The non-interference ideal served to legitimate colonial subjugation
Evidence
As the conception of freedom as non-interference was introduced by Hobbes to defend Leviathan against republicans, so it was used to defend British rule in the North American colonies against the republican criticism that Parliament had arbitrary power over the colonists. The argument was that since all law is a form of interference all law reduces people’s liberty and no legal system—not that of Leviathan, not that in the American colonies—can be dismissed as singularly inimical to freedom. — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 1211
Categorization
- XREF: Ties to the reader’s existing knowledge of ideologies legitimating domination — echoes how ‘immodesty panics’ signal dressed oppression and how repressive laws get defended as liberty in the name of calm. — connects to: Colonial dominion was justified as the natural right of those capable of ruling; Utopian and godly colonial ideals structurally rejected lawyer mediation — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 514; Settler-colonial elimination is a permanent structural principle, not a one-time event. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 543 (+1 more)
- ADDENDUM: Supports the ‘On Sacrifice’ interest in how ideals get co-opted to stabilize stratified rule; the equivocation theory that renders all government equally coercive flat-out erases the colony-metropole asymmetry.