Where does the Government Obtain the Authority to Kill a Person Who is no Longer Poses an Immediate Threat

Michael Dioguardi

by Michael Dioguardi, Facebook, Oct. 1, 2026 - I oppose it on the Lockean delegation principle.

John Locke grounds legitimate government in the collective delegation of our natural right of self-defense. But that right permits the use of force to stop an unjust threat. It does not give an individual the authority to kill someone who has already been restrained and no longer poses an immediate threat. If government possesses only those coercive powers that individuals may legitimately delegate to it, then the death penalty appears to exceed that delegated authority.

Frédéric Bastiat reinforces this principle by describing government as the collective exercise of the individual right of lawful defense. Its legitimate function is therefore to protect each person’s natural rights to life, liberty, and property, rather than to exercise an independent power to initiate force against people who no longer pose a threat.

That is why I am less interested in opposing the death penalty on consequentialist grounds. My objection is more fundamental: I do not think the authority to execute can be derived from the limited authority individuals possess over one another in a free society.

The problem for those who want to apply this principle selectively is that it does not stop with the death penalty. Once you take seriously the proposition that government authority is limited to powers individuals can legitimately delegate, much of the interventionist state becomes difficult to justify. You cannot invoke the delegation principle when it produces a preferred conclusion and then set it aside when applying it would constrain taxation, regulation, redistribution, licensing, or other exercises of coercive government power.

That leaves you with a scattered collection of arguments about the death penalty, each attacking a different question: deterrence, retribution, incapacitation, proportionality, morality, and so forth. Those arguments may be worth debating individually, but they largely avoid the more fundamental question of where the government obtains the authority to kill a person who is no longer an immediate threat.

Michael Dioguardi is a residential property manager and independent blogger writing under the title Seeker of Liberty. Drawing on years of dedicated study of the U.S. Constitution, the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, landmark court decisions, and Austrian School economics, he analyzes contemporary challenges to individual liberty, institutional accountability, and economic stability. Michael resides in Nashville. 

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The above essay is in response to an essay opposing the death penalty written by Mark Rogers. To see Mark Rogers essay and my comments on the death penalty, follow this link.

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