Keeping Law and Order in Balance
Only the man who has enough good in him
to feel the justice of the penalty can be punished.
~William Ernest Hocking~
I grew up feeling suffocated. My father had too many rules which often did not make sense to me. I spent quite a bit of time trying to dodge them, sometimes outright ignoring them at my peril. As an adult, I have not been much of a proponent of rules either and have preferred to set my own course whenever I can. I prefer to work independently than for someone else.
Rules are hard to escape. Christians have the Ten Commandments. Jews have the Torah as well. Muslims have the Koran. Followers of other beliefs have their own prescriptions and proscriptions. Citizens of countries have laws and constitutions. Residents of municipalities have ordinances. Even if we live in caves, we have natural law. Our universe is one of laws whether we like it or not.
We can choose to defy or ignore any of these laws. However we must also be prepared for the consequences whether from church, government or nature itself. Did you ever decide you did not agree with the law of gravity and could jump off a cliff without falling to the ground? I thought not.
Over the years, I have come to accept rules and laws as ways to help us know what to expect of each other. They help proceed with the business of life without having to figure out each social situation we face. They also tell us what rights and obligations each of us has and what happens if we ignore them.
Unfortunately legal systems do not always protect us. Laws have sometimes been adopted by those in power for their own benefit and have been used to persecute those who get in their way. Although it is hard to argue with the laws of nature, some religions have decided what constitutes “natural law” and tried to impose their interpretation on the rest of us.
Although our civilization would be chaotic without any rules, we need to balance them with common sense. Thomas Paine wrote about this at the time of our country’s founding: “…a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.” We can take our laws for granted and assume they represent the way things should be. Slavery was legal in our country for many years.
So what should we do? I think we should return to the cracker barrel discussion and refine our opinions rather than having them fed to us by television. We don’t often take time to listen to each other and sometimes follow the example of our national leaders as they try to upstage each other, promoting their own agendas to the detriment of the rest of us. What do you think?
Action Steps
· Reflect on what is most important to you in life.
· Find out what is important to other people you know or even meet by chance.
· Think about customs you take for granted.
· Do they mean the same to others as they do to you?
· Think about how you could change your routine to improve life for others around you.
Selection from my book Navigating Life: Commonsense Reflections for the Voyage, available at Amazon