Ethics and Morals as They Relate to The Law

We had an interesting discussion in my Administrative Law class.  It prompted me to finally finish this article I have been toying with for some time now.  The debate was specifically about the sonogram legislation that they are working on passing here in Texas.

As of my last article, my opinion of abortion and laws connected thereto should be clear.  This, however is a discussion of ethics and morals as they relate to the law.  This, again, will be a pleasant departure from my usual tone.  It is also another of the articles that will end up in the impending book. ENJOY!

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The human animal is so complex a beast that scientists, psychologists, sociologists, and others still do not have a full grasp on what makes us tick. We are so full of personal, political, spiritual, emotional, and social prejudices that it is a wonder to me that any of us find the capacity to get along.

I engage in political debate, emotional exchange, social opinion, and interpersonal reactionary behaviors all the time. I do so because, like you, I am human.  My personal opinions, feelings, and thoughts accompany me in all that I do. This often puts me at odds with people of differing view. (ESPECIALLY THE FAR RIGHT AND THE FAR LEFT.) I’ll speak more on that later.

And my strong, unapologetic, sometimes brutally blunt nature is what accompanies me through this part of my personal journey. So, that is what you the reader are getting.  And, yes, I know I have a tendency to use words like ”control.”  I hold that, truthfully, control is an illusion.  But, I am, in this case,  referring to the notion of controlling the universe and the world around you.  You do have control over your own actions, reactions, movements, words, works, etc.

Until you can take a good hard look at yourself and see that you have within you a terrible, uncontrolled demon self that has the power to utterly destroy everyone and everything around you; then you have no full reckoning of the self.  Until you have felt the call of the seven deadly sins and recognized their voices, you can’t hope to hear the still, small voices of the virtues.  Until you have seen the devil face to face, you can’t hope to recognize God.  Too few of our leaders have taken this look within.

And therein lays the problem with our society.  We do not recognize that the little acts of hatred, violence, greed, lust, avarice and prejudice that we commit every day; are all adding up to a compounded repetition of those acts.  Everyone you anger, cheat, steal from, act violently toward, spread rumors about, lie to, or refuse to help; goes on to commit a similar act to another person and so on.

By the same token, if you lend a listening ear, a helping hand, treat someone right; you create a ripple effect in their behaviors and they go on to do right by others, if they are beings of any conscience at all.  I love the film Pay It Forward because it illustrates this principle so beautifully.

Mankind is becoming complacent and dependent, like cattle.  We sit around chewing our cud and waiting to be slaughtered.  We occasionally let out a moo to inform the world that we are still breathing.  But rarely do we move outside the self-imposed fences of comfort.  Most of us would have no idea what to do if there was a disaster on such a large scale that we had no government or industry to rely on for our safety and sustenance.

The mentality that would take over is one that was demonstrated during hurricane Katrina.  We saw people wading hip deep in their own shit water to go and steal television sets and save their beer.  Then as the city of New Orleans was being cleaned and rebuilt, thousands of the same kinds of people were added to the welfare rolls of surrounding states, where most of them remain to this day.  I don’t think it has anything to do with color or social grouping.  I think it is an unfortunate fact that a bunch of us would fall to the same level if given an excuse.

Nobody is concerned for anything but their own comfort.  Few know how to live without television, video games, three hundred dollar tennis shoes, or our Gucci and Abercrombie status wear.  We are all hopelessly dependent animals, fattened and kept complacent by our dependence on goods, media and government.  No wonder few of us have any concept of decency accountability or “paying it forward”.

“If you think about what you ought to do for other people,  your character will take care of itself.”  (Woodrow Wilson)

“Make yourself necessary to somebody.”  (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

“…have I not demonstrated to you that character is indispensable to man in society? Condemned to live amidst people who have the greatest interest in hiding themselves from our gaze, in disguising the vices they have in order to exhibit nothing but the virtues they never respect, there should be the greatest danger in the thing, were we to show them frankness only; For then, it is evident, we would give them advantages over us they on their part refuse us, and the dupery would be made manifest.”  (Marquis De Sade, Philosophy in the bedroom)

This leads us to the question, “Do the ethics, morals and values of a society belong in the decisions of law?”

It is my personal opinion that the government does not belong anywhere near my living room, my kitchen table, or my bedroom.  But when we are talking about laws that affect an entire community, shouldn’t the application of the law follow the mores of the community in which those laws are enforced?  I believe the answer is, “Yes.”

If the people didn’t want a specific thing to occur in their state, they would not vote for it on a ballot, lobby for it, or push it through the process of becoming a bill and later a law.  We see all kinds of examples of this today.  Proposition 8 in California; SB 1070 in Arizona and The Castle Doctrine now in several states, are all prime examples.

Now, on the other side, the national government has every right to challenge these laws on a Constitutional basis.  Just as the states have every right to challenge the laws of the federal government on the same basis.  That is how our system works.

Contrary to the fantasies of some, we do not have a direct Democracy.  We elect representatives that we expect to carry with them the same mores as those of us they represent.  I’ll discuss later, the difference between morals and ethics.  Sadly a great number of college graduates can’t even name the representative their parents voted in.

Character is an indispensable part of society.  The more we dispense of it, the more that becomes clear.  Look at the corporate and government failures of the last fifteen to thirty years. Look how many unethical assholes we have put in charge of our money, our medicine and our manufacturing.

When character is lost, you get corporate leaders who embezzle funds; you get soldiers who commit atrocities; you get scientists falsifying data; and you get judges promoting personal agendas instead of interpreting the law.

When you dispense with morality and destroy spirituality, you get U.N. officials fornicating with children and keeping money that should have gone to feed the nations they supposedly protect;  you get legislators who freeze money or sleep with their interns; you get presidents who are associated with seedy figures and domestic terrorists, but get elected based on skin color anyway. (Yes, I went there.)

When you remove “God”, or at least the concept of accountability for our actions, you get czars running every aspect of society; you get patriots being silenced for the same kind of dissent that was once sacred; and you get the direct silencing of those opposed to the policies of government, via “Fairness Doctrines” and “Neutrality” legislation.

We are getting the world we deserve, by being the people we are.