The Law

Perception of the law is an interesting subject these days. "Rule of Law" is a phrase that get's thrown around by the right and left in their fueds to gain the high ground. What does it mean though?

From the best I can tell, it is used to represent the modern belief that the law is to be followed, even if the outcomes offend moral sensibilities. Remember the movie, "A Time to Kill"? It was fiction. Today, in any city in America, if you kill the man who raped and killed your daughter, you are going to jail. Not because killing him is wrong, but because it's the law.

"It's the law" the prosecutors and black robes repeat with their glassy blank eyes.

This worship of law is bizarre. Particularly when you consider that we ignore the law every second of everyday.

You see, if you must prosecute a the man who kills the murderer of his daughter, then it follows that you must also prosecute the couple who kisses on a train, or the man who spits on the sidewalk. The books of every state are littered with laws that we break every day.

You see, we do make distinctions between what laws we obey, and what laws we ignore.

Ahhh.. but that's the point. It's not up to us. It's not about the public's sensibilities. It's about power. We ignore those laws because they are not enforced. You can bet that people wouldn't continue to spit on the sidewalk if they were suddenly fined for it. They would do what they do, bend over and mutter, "Oh well, it's the law." Don't believe me? See anyone smoking in Resturants in NYC? Or Morgantown, WV for that matter?

The statement that we obey a law blindly, simply because it is the law, is manifestly false.

This belief though, puts enormous power in the hands of the few. Who are the few? Why the Lawyers of course.

Jury Nullification rips that power from their swollen porky grip, and that is why on the bench, and in the law schools, they have toiled to see it destroyed.