The Vengeance Press is a labor of love. My love of objective and critical thinking about the most important issues of our age. The law is without a doubt one of the most crucial tools of society and statecraft ever devised. Laying down the rules by which human beings are to interact with one another. Protecting the rights of individuals and limiting the potential damage to the individual by governments, businesses, and other individuals is key to insuring the brightest, most promising future for us all.
Unfortunately, law, like any other construct of man, can, and often is perverted by the judicial and legislative bodies of local, state, and federal governments. I prescribe to Frédéric Bastiat's view of law. What it should be, and what it has become under the control of legislators the world over. To appreciate what I mean by this, you must read Bastiat's seminal work entitled: The Law. Below is a link to an audio version on YouTube.
The law is simultaneously the greatest hope for mankind, and the greatest threat to it. From the modern town council that establishes local ordinances to criminalize certain behaviors and activities of individuals and businesses alike. To the state and federal legislators that create regional and national laws. We the people are completely at the mercy of whatever it is those in such positions decide to pass into law. The point of the spear, where law is concerned, are the local and state police. These officers of the law take oaths such as the following one, which was provided by the International Association of Chiefs of Police;
In and of itself, this is a fairly straightforward and reassuring oath. This oath provides the public with a particular image of the officer's role within their community. A role that honors and upholds the rights and protections guaranteed by the constitution and the bill of rights. A role in which the police officer understands that it is a community and not just an agency of the law that is being served.
Unfortunately, the role of the police officer in the community is one that creates an "us and them" view of the world. Where police officers come to see themselves as operating outside of normal society, or at least on the periphery. There are many reasons that law officers tend to adopt this perspective. Too many reasons for this single article to bring to light. Suffice it to say that when police officers are being scrutinized by the public they serve, the agencies they serve, the individuals whom they arrest and their lawyers, the courts and so on. When they are constantly confronted by the very worst acts of humanity, from murder, to rape, and thuggery and every other imaginable and unimaginable type of malicious behavior. It is easy to see why they would quickly adopt the attitude that they live and work outside of the society they are employed to protect, as that society can hardly appreciate, or even understand, the emotional rigors of their responsibilities.
It is a natural consequence of the horrors' experienced so often by law officers, that the line between right and wrong, where their personal conduct is concerned, can become blurred, if not vanish altogether. Add to this reality, the fact that they are pressured by their agencies and their peers to make arrests and to have a high percentage of those arrests result in convictions, and you have a recipe for the institutional disregard for individual rights and protections under the constitution that their oath demands they protect.
One very clear indication that law officers are not in any way conditioned or expected to consider the implications of the constitution where the laws they enforce are concerned, is that the law officer has one mandate that overrides all others. He is to enforce the laws as they exist, with no authority to use personal discretion in determining whether a law is constitutionally valid or not. This creates a circumstance where obviously unconstitutional laws such as those that unambiguously stifle free speech, or discriminate against minorities, or provide unequal protection of the law to certain groups or individuals in our society, must be enforced by the law officer, despite any ethical dilemmas that an officer may face.
The real meat of this issue is not the law enforcement officers though. As I stated earlier, they are simply the sharp end of the government's spear. Government is the problem. It has always been the problem! And government will continue to be the problem for good hearted, hard working, honest individuals the world over, until such a time as the people of the world, in their respective countries, realize that they do not need a government to protect their lives, their freedoms and their property from other individuals. If that is all that government did, protecting individual rights, freedoms and property, I would have little to take issue with. However, governments are inherently parasitical in nature. They create nothing, and they rarely if ever decrease in size, save when the individuals (hosts) they feed upon have become so weakened by the government's lust for evermore power, authority, and money, that the parasite is forced to shrink for lack of sustenance.
So this blog is about the law, those representatives that create and enforce the law, and the perversions and failures of the law in America and abroad that strike me as being particularly important to discuss.
I am honored that you have come to review my writings here, and hope you will also take the time to join in the discussion and leave your thoughts on what I have written. I do not intend in any way to change anybodies mind with what I write here. It is really more for my own benefit and that of my children. That they will be better able to understand me and my thoughts on what I consider the most important issues of my time.
Unfortunately, law, like any other construct of man, can, and often is perverted by the judicial and legislative bodies of local, state, and federal governments. I prescribe to Frédéric Bastiat's view of law. What it should be, and what it has become under the control of legislators the world over. To appreciate what I mean by this, you must read Bastiat's seminal work entitled: The Law. Below is a link to an audio version on YouTube.
The law is simultaneously the greatest hope for mankind, and the greatest threat to it. From the modern town council that establishes local ordinances to criminalize certain behaviors and activities of individuals and businesses alike. To the state and federal legislators that create regional and national laws. We the people are completely at the mercy of whatever it is those in such positions decide to pass into law. The point of the spear, where law is concerned, are the local and state police. These officers of the law take oaths such as the following one, which was provided by the International Association of Chiefs of Police;
On my honor,
I will never betray my badge,
my integrity, my character,
or the public trust.
I will always have
the courage to hold myself
and others accountable for our actions.
I will always uphold the constitution
my community and the agency I serve.
In and of itself, this is a fairly straightforward and reassuring oath. This oath provides the public with a particular image of the officer's role within their community. A role that honors and upholds the rights and protections guaranteed by the constitution and the bill of rights. A role in which the police officer understands that it is a community and not just an agency of the law that is being served.
Unfortunately, the role of the police officer in the community is one that creates an "us and them" view of the world. Where police officers come to see themselves as operating outside of normal society, or at least on the periphery. There are many reasons that law officers tend to adopt this perspective. Too many reasons for this single article to bring to light. Suffice it to say that when police officers are being scrutinized by the public they serve, the agencies they serve, the individuals whom they arrest and their lawyers, the courts and so on. When they are constantly confronted by the very worst acts of humanity, from murder, to rape, and thuggery and every other imaginable and unimaginable type of malicious behavior. It is easy to see why they would quickly adopt the attitude that they live and work outside of the society they are employed to protect, as that society can hardly appreciate, or even understand, the emotional rigors of their responsibilities.
It is a natural consequence of the horrors' experienced so often by law officers, that the line between right and wrong, where their personal conduct is concerned, can become blurred, if not vanish altogether. Add to this reality, the fact that they are pressured by their agencies and their peers to make arrests and to have a high percentage of those arrests result in convictions, and you have a recipe for the institutional disregard for individual rights and protections under the constitution that their oath demands they protect.
One very clear indication that law officers are not in any way conditioned or expected to consider the implications of the constitution where the laws they enforce are concerned, is that the law officer has one mandate that overrides all others. He is to enforce the laws as they exist, with no authority to use personal discretion in determining whether a law is constitutionally valid or not. This creates a circumstance where obviously unconstitutional laws such as those that unambiguously stifle free speech, or discriminate against minorities, or provide unequal protection of the law to certain groups or individuals in our society, must be enforced by the law officer, despite any ethical dilemmas that an officer may face.
The real meat of this issue is not the law enforcement officers though. As I stated earlier, they are simply the sharp end of the government's spear. Government is the problem. It has always been the problem! And government will continue to be the problem for good hearted, hard working, honest individuals the world over, until such a time as the people of the world, in their respective countries, realize that they do not need a government to protect their lives, their freedoms and their property from other individuals. If that is all that government did, protecting individual rights, freedoms and property, I would have little to take issue with. However, governments are inherently parasitical in nature. They create nothing, and they rarely if ever decrease in size, save when the individuals (hosts) they feed upon have become so weakened by the government's lust for evermore power, authority, and money, that the parasite is forced to shrink for lack of sustenance.
So this blog is about the law, those representatives that create and enforce the law, and the perversions and failures of the law in America and abroad that strike me as being particularly important to discuss.
I am honored that you have come to review my writings here, and hope you will also take the time to join in the discussion and leave your thoughts on what I have written. I do not intend in any way to change anybodies mind with what I write here. It is really more for my own benefit and that of my children. That they will be better able to understand me and my thoughts on what I consider the most important issues of my time.
Jared Matthew Sewell
No comments:
Post a Comment