If you break the law…
How would you finish the sentence?
...there will be consequences.
...and get caught, it's your fault.
...you better not get caught.
Human law (at least in principle) is designed to encourage behavior that contributes to the well-being of its citizens. Ideologically, it is designed by those people (or their representatives). If there is something harmful going on, we often try to stop it...with law. After all, if something bad is happening and we don't do something about it, it will only get worse. Or, so the thinking goes.
But, when people (the citizens and their representatives) relate to law primarily as something to be circumvented, the system no longer works. When so many people, especially leaders, are actively manipulating the law, primarily to get around it (or avoid its consequences), true well-being suffers. Law is a method to maintain something greater — when that greater thing breaks down, a larger problem exists that law cannot effectively address. We all know the legal system, for all of its merits, has some clear flaws. One of which (sometimes infuriatingly) seems to include something like, "Well, if it's not against the law, there's not much we can do...".
But, it's wrong (or, But, it's not right!)!
True....
So, what to make of such things?
Our sense of law has to come from something higher; a deeper, richer value system. If it doesn't, we end up having a lot of what seems to fill our social-media these days — people 'getting away with it'. And, sometimes, it feels like we're more miffed that we can't do the same thing than we are about what is truly wrong about it. Another too ever-present response seems to be that the law (the one involved in any given situation) is bad anyway. And, so, the sophistication of our justification only grows.
What is, after all, a fundamental basis of law?
Isn't it rooted in a shared sensibility about what is good? There is law to promote what is good and there is law to prevent what is not (the 10 Commandments are one example). But, if we lose a deeper sense of common good, we often end up well down a track of something quite different before we realize it.
At the end of the day, we are the ones who reinforce law the most, primarily by our abiding by it. Lawmakers can often get side-ways by the pressures of influence. This is not hard to see today. Lawkeepers (not simply rule-followers) are where the real power is. And, we must be involved in perpetuating the ideals of what is good. Law is (mostly) a method of doing this. Even if useful, it is incomplete. But, the point here is that it is in our hands (personally and collectively). We can't simply get comfortable with trying to circumvent it. And, we certainly cannot defer it to those who have no real interest in common good; who are simply interested for their own personal interests, who use the system of law to avoid the consequences of violating it.
By the way, Jesus said he came to fulfill the law. So, what do you think he meant?
