Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2011 19:07:07 -0500
From: Jeff Lane
Subject: RE: Law and Order
I’m just feeling a little frisky and wanted to chime in unnecessarily…
On 01/20/2011 07:34 AM, Chatham Chatlist wrote:
> ——————– 7 ——————–
> Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2011 18:12:45 +0000
> From: “Crowell, Karen E”
>>
> Subject: law and order
>
> The rule of law didn’t prevent hundreds of people from being lynched
> in the past. Justice is not served by laws alone. No society that
> tolerates lynching or turns a blind eye to such crimes is just, no
> matter what the law says.
Then I’m afraid there are NO just societies… all are guilty at some point in their past of some sort of atrocity or perceived atrocity, and many do so even today in our “enlightened age”. The reality is that as a species, we are just as barbaric today as we were a thousand years ago… maybe even moreso, even though we don’t want to admit it.
> In reference to the resolution passed by the BOC, she writes: “I
> think all lives are equally valuable and to make laws making a
> distinction sends the wrong message.”
Indeed. I agree, the reference was confusing, but the point is still valid. Is murder any less or more of a crime if it’s committed because of someone’s race? The victim is still dead. Same for any other crime. If I was Robin Hood, and stole hard earned money from rich families and gave that money to poor families, am I LESS of a thief than had I kept that money for myself? Just curious.
> When we pledge our allegiance to the flag, we don’t pledge it to a
> land of “Law and Order”; we pledge it to a land with “freedom and
> justice FOR ALL.”
Well, no. We pledge to a land with Liberty and justice for all. Not Freedom. The two are different things:
“Liberty and freedom are distinct, as well. As the political theorist Hanna Fenichel Pitkin has observed, liberty implies a system of rules, a “network of restraint and order,” hence the word’s close association with political life. Freedom has a more general meaning, which ranges from an opposition to slavery to the absence of psychological or personal encumbrances (no one would describe liberty as another name for nothing left to lose)” (http://www.speakliberty.com/LibertyAndFreedom.pdf)
I found an analogy I liked as well:
“Freedom would be my right to take my neighbor’s property. Liberty would be his right to shoot me if I did.”
There are some really interesting discussions about the difference between the terms out there.
Anyway, as I said, I was just feeling a bit cheeky this evening after a long week of work.