| | "the legal system" implies a single legal system with a monopoly on the use of force... There is a crucial difference between the use of force that was initiated and the use of force that constitutes self-defense. Our current legal system, even with its many, many flaws, does not outlaw self-defense by an individual in many cases. And if the legal system is behind the application of defensive force, that's a good thing.
..."the legal system" implies a single legal system with a monopoly on the use of force, which implies that unless the majority of citizens -- or a very well-armed minority of citizens prepared to use their weapons... If the legal system is based upon individual rights it doesn't matter how it is maintained, so long as it is maintained.
..."one could not expect "the legal system" to "protect us against all efforts on the part of ... the legal authorities themselves as to how we ought to live. But that is exactly what we should expect and it should be the very purpose that forms our goals as citizens, and the standard to which we hold our politicians.
..."...the legal system that each of us may choose amongst the marketplace of such systems should protect us..." There can be NO marketplace of competing legal systems. To have a marketplace, the environment must be protected against initiated force, fraud and theft FIRST. If that isn't done, then instead of a marketplace there is a jungle because some individuals will choose to make their own laws and those laws will say that they can initiate force. Individual rights set the standard, laws implement them, then the marketplace exists for trading all other things - that is, all things except any transaction involving the initiation of force, fraud or theft.
Sovereign does NOT include the right to violate rights. That isn't a valid choice under any circumstances. Taking away that invalid choice is not a violation of sovereignty. No one gets to choose a set of laws that violate rights, and if someone acts upon a law that permits the violation of an individual right, that law is bad and it doesn't matter where it came from - a majority, a minority, democracy, a republic, a monarch, a gangster, a defense agency, or just the whim of an anarchist.
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