I suppose I have an idealist’s perspective on the law, or maybe it’s an outlaw’s perspective (in the Robin Hood sense of the term). I respect just laws, but prefer poison to any other kind. So I guess I wouldn’t make much of a lawyer myself (not that there’s anything wrong with that...necessarily).
Disclaimer: I know and have known many fine lawyers, including the previously mentioned individual. I appreciate and admire those who use the law to protect the little folk, to fight for justice and so forth. More power to them.
I believe the law is a fine thing to the extent that it protects the vulnerable from the powerful and serves the interests of justice in any real sense of the term.
"Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual."
Thomas Jefferson
I’ve had a bit of an odd relationship with the law myself ever since I first picked up a joint at age 15 and took a toke, thus becoming a criminal in the eyes of my own government. Over the years that followed I learned that just because something is illegal doesn’t make it wrong – and just because something is legal doesn’t make it right. Just ask all the little old ladies who have been ‘legally’ bilked out of their life savings by televangelists or the old folks who have been ‘legally’ screwed out of their pensions or health benefits by unscrupulous employers. Just ask all the computer programmers who were told that computer science was the way to go only to see their jobs ‘legally’ outsourced to other countries, or the faithful investors who’ve been ‘legally’ robbed a million different ways. Or ask the many of my generation who were ‘legally’ drafted to go fight an immoral and unnecessary war in Vietnam - of course many of them are unavailable for comment. And that colossal clusterfuck that cost millions of lives was perfectly ‘legal’ in the eyes of many...not altogether unlike more recent clusterfucks.
Congress critters make the laws in this country and our congress critters are not exactly above reproach...in fact they are a pretty pathetic lot. They have, for the most part, sold their slimy souls to the highest bidders and the rest of us down the river. They have no moral high ground left to claim. Why we should auto-respect anything they do is beyond me...auto-suspect is more like it.
Compared to them I’m an amateur, and the thing about my jokes is that they don’t hurt anybody. You can say they’re not funny or they’re terrible or they’re good or whatever it is, but they don’t do no harm. But with Congress—every time they make a joke it’s a law. And every time they make a law it’s a joke.
~ Will Rogers
When we talk about ‘the law’, we’re talking about a lot of stuff - everything from the Code of Hammurabi to British common law to the Constitution and Bill of Rights. But the making of laws is an ongoing concern. One funny thing I’ve noticed about the law is that laws are made, by and large, by the elite for the elite. When laws meant to confine the elite become burdensome to them, they are quite frequently disposed of. Think Glass-Steagal. Laws meant to confine the rabble are more frequently ratcheted up than disposed of. Think mandatory sentencing.
Lobbyists have more offices in Washington than the President. You see, the President only tells Congress what they should do. Lobbyists tell'em what they will do.
~ Will Rogers, October 20, 1929
See where Congress passed a two billion dollar bill to relieve bankers' mistakes. You can always count on us helping those who have lost part of their fortune, but our whole history records nary a case where the loan was for the man who had absolutely nothing. Our theory is to help only those who can get along, even if they don't get a loan.
~ Will Rogers, January 22, 1932
I’ve seen many laws passed restricting the rights of the little guy (e.g. limiting jury awards or bankruptcy protections, etc.), and many passed empowering the fat cats and their corporations (the ‘legal’ right to abrogate their tax obligations for one very big thing). The making of those kinds of laws is a very strong trend I would say – and not a new one according to Mr. Rogers above. In fact, congress can’t make laws favoring the fat cats fast enough. It’s what they do. The winners in any legislative session are generally very predictable.
"If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law."
~ Winston Churchill
Slavish obedience to laws made for slaves should always be open to question if you ask me.
"An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so."
~ Mahatma Gandhi
So I think we need to be a little more nuanced when we talk about ‘the law’. It’s not all black and white. Not all laws are equal...any more than they are equally applied or enforced. There are all kinds of laws against domestic spying, torture or the kinds of financial chicanery we have seen lately in spades for example, but somehow those laws seem to have lost their traction. Laws are slippery devils apparently.
So maybe knee-jerk obedience to ‘the law’ is not always the right thing?
A lot of perfectly good laws have been twisted into unrecognizable shapes too. Remember the right to peaceably assemble? Not without a permit you don’t. Free speech? Step this way through the metal detectors into the ‘free speech zone’.
"As long as I have any choice, I will stay only in a country where political liberty, toleration, and equality of all citizens before the law are the rule."
~ Albert Einstein
Yeah, the law’s a funny thing, and depends a great deal on who’s got the power.
"An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law."
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
You may have noticed that there has been a lot of flagrant flouting of the law at the highest levels of society lately. But that’s only permissible above a certain pay grade. All these slick Wall Street hoodlums, corrupt politicians and bloody-handed war criminals are going to skate ‘legally’ with only a few sacrificial lambs like Bernie Madoff or Lynndie England thrown at us as token sacrifices to the gods of justice.
The rest of us, when we dare to fight back, must be absolutely confined by the law. Whose law? Their law. It doesn’t matter what’s right, fair or just, only what’s ‘legal’. I’m no anarchist but there’s a part of me, the freedom and justice-loving part of me that just wants to say...fuck that.
"We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies it is the first law of nature."
~ Voltaire
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