When men are caught in the trap of non-objective law, when their work, future and livelihood are at the mercy of a bureaucrat's whim, when they have no way of knowing what unknown influence" will crack down on them for which unspecified offense, fear becomes their basic motive, if they remain in the industry at all-and compromise, conformity, staleness, dullness, the dismal grayness of the middle-of -the-road are all that can be expected of them. Independent thinking does not submit to bureaucratic edicts, originality does not follow "public policies," integrity does not petition for a license, heroism is not fostered by fear, creative genius is not summoned forth at the point of a gun.
Non-objective law is the most effective weapon of human enslavement: its victims become its enforcers and enslave themselves.
...The which cannot be formulated into an objective law, cannot be made the subject of legislation-not in a free country, not if we are to have a "government of laws and not of men". An undefinable law is not a law, but merely a license for some men to rule others.
"Vast Quicksands" in The Objectivist Newsletter, July 1963 - Ayn Rand
My how little has changed except the speed with which we are using our own ropes to hang ourselves.
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