While conservatives believe the principles of limited government and individual liberty are worth fighting for, it’s tempting to get tangled up in the convoluted arguments of liberals (which, for us college students, includes the additional challenge of authoritarian professors). All too often conservatives get lost in the details of a long-winded liberal sermon (or maybe we just zone out?), and allow emotional arguments to triumph over reason and common sense.

If this scenario sounds familiar, it is time to take a lesson from the master of simplification: Frederic Bastiat. Few, if any, have successfully outlined the importance of personal liberty and the proper role of government better than Bastiat. His masterpiece, The Law, introduces the concept of “lawful plunder,” and warns of the ways in which the law can be manipulated to harm the people it was created to protect.

Bastiat defines the state as a “great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else,” and exposes the glaring hypocrisy of big-government politicians who preach democracy and choice while perverting the law to regulate every aspect of social and economic life. While these subjects are deep and complex, Bastiat outlines the case for liberty in a way that a child (or even a college professor) can understand- and does so in about 80 pages.

Although The Law was written over 100 years ago, Bastiat’s ideas are timeless. We must remember that the law was created to protect life, liberty and property, and continue to challenge the motives behind government expansion as Bastiat dared to do in 1850. I urge you to read this book, and I even found a copy online, so forget the old I would buy the book, only I don’t have money / a car on campus excuse.

If your campus is beginning to feel more like an intellectual concentration camp rather than an educational institution, Frederic Bastiat’s The Law is just one of the many books that should be at the top of your reading list. More to follow!