Augusto Zimmermann writes:
. . . according to [John] Locke the state puts itself into a "state of war" against society every time it attempts to undermine our basic rights and freedoms. Being God-given and inalienable, even if one seeks to bargain these rights away, one simply cannot succeed because natural rights are not the sort of things than can actually be bargained. Such rights to life, liberty and property set limits on civil authority, thus providing a lawful justification for civil resistance against political tyranny should they be violated. To the extent that the state does not recognise and protest these rights, it actually ceases to be a legitimate authority and the people can lawfully dismiss it for breach of trust.
As Locke himself put it:
Whenever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the property of the people [that is, their rights to life, liberty and property], or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence.[Augusto Zimmermann, Christian Foundations of the Common Law. Volume 2: The United States (Brisbane: Connor Court Publishing, p. 2018), p. 68f.]
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