The Law

There is much more to law than meets the eye, on the surface, it appears to be a set of rules, but these rules sets us against our instincts, our basic belief, survival of the fittest, so in order for law to work, one has to believe it will work, and live accordingly, and with success come to believe in the law. That is to say, if one is reared by the law, and the law works for this person, and he grows to respond according to the law, than he has sub planted his natural instinct (his animal response) with law. Another way of putting it is, he is now finding satisfaction for food, sleep and sex in the law, instead of through his own natural instincts. He is also likely to pass this belief on to his children, and so on until such time it fails to work any longer for whatever such reasons.

Interesting thing the law, the law is so much a part of us that few (if any) of us even have a clue what our natural instincts even are, though the art of parenting is doing just that, purging instinct from our children and instilling the law. Does that sound like a good thing? Remember, law is a subjective idea, it would not exist without the being and if it didn’t work to some degree. We are going to have food, sleep, sex and babies, period! So in order for law to work, it has to fill these basic needs, for these are the motivators, these are the things that cause man to act, according to what he believes.

If he believes in the law, than he will act according to the law, yet, if he doesn’t believe in the law, and appears to act according to the law, than he is stalking prey! Think about that. Remember, things need to add up. So in order for a culture to have law, its important for its members to believe in the law, and enforce it among those who don’t.

Do you have the right to do that? To enforce a law you made up, subjectively, right out of your mind. For the good of the culture? Who’s to say your law’s better than mine? Does might make right? Does the majority rule? Who’s to say? Yet we enforce laws everyday. Where did these laws come from? Why is it I need to obey them? How does law gain creditability? On what authority can you base law?

Now laws came into practice through several sources, by far the most common is the top dog syndrome, or might make’s right. This occurs when the dominate male starts dictating the rules of behavior to those around him, and are enforced by the brute force of the top dog and/or his cronies. With some success, the rules will tend to take hold simply because they work, because the basic needs are meet with less effort on the part of the individual. As a result, the laws are continued to be used and become part of our belief. At this basic level we call it the tribe.

Now we have to keep in mind that man is very self centered, he is going to have food, sleep and sex, or he will die in the pursuit of the same. So we also have to realize that according to evolution, we are here alone, we are born alone and we die alone. No one can be born for us, and no one can die for us. ‘Morley was dead as a doornail.’ Is what dad use to say. When you’re dead? You’re dead. So that dictates that food, sleep, and sex are as important as life itself.

So with this idea in mind, it is easy to see the limits of the tribe, its growth potential are limited to the thoughts and ideas of the guy in charge. So once you have a law along with traditions which work, the top dog tends to stagnate things. Why? Because he is in charge, and as long as things don’t change, he remains in charge. This can go on for generations, for when the chief dies, the next one in line changes things just enough to place himself in charge, then stagnation becomes the rule of the day, because as long as things don’t change; he’s in charge. So you see the natural progression of the tribe is stagnation.

Now we have established that God is. Now at this point we don’t know who he is or where he is. But that doesn’t limit man from using the idea of God to his own ends. Thus, with this idea of God common among men, many a God has been created to give the law authority above and beyond man, in other words, to give the chief cover, and as this was passed down through the generations, the chief himself came to believe in this God or Gods. But in this case, the law is only as good as its Gods. Now consider; if the God is fictitious , then law based on him will be flawed.

Every now and then a chief would come along who had great wisdom and could see pass his own self interest, with a vision for the people beyond food, sleep and sex. These chiefs, wrote into their law the idea of the people writing their own law. As this idea grew, so did the culture because the law’s limits were raised to the level of the people involved, and thus we had the Greeks, and the Romans, and many of our laws today are based on English law, which in turn is based on Greek and Roman law.

Notice here, we site law by the name of the people who thought it up, and ultimately destroyed it. The Greeks, the Romans, the English. That’s because there is a fundamental difference here. In the case of a tribe, the law is dictated by a king, chief or what have you. He and the God above him are the law. Whereas with the Greeks, Romans and English, the law stood on its own, and was passed on from generation to generation, and those ‘in charge’ administered to the law, but they themselves were not the law, indeed they held the law above themselves. In other words, ’they believed in the law.’

Wondering what killed such great cultures? Why did they fail? There was a time when the sun didn’t set on English soil, now that is a successful culture. What happened?

I call it degeneration. It’s when a culture is so successful, that a steady supply of food, sleep and sex gives way to various forms of distractions, and as the generations pass, we are so busy with our distractions, and because you don’t worry that much about food, sleep and sex, we fail to teach our young the foundations of their philosophy, and why it works. As we slowly forget our philosophy, the one bringing us a steady supply of food, sleep and sex, we begin to think we can write anything into the law and it will be so. And so we do, and the next thing you know, the law, nor the abiding philosophy are no longer based in truth, and begin to fail, but because the culture has forgotten what made them great (the truth) they don’t know how to fix it, after all, those are old fashioned ideas. So as time goes on and the culture weakens because it’s lost, (even though those in the culture are too arrogant to realize it) their enemies come over the wall and loot what’s left, and you have sudden death (to the surprise of the culture). So the law, and its abiding philosophy has to be base in truth, and that truth has to be passed on from generation to generation in tact, and has to be believed by each generation, or they just become predators in the tall grass of the law, bending and twisting it to their own ends. Either you believe in the law, or you don’t. ©

George Henry Nichols