to 220, followed by a death sentence of 361 to 140. Soon after, one of the most influential men to ever live took that famous drink of poisonous hemlock, ending his life.

There are many views on whether Socrates was innocent or guilty, so I’ll take a different angle, focusing on the nature of the law itself. From Socrates’ tribunal in Ancient Athens to America in the modern age, vague and unjust laws have been weaponized against dissenters and free thinkers, highlighting the need for a legal framework that protects individual rights rather than serving as a tool of oppression. 

When laws become too numerous to know, too vague to interpret, and border on absurdity, everyone becomes a criminal. Under such conditions, punishment hinges not on justice but on one’s relationship with the powerful, undermining the foundations of a free society.

The Nature of Law

To understand what constitutes good law, we might look to Frédéric Bastiat’s 1850 essay, “The Law.” Bastiat, a champion of free markets and personal liberties, defines law as “the organization of the individual right of self-defense before law was formalized. Law is justice.” He continued:

Nature, or rather God, has bestowed upon every one of us the right to defend his person, his liberty, and his property, since these are the three constituent or preserving elements of life…

Let’s take these one at a time: 

Person: The right to protect one’s life and physical well-being forms the foundation of all other rights.

Liberty: The freedom to act according to one’s will, provided it doesn’t infringe upon others’ rights. This encompasses freedom of thought, speech, and action. 

Property: The right to acquire, own, and enjoy the fruits of one’s labor.

Bastiat further clarifies the law’s purpose:

It is not true that the mission of the law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our will, our education, our sentiments, our sentiments, our exchanges, our gifts, our enjoyments. Its mission is to prevent the rights of one from interfering with those of another, in any one of these things. Law, because it has force for its necessary sanction, can only have the domain of force, which is justice.

Here, he makes a crucial distinction that has been overlooked throughout history, with dire consequences: the purpose of the law is not to regulate our lives but to prevent us from imposing on the freedom of others. 

Socrates and the Dangers of Bad Laws

Socrates’ trial and ultimate death sentence are reminders of the dangers of bad, unjust, or misapplied laws. 

Vague laws, for example, pose a significant threat by allowing broad interpretations based on the whims of those in power. Such ambiguity enables selective enforcement, where punishment is administered not based on the law but on personal relationships and power dynamics. 

Consider one of the charges against Socrates: “corrupting the youth.” This accusation is so vague that it’s meaningless — what one person views as corruption, another might see as enlightenment. 

Fortunately, Socrates crafted a clever defense. He argued that intentionally corrupting the youth would be an act of self-sabotage since living among corrupted individuals would be detrimental to everyone, including himself. Furthermore, he asserted that if he had unintentionally harmed anyone, it was the accusers’ duty to guide and instruct him rather than bring him to trial.

Why, then, was Socrates truly charged?

For starters, the Delphic Oracle declared Socrates the wisest man in Athens. Given that the politicians of antiquity likely had egos as large as those of today’s leaders — evidenced by the wars, political assassinations, and power struggles — this declaration probably did not sit well with them.

Socrates’ true “crime” perhaps was his relentless promotion of critical thinking. With the persistence of a gadfly, he encouraged his fellow Athenians to question established norms, traditions, and authorities. This constant prodding was incredibly aggravating to those whose power depended on maintaining the status quo.

Then there was his relationship with Alcibiades, whose political career reads like a tale of ambition unchecked by wisdom. Alcibiades began as a fervent supporter of Athenian democracy, gaining notoriety. However, after orchestrating the disastrous Sicilian Expedition, he defected to Sparta, advising them on defeating Athens. Falling out of favor in Sparta, he sought refuge in Persia. He later made a brief, tumultuous return to Athens, stirring controversy until his demise.

Known for his extravagant lifestyle and reckless habits, Alcibiades’ betrayals and shifting loyalties destabilized Athens, leading to its defeat. Xenophon described Alcibiades as “exceeding all licentiousness and insolence.” That Socrates, for all his wisdom, failed to guide his protégé left a stain on the philosopher’s reputation.

And then, there was a smear campaign — some things never change. 

Aristophanes’ satirical play The Clouds painted Socrates as a sophist peddling dangerous ideas. It portrayed him as a ridiculous and corrupt figure responsible for polluting the youth and undermining traditional values. Through exaggerated caricature and humorous dialogue, The Clouds painted Socrates as a buffoonish, unethical intellectual, which contributed to the negative perception of him.

All told we can envision a seventy-year-old man, weathered by nearly fifty years of relentless questioning and inquiry. Known for his stocky build, bald head, and distinctive snub nose, Socrates had become very influential in Athens, rivaling the city’s elite. Unable to quiet him, they turned the law against him, sentencing him to death. 

In the end, they silenced his voice but immortalized his ideas.

The charge of “corrupting the youth” against Socrates exemplifies what Bastiat would decry as a perversion of law. Its vagueness and malleability represent the very antithesis of justice. Bastiat emphasized that the law should serve as a shield, not a sword — but flawed laws do the opposite — “instead of being a check upon injustice, it becomes its most invincible instrument.”

Martin Luther King Jr. and the Weaponization of Law

In modern history, Martin Luther King Jr. is an example of how law enforcers can weaponize it. The civil rights leader, much like Socrates, found himself at odds with a system that viewed his quest for justice as a threat to the established order. The FBI’s infamous “suicide letter” stands as a testament to how far those in power will go to twist the law into “the most invincible instrument” of injustice.

Written anonymously, the letter posed as a disillusioned former supporter. Its contents were a nasty brew of accusations, focusing mainly on alleged extramarital affairs — an attack on King’s moral authority. However, the letter’s true aim was far more sinister than character assassination. The note’s climax was an ultimatum: take your life within 34 days or face public disgrace.

This letter was not an isolated incident. It was part of the broader COINTELPRO campaign, whose very existence pushed the boundaries of legality. Established to surveil, infiltrate, and disrupt “subversive” organizations, its reach proved dangerously elastic. The term “subversive” became a catch-all, broad enough to include any movement that challenged the status quo. In the hands of J. Edgar Hoover and his agents, this program became a blank check for harassment and intimidation.

The government employed an arsenal of additional “laws” to pursue King. For instance, the FBI exploited the Federal Communications Act of 1934. Originally intended to regulate interstate communication, this legislation was used to justify the wiretapping of King’s phones. Under the cover of national security, a law meant to protect citizens’ privacy was turned into a tool for its violation.

At the local level, the perversion of law took on an almost absurdist quality. King and his supporters frequently found themselves arrested for “crimes” that would be laughable if not for their consequences. “Parading without a permit” became a favorite charge — a particularly cynical move given that local authorities routinely denied permit applications from civil rights groups. 

While the government claimed to see King as a threat, it is essential to ask: a threat to whom? 

Bastiat argued that law becomes corrupt when it permits its enforcers to commit acts against citizens that would be criminal if perpetrated by one citizen against another. If a private citizen had engaged in similar systematic harassment, surveillance, and intimidation as the FBI leveled against King, they would have found themselves on the wrong side of the law.

Lessons for Today

In the decades since J. Edgar Hoover, laws ripe for weaponization against dissenters have passed. Take the Patriot Act, hastily enacted in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. That many lawmakers confessed to voting without reading its 342 pages speaks volumes about the speed at which we sacrifice liberty for security. 

To believe such laws remain untainted by abuse requires a leap of faith bordering on willful ignorance. It asks us to imagine that the nature of authority — a force that remained remarkably consistent from Socrates’ trial in ancient Athens to Martin Luther King Jr.’s imprisonment in Birmingham — somehow underwent a radical transformation between the 1960s and today. Such a belief ignores the lessons of history.

Like Socrates, King disrupted the status quo. Socrates promoted wisdom, and King promoted freedom. These two examples compel us to confront a fundamental question: How can we forge a legal framework that protects rather than persecutes and upholds justice rather than power?

Today, it’s nearly impossible to quantify the number of laws in the United States. The 3,000 federal crimes found in the US Code are just the beginning. The similarly titled US Code of Federal Regulations spans over 175,000 pages and contains an unknown number of additional criminal offenses hidden within its dense text. I don’t think this is what the founding fathers had in mind. 

In 1788, James Madison warned:

“It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”

 The sheer volume and complexity of these laws make compliance difficult and open the door to selective enforcement and abuse, exemplified in the trials of Socrates and Martin Luther King Jr.

Ultimately, our legal system is broken. Today, every American is a criminal. Harvey Silverglate touched on this in his book “Three Felonies a Day,” which asserts that the average American unknowingly commits several federal crimes every day. Silverglate’s analysis reveals how vague and broad laws ensnare ordinary citizens, making it nearly impossible to live without violating some statute or regulation. 

How did we get here? Because the role of government and the definition of law expanded. The law, instead of being justice, has been warped into many more things, something Bastiat warned of:

“If you attempt to make the law religious, fraternal, equalizing, philanthropic, industrial, literary, or artistic — you will then be lost in an uncharted territory, in vagueness and uncertainty, in a forced utopia or, even worse, in a multitude of utopias, each striving to seize the law and impose it upon you.”

The Frankensteinian legal framework we have constructed cannot sustain a stable and lasting government. By stretching the law to address every societal issue, we have sacrificed clarity and justice, creating an environment ripe for dissatisfaction and unrest. Bastiat’s warnings underscore the dangers of overextending the law beyond its rightful purpose of protecting the rights to life, liberty, and property.

Bastiat’s vision of law as a shield provides a litmus test for evaluating all existing and proposed legislation. Laws must be clear in intent, just in application, and limited in reach. This calls for a legal system transparent enough to withstand the scrutiny of the citizens it aims to protect. Such an approach not only honors the sacrifices of figures like Socrates and King but also actively works to prevent the emergence of future martyrs to injustice.