We are hearing lots of noise, threats, static, re the phrase "law and order". It is being bandied about as if it were a free PSA meant to improve our lives, reassure us that the powers that be have only the best in mind for us. Whether we like it or not!! Evidently, toddlers, angry toddlers, rule the day, using Angry Birds as their role models. Only they are real while the Birds are not.
What is law and what is order? Is it that laws are imposed upon us, the people having no say in the process? Are laws good, bad, indifferent, meant for a temporary time or for forever? Are they meant to be changed on the whim of a "power" person? Are they meant to be for the population as a whole or for certain 'privileged' groups? Most important, are laws meant to be moral? Who defines that morality and what to do if they are manifestly not so? Not so simple.
Then we need to answer the second part of the phrase. What is order? Is it a lockstep civilian population afraid to breathe the wrong way? Is it mostly law abiding residents of a country - but what exactly are they 'abiding' by or to? What is order? Is it objective or subjective? Who decides that? Most important, what if that order is oppressive, wrong, morally tainted, inimical to everything that is progressive? What if that order takes us backwards in so many wrong ways?
Finally, one must mesh the two concepts. Do they actually go together, hand in hand, as people seem to believe, as they strew the usage of the term over all forms of media? Or are they actually opposed to each other, antithetical in their practical applications? If that is the case, then how does one choose and what does that choice say about them?
Not so easy. Not at all. So maybe we should stop shouting the term and think about what we really need, what our choices mean, what the use of this term actually says about us. Finally, are these terms absolute, unchanging, immutable? When will we finally realize that slogans are dangerous, lead us down paths that enmesh us in a jungle of opposing morality systems, cause clashes of populations, and totally inhibit thinking.
Laws are not automatically right. Laws can be so wrong. Laws can change as new concepts are recognized, as thinking evolves. Laws can be formulated for the benefit of the many, for a better present and future, in recognition of a past that was not so straight, or laws can be used as immoral figurative batons to beat the people down, remove any safeguard, any surety of their inalienable rights, even as the 'lawmakers' rant about the Constitution, even as they violate its words and the spirit of those words. Even as they use real batons to apply the law and maintain order.
Laws are not an excuse for unlawful behavior. The judges of Nazi Germany said they were doing their job, applying the law, punishing those who did not obey it. Really? Soldiers are held to a standard which states that yes, one must obey orders but not if it goes against the moral values of civilization, of humanity, if recognized as a war crime. The soldiers ordered out onto the streets of this nation could have been held to account as they battled peaceful protesters. Certainly the standing army even more so. These soldiers, these officers, swore an oath to uphold this country, to defend its laws, its very being, its core values, and they need to make choices re that vow and their actions.
There is no order when the representatives of the law apply immoral standards, when they cross the line from protect and serve, to beat down and "kettle up" - all the better to wade in to a hapless population and have at it. That irritating and angry toddler in the WH was not satisfied with cowering in a bunker rather than speaking with his national constituents. Nope, he wanted more, to use his 'absolute authority" to call in the troops - ten thousand strong! - to beat down the peaceful protesters. He was asking and demanding that they be sent in and shoot their fellow Americans. Shoot the very people fighting for equality, fighting for the 40% of our armed forces that are people of color!! Fighting against unfair laws, unfair applications of those laws, and for a true and impartial order. What the hell is the matter with us that we have allowed the situation to degenerate so? To the point where talk of the unlawful and disorderly transfer of power as administrations change - please, Lord - speak more often and freely about a rogue ex president to be.
Nor is there law and order when so many of the people are turned off by all the crises of the times. When they feel helpless and hopeless. When one problem is followed by another, even as the first is still there. When people find themselves hungry, homeless, unable to feed or house their children. So they develop an indifference to it all, other than for and about their daily basic needs. Buy food and feed the kids or buy masks? Protest and be unable to socially distance or take part in changing the world?
Speak out for law? Speak out for order? Remember the words of Elie Wiesel who warned us that the opposite of all that is good, the partner of all that is wrong, is indifference. Indifference leads to bad laws, harsh and cruel order, and death. Death of ideas. Death of books. Death of creativity. Death in every physical sense of the word.
Understand that indifference will eventually lead to you as well. Remember the Pastor in Germany who spoke up about protest and the consequences of ignoring oppression - it does come at one at the end of a long line of oppression and wrongdoing. Cowering in the dark, being willfully blind and deaf, refusing to speak out - till there are none left to defend you. Not a good option.
If we wish to truly Be Well in all meanings of the words, if we wish to Stay Safe as well, in a healthy, orderly, just society, then we must take an active role in insuring that we get what we truly need, hopefully want, and demand - yes, demand - from the government. Law? Yes. Moral laws. Laws that are just. Laws that represent forward thinking, growth in the understanding of the makeup of humanity. Order that reflects those laws, not the order that crushes us. Order that gives a true sense of security, not a pervading fear of violating that order. Our choice. Our consequences. Plain and simple.
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