05.14
Laws Can’t Properly Embody Ideas
I think it’s right for other Christians to challenge me on my views about politics. I claim to be an anarchist after all; and that word is socially charged enough to require a decent response from me. Especially since I claim to be a follower of Christ. And, in that vain, let me lay out one of the absolutely foundational lines of thought that under-gird my anarchism: the fundamental inability of laws to properly represent the ideas they are supposed to represent.
Firstly, let me quickly give a definition of my anarchism. I believe that the state should be abolished, not government. For some clarity on what I see as the points of distinction between the two, see my series of posts on Albert J. Nock’s book called Our Enemy, The State. Ok, moving on.
To me, it’s clear that laws cannot perfectly represent the ideas they are meant to enforce. There will always be gaps which exclude some people that should have been included, and exclude people that should have been included. It’s the nature of what a law is. They are inherently imperfect analogs of ideas. Let’s take an example: drunk driving. We all would agree that driving under the influence is very dangerous and needs to stop. So, how do we make a law that stops drunk driving? There is only one way, and that is to ban cars. Anything less than that will be simply variations of ways to punish drunk driving after the fact. And that’s not the same thing as stopping it. Instead, that’s just punishing it. Those are two different things.
This inability to make laws(like our drunk driving example) that properly enforce the ideals behind them leads to a worse problem. Because no law can stop something like terrorism, the only option you’re left with is to enact laws with various levels of preemption. So, returning to our drunk driving example for a moment – we know that we can’t create a law that simply stops drunk driving without resorting to some extreme like banning cars. And, that’s not going to fly. We, therefore, decide to create a law that says “you are only allowed to buy 1 alcoholic beverage per 150 pounds of body weight per day.” That way, nobody can drink too much at any one given time.
Well, that’s not exactly accurate. What if someone decided to get drunk on a Friday night and spends all week going to the store, once per day, buying his one beer and then stockpiling it. Then, on Friday night, he drinks his 7 beers and drives down to the pool hall, drunk as a skunk. Ok, so that won’t work. What if we change the law to now say that “you are only allowed to buy 1 alcoholic beverage per 150 pounds of body weight per day, and you must drink it before leaving the premises of the store where you bought it.” Well, now that won’t work either. Now you’re enforcing that people drink before they get behind the wheel. So, we are forced to keep modifying the law over and over until we find an “acceptable” amount of preemptive inconvenience or harm in order to make the law at least somewhat effective. But, even then it will never do what it was intended to do in the first place: stop drunk driving.
At this point you may be comparing what I’m saying to scripture and wondering why I’m ignoring the fact that God handed down lots of laws. If laws are so inherently broken then why did God seem to have no problem handing them down to his people? The answer to this, is to remember, first, that it’s proper in biblical interpretation to interpret the Old Testament in light of the New Testament. And, given that principle, we must look at what the New Testament teaches with regards to laws. Let’s look at a couple of passages:
18 A ruler questioned Him, saying, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
19And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.
20″You know the commandments, ‘DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, DO NOT MURDER, DO NOT STEAL, DO NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS, HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER.’”
21And he said, “All these things I have kept from my youth.”
22When Jesus heard this, He said to him, “One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
23But when he had heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.
This is the familiar story of the so-called “rich young ruler.” This man first asks Jesus what he must do in order to be saved. Christ answers him and cites a few of the ten commandments. He answers and says that he’s done all of those things. Christ then gives him a new paradigm, by telling him that he needs to sell everything he owns, give that money to the poor, and follow Him. What an interesting answer. Jesus is telling the man that it’s not laws that are going to save him, because there are no laws capable of encapsulating the proper requirements of salvation. Laws were not sufficient to get across the ideas necessary. Jesus showed him this by giving him, not a law, but a principled action that He knew the young man wouldn’t be able to fulfill because of his love of money. Christ exposed the man’s sin without using an appeal to law, because laws were insufficient for the task.
This is getting long. We’ll look at another example next time.
