To begin, your essay started out strong with a nice introduction paragraph leading into the analysis of Basitat’s essays. I was confused at first because I did not realize you were talking about ‘Petition.’ When I read ‘Petition,’ I was stuck on the satirical use of natural light and artificial light to rid the world of taxes. You, however, analyzed what it took to get these resources to create products in a world of competition. I like how you saw the other side to his essay, the side that worked to make the products that are taxed rather than the side that believes we should be able to get these resources that other people put effort in cheaper than if we were to make them ourselves. One thing that I would disagree with in this section is when you say, “when making choices for our country we have to use logic and no emotion.” Though emotion can get in the way of making logical decisions, we still need emotion to make decisions that positively impact all the people of society. We must be able to empathize for the community around us and know what is best for those people when making decisions that can truly make a difference in the community.
I strongly agree with your second paragraph about the government. There are so many things that the government does to avoid what society needs done. However, this is only what we think the government does as society because we feel as if our voices are not being heard. In Bastiat’s essay ‘Government,’ he strives to find the meaning behind government, and in conclusion, determines that government is there to be a leader of the people in a beneficial way to protect the people, and not just there for the role. In your discussion, you also mentioned that the government does try to give the people what they want, but society has too many differing opinions that block them from seeing the truth. I believe that this is true because everyone has a different opinion to how government should lead over the people, and not everyone is going to be happy about the way things are done. We are too stuck in our ways to sometimes see the other side of things and fully trust that someone else is in control.
Existence, faculties, assimilation – in other words, personality, liberty, property – this is man. It is of these three things that it may be said, apart from all demagogic subtlety, that they are anterior and superior to all human legislation. It is not because men have made laws, that personality, liberty, and property exist beforehand, that men make laws. What, then, is law? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
You did not include the parenthetical citation to this quote, so I was unable to read the context around it in Bastiat’s essay, but I agree that personality, liberty, and property make up the rights of all people. Bastiat explains that these rights go above the laws when laws interfere with them because they are superior in this case. It is difficult for me to fully have an opinion on this topic because I try not to get involved in political issues. However, I do believe that when a law goes against our natural rights like Bastiat defends, we should say something about it. But like you explained, I also believe that the law is the law and we should follow it to keep ourselves safe.
Overall, you made some really good points about what Bastiat explained in his essays. You have a few grammatical errors throughout your essay with missing citations, but the formatting of your essay made it easy to find which essay you were analyzing.