“They would be the shepherds over us, their sheep. Certainly such an arrangement presupposes that they are naturally superior to the rest of us. And certainly we are fully justified in demanding from the legislators and organizers proof of this natural superiority.”

And those wonderful shepherds in the government are more than willing to fleece us, Obama being the head shepherd.

Right now I'm workig with a bunch of Brits and it's not only irritating, but down right infuriating when they pull their heir hiarchial bullshiit. I mean honestly, when we have had our own country for almost 200 years ...WTF? I guess they'll be pompus assess forever. The one thing I do know for a fact is that th British taught the Gemans everything about geonocide and they taught the US and A everything they know about Imperialism. You have become the thing you started out hating; the thing you fought against so hard; you have become you're father.

Demanding government, to show their natural superiority, is out of the mindset of the statist theocracy's sheeple. The origin of the U.S. was individual sovereigns administering natural law. Such freedom ordered the sovereigns as naturally superior to their servants, making their representatives inferior. The representatives could lawfully do nothing their masters (the individual sovereigns, personally or in concert) could not do themselves individually. As to the quote, where is the legal nexus that justifies government's (now alleging a status as an organic / tangible hegemony - able to force by power of the gun) usurpation of sovereign inalienable rights ? It doesn't exist. The despotic legislators (executive. legislative, executive, & etc.), contrary to law, the Constitution, and inalienable rights inflicts a once free with compelled compliance, license, victimless crimes, larceny with impunity and all other specie of unlawful tyranny.

The media every day glorifies the government and 'celebrity' like the royal family. Yet these phonies are no more superior than the rest of us -- in fact, most are just puppets and actors. We vote for the best act. Truth is the greatest enemy of the State. I wonder when the people will tire of bread and circuses and face reality...

It is said, it is better to live one day as a lion, than a thousand as a sheep. So many lions, hidden in the shadows now. Bound by an oppresive system, that seeks to destoy the free man. Only becuase some of us have lived long enough to remember the days of true freedom. This aint no place for no hereos.

I think Bastiat sounds a lot like de Tocqueville, Vol 2, Democracy in America, written in about 1820, some thirty years before Bastiat's The Law. Perhaps the allegory of Shepherd (a Government) and Sheep (the People) was common in France during that period. Without knowing for sure, the most that can be said is that notion expressed by both is spot-on.

Indeed so....