Dear Friends,
It seems to me, for people to be equal under the law, the law must be applied to crime, not people. When the law is applied to people, Justice is no longer blind, but an active participant in undermining justice. Moreover, that the government has regulations in place, such that the average person could be charged for unwittingly committing three felonies a day, law enforcement against individuals rather than crimes, is oppression writ large. Because [anyplace], where everything is against the law, everyone is a criminal, and anyone can be targeted. Under such a system, it matters not if the individual is given every right imaginable, because if he or she has the audacity to use one, they will be investigated. God forbid, last month they gave a plastic straw to someone or had an open water barrel under an eave…
Law enforcement must only investigate crimes not people. If a bank is robbed the police investigate the robbery, not some random person. A good investigator follows the crime no matter where it takes him. Would the Hardy Boys have ignored a clue because it led to someone they didn’t want to be the criminal? Would Nancy Drew have passed up a lead because it suggested someone she couldn’t suspect? Of course, they would follow any and every clue, to it’s utmost! That is what makes a good investigator. Only an investigator with an ax to grind ignores clues… to follow a suspect. Such an investigator is as worthless as Inspector Clouseau. Because in reality, luck is no match for acumen. A nation that followed suspects, and ignored clues, would quickly become overrun with crime.
Justice must be blind to the charged, This is why statues that depict Justice has a scale and is blindfolded. It is such an old paradigm of law, that all should be held to it’s provisions. Sadly, this is not nor has ever been the case. Law always peeks under the blindfold. It always has and always will. In the Middle Kingdom during the Classical time, the Emperor erected an obelisk. On it he wrote the laws so that all could know them and be held to them. A man asked one of Confucius’ disciples what he thought of the innovation. The disciple said it was a very bad idea. Startled, the interlocutor asked, why? Confucius disciple answered, because men will argue to the head of a pin the law does not apply to them, it is better to have human heartedness. A Christian might say have a conscience.
Tens of thousands of bureaucrats go to work every day, dutifully writing more regulations that we have to abide by, and since ignorance is no excuse under law, (for those of us not in the elite) we are subject to even the most arcane. In the Federalist Papers, Madison wrote, “It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by people of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent they cannot be understood…” He was saying that, too many laws are in fact oppressive no matter who makes them, or how they are made. Tens of thousands of bureaucrats, each working eight hours a day, regulating every aspect of human existence, passing laws that we cannot know, are so voluminous that we could never read them… means everyone of us is a criminal.
An oligarchy that seeks autocracy might set up a system where the laws become so many they cannot be known, and so incoherent they make no sense, then remove Justice’s blindfold. By doing so they could create a system where everyone could be “free,” as long as they didn’t make waves. Under such a system it is impossible to know what will make waves, innovation of any kind is disrupting, political ideas are always mortally dangerous, even simply catching the eye of some psychopathic public servant is enough to shorten a person’s lifespan considerably. So why would we as a people, accept the premise that everything needs to be regulated by government? Moreover, why do we add to it, using law as a means to investigate politically disfavored people? Unless we don’t want equality under law?
Sincerely,
John Pepin
