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Whether there ever was a Robin Hood, and whether he ever was the Earl of Lockesley in feudal times or not, his legend was originally about his "taking BACK from the taxers and giving BACK to the taxees" -- totally virtuous endeavors, in my opinion. Yet this legend has been perverted over and over again by demagogues and their followers to justify their own criminality by claiming that this possibly-nonexistent legend hero's motive was to recklessly steal from ANY of the rich to give to any of the poor. This is nowhere near virtuous. On the contrary, I submit that it's most definitely depraved and totally vicious.
Feudalism was a politico-socio-economic system made up primarily of "givers" and "takers," (serfs and landlords, or taxees and taxers). In feudal times, the rich and the government were one and the same, and the middle (merchant and trader) class was relatively small, although a few rare traders became relatively wealthy by ancient standards (but still well below the "poverty line" by today's). So attempting to use the legend of Robin Hood in ancient times as an example for government policies to follow in modern times is worse than absurd -- much worse.
As Prof. Tibor R. Machan said, "Government
cannot--yes, literally, cannot--be compassionate toward people
with other people’s money. You, I, our friends and
neighbors can be compassionate, in the sense that we can
consider some people’s misfortune, even bad choices, and reach
out to them with our help, be this money or some service we
could offer. That’s compassion. But when we see such
misfortune and go out to rob a neighbor and hand over the loot
to those in need, that isn’t compassion, conservative, liberal
or any other kind! It is criminal-maybe we ought to
dub it “criminal ‘compassion’.”! -- here*
Robin Hood, or at least, educated leaders like
him, was the type of person who defeated King John's army at the
Battle of Runnymede in June of 1215, forcing King John to sign the
Magna Carta, establishing the concept
of limiting government once and for all. And THAT was a
blessing we have all benefited from. It's fun to imagine
Robin Hood really did take part in that victory.
"There can be no such thing, in law or in
morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted
to a mob." -- Ayn
Rand
"It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human
beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws
which bind each of them separately." -- Thomas Jefferson
"We hold that what one man cannot morally do, a million men
cannot morally do, and government, representing many millions of
men, cannot do." -- Auberon Herbert
"The people cannot delegate to government the power to do
anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves." --
John Locke
"The policy of seeking values from human beings by means of
force, when practiced by an individual, is called crime. When
practiced by a government, it is called statism
... ." -- Nathaniel Branden HERE
*http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/machan/machan22.html
