Let’s Spread This Principle

Of late I have been trying to keep up with the blog Watts Up With That, which is a very good site for information from and for those who are skeptical of the idea of catastrophic, man-made global warming. The site certainly puts paid to the idea that there is a “consensus” that the world is going to be destroyed, at least for human beings, unless we adopt the policies advocated by various environmental groups.

Today they had a link to an article on the Breitbart London site regarding a recent, March 4 of this year, decision by a United States federal court in favor of Chevron in a case regarding supposed pollution caused by Chevron, it wasn’t, in Ecuador. The court in Ecuador ruled against Chevron and imposed a $9.5 billion penalty against the oil company. The recent ruling in the United States however showed that the plaintiffs in the Ecuadoran case, the defendants in the United States case, committed all manner of illegal acts to obtain the result.

The introduction to the 500 page decision is a short, easy read and well worth the time. The start of the final paragraph of the introduction really jumped out at me, especially as it is coming from a federal judge, and this is the principle I refer to in my post title.

Justice is not served by inflicting injustice. The ends do not justify the means. There is no “Robin Hood” defense to illegal and wrongful conduct.

The principle expressed here would be applicable to many of the actions of the government. For example, the welfare state would be precluded by it. After all, what is the welfare state but the government acting as “Robin Hood,” robbing the rich (and not so rich) via taxes (see this post for my reasoning on this) to give to the poor.

Zoning and other development restrictions , minimum wage laws, occupational licensing, government definitions of marriage, anti-discrimination laws, business subsidies, public education, socialized medicine, immigration laws, the list of programs where the government claims to “protect” the rights of some by violating the rights of others can go on and on.

As the judge in this case put it: “Justice is not served by inflicting injustice.

I have no great hope that this expression of a proper principle by Judge Kaplan will become widespread in my lifetime, but given the state of things in the United States it is good to see it appear at all.