I find it interesting how much we believe in the power of laws. Scribble a few words on paper and suddenly people will change the way that the think, feel and act. We need experts to tell us what the words mean and we still expect those magic symbols to bring us into obedience with the spirit of the law. Isn’t the power of ink stains on paper amazing?

As I wrote, we people of the uninitiated masses are not expected to understand these decrees from our enlightened betters. But we are still expected to obey them. It is as though we put the laws of Man on par with the laws written to be obeyed by the universe itself. Our philosopher kings believe that they can make a decree as binding as God’s law of gravity. They actually seem to resent God because his laws of the universe cannot be broken.

When I was a child, I did something stupid, fell down the stairs and broke my arm. Me doing something stupid is par for the course. Let our elite man of understanding try to outlaw the breaking of bones and let us see how mighty their paper laws are. I do not expect to be impressed. There is no point to a law that you cannot enforce.

All nations are ruled from above. Either we are ruled by faith or by force, but that power is always above us. Who makes the laws is the master of the laws and not the servant of the law. Law is only a tool, having no power in itself, and must be obedient to the force that enforces its dictates. As the fallen nature of men is quick to observe, it is always more expedient to bypass the law. Where the law has no champion and defender, law has not force on us.

It has always been given to Man that he can select his ruler. Whether ruled by his creator or by a brother of his type, we give up some of the rights granted to us by our creator in order to be ruled. We elect to obey the law. Such power, granted to the service of law, can be withdrawn at any time. When the ruler of a republic loses the faith of the governed, then more force must be applied to keep the disobedient populace in check. Eventually the republic falls, each democracy into tyranny.

But then the source of law is faith, the hearts and minds of fallen men are made the better for it and their desire is to justice in the law. All obey the law and the republic is just. Obedience to the just law is assured in the private times as it is in the public eye. It is by faith that the law is enforced, not on the flesh, but the heart and mind therein. Such republics rule themselves in good faith.

It has never been the force of law that brings either peace or justice. Law is neither peace nor justice. I will end my time as a stand up philosopher for the day by pointing out that our faith in law is misplaced. As words cannot encode the whole truth of feelings, written laws cannot contain the whole of justice. While there is but one amongst us who cares to exploit his fellow man, it will always take more than writing a law to stop him.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 22nd, 2007 at 12:01 am and is filed under Mulligan Adventures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.