“Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim -- when he defends himself -- as a criminal.”

Waco...Ruby Ridge...Roadside Check Points...Rapacious Taxation and on and on...

J Carlton has it right.

The occupying statist theocracy infesting this land is a great example of Bastiat's here quote. We hold this truth to be self evident. The law Bastiat references, is a tyrannical system using lethal force to back up their corporate canons (socialism's theocratic enslavement). Said system, evoking the nomenclature — "law", is ANTI-"the laws of nature and nature's God" / "Constitutional law" / justice. Philosophical legal systems such as socialism (by example, the 2nd plank of the communist manifesto) and other legal positivism's atrocities (by example, victimless crimes make innocent defendants criminals) are herds of despots.

Jan 6 kangaroo court.  Covid mandates. FBI Raid on Trump's home.  87,000 new IRS agents.  Nuff said.

No "sometimes" about it, the present system is the practice of bullying the resources from the less material advantaged into the hands of those with a dominant presence in material resources. The less material advantaged are challenged to find their human resource allocations and make this resource the master and director of resourcefulness. Hence, 
Mr Sillik's Socialism is the vision of social abilities to create, proves it's value.