NOW that we have dismissed the falsehoods with which we are assailed every day, let us also recall the truths we have agreed together.

The cynics and epicureans, who claim to know that there is nothing to be known, are simply choosing to live in darkness. There exist ¾ and have been known for centuries ¾ self-evident truths; the anti-intellectuals merely affect ignorance of Galileo’s Law of Gravity, of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, of dimensional analysis. There is indeed a categorical imperative, there is indeed a natural law, there is indeed a method of stare decisis.

It is not true that only the Jews and the Christians can accept the dictates of reason: it may be that only the Jews and the Christians know beyond a doubt that men were created equal, but everyone can agree that no psychologist or sociologist has ever found a test that predicts who belongs to which class (in terms of voluntary action.).

These United States are a revolutionary nation, in which the government is subject to law. We have no occasion to quarrel and argue like some backward Old World community: we do not debate what ought to be, we understand what is.

There is one God, and He is not the overwhelming majority. No force on earth is competent to mediate between man and neighbor, producer and consumer, employer and worker, seller and buyer, husband and wife, guardian and child, woman and foetus. There is one God and there is one law.

And the law is, that the creature is responsible to the creators: one need not fear the U. S. government, one can call upon one’s State, or if necessary one’s county, to defend one.

Our society is regularly democratic: the Constitution gives the first word always, and sometimes the last word also, to State officers. And we do not allow dominion to the majority; we have been politically correct for more than two centuries.

You are not liable for what you are ¾ negligent or drunk or drugged or half-witted ¾ nor for any harm you may have done. You are liable only for what you did intentionally, for your actions. And the only actions that are criminal, that prove you to be less than equal, are actions that violate the rights of an equal ¾ crossing in front of someone who has right-of-way without his consent, putting drugs into someone’s food without his consent.

Crimes against the State, statutory crimes (as distinct from crimes against the whole of the people, such as counterfeiting the current coin) require not less but more proof: you are entitled to be acquitted unless there is evidence ¾ not merely a presumption ¾ that you acted with mens rea, or "evil design."

There is nothing novel or unorthodox in this conclusion. First, it goes back through the centuries in the common law. Second, public officers regularly proceed on this understanding of law; they are constantly seen committing crimes against citizens, on the assumption that they will subsequently be found to have had some excuse.

Conflicts of interest are a phantom of the economics seminar. In truth, there is always a highest, or a lowest, bidder, we can agree upon actions that benefit all parties. The educated intellectuals are eager to find hungry illiterates to shovel the dead leaves for them; the capitalists are anxious to entrust their valuable plant to ambitious, inquisitive workers.

The conflicts that rage in society today are provoked by governments to divide the society. There would be few abortion clinics for Operation Rescue to picket ¾ and few cases of child abuse for enforcers to sniff out ¾ if parents were at liberty to buy and sell and kill their own children.

Today it is believed that the only hope for mankind is to reach out into space and live on artificial or natural satellites. But this is merely speculation; throughout known history there has never been a shortage of intellectual powers, there has only been an absence of the opportunity to experiment, of what we call liberty. And so it is today: there are supposed to be problems of safety, and of health care, and of unemployment, and of inflation, ad infinitum. But these supposed problems appear to be intractable because they can only be solved by intellectual effort, by individuals trying one thing and another ¾ with one exception, the problem of measuring values is indeed a political question. If each State were measuring in silver, or in gold, or in platinum, coins, then their citizens would be able to discover whether they were getting richer or poorer: bad ideas would be exposed, good ideas would be adopted widely. Persons who were ready to learn would prosper, those who were not would rapidly descend to a level where they would have little or no influence.