The Reactionary Utopian
The Commandments of Men
May 23, 2006
Anatole France once observed, "The majestic equality of the law forbids
the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and
to steal bread." I read that as a youth and have never forgotten it.
France's aphorism should be pondered with another - Bismarck's, I think,
though I can't find it - to the effect that you should no more watch how laws
are made than how sausages are made. Legislating is a revolting business.
Crooked politicians (if the term isn't redundant) cut deals. Then they
pass laws. And the rest of us are supposed to obey. Or else.
We have to obey not because those laws are wise, or good, or necessary,
but because, however arbitrary they may be, they have the power of the state
behind them. Unless we obey thousands of laws, far more than we can keep track
of, we may be punished.
Thus every law is an "or else," a threat. Keeping the Ten Commandments,
or even all 613 commandments of the Torah (or Pentateuch), isn't enough to
protect you from the wrath of the state, which is constantly adding thousands
of new commandments of its own - "incessantly engaged in legislation," as C.S.
Lewis once put it.
That's a lot of threats. At what point will we have enough of them? This
question is seldom asked, since all parties agree that we need more threats
(alias "laws") and the idea that we already have enough, or too many, and that
some should be repealed, is inadmissible.
Though the state is the fox, and the rest of us are rabbits, this cunning
fox has convinced most of the rabbits that they need him to protect them.
Without him, as Thomas Hobbes might say, there would be a war of every rabbit
against every rabbit. Thus most of us believe that the state that threatens us
simultaneously guarantees our safety. No wonder many Russians yearn for another
Stalin.
To most people in our devoutly political age, disbelief in the state is
political atheism. We need government, don't we, even if politicians are
crooked? Even if government is organized force and its laws are, at bottom,
extortionate threats of violence? Even if government is what makes huge wars
possible?
Some Christians see obedience to the state as a religious duty. Odd that
Jesus said nothing about it. He did call the Pharisees "blind guides," who had
obfuscated the commandments of God by multiplying the commandments of men,
which sounds like a prophecy of the modern state. No wonder he was crucified.
How can there be a duty to obey countless fickle commandments negotiated
by conspiring politicians meeting in what they themselves call "closed
session"? Imagine what Jefferson would have thought of the staggering quantity
of government secrets and "classified" information we take for granted - things
the government withholds from us on the pretext that they have to be withheld
from our enemies, including the defunct Nazi and Soviet regimes!
These days you can never be sure you aren't violating these myriad
commandments of men, as I once did literally unconsciously - when my little
grandsons took my unlicensed puppy for a walk while I was asleep. Luckily a
vigilant policeman, protecting the public, caught the villains. I got a ticket,
with a threat to revoke my driver's license if I didn't pay the fine.
And who hasn't had similar experiences? Land of the Free? I'd call it the
Land of the Licensed. We are "free" to do only what our rulers choose to
permit. That's hardly what our ancestors meant by freedom.
If the words tyranny and servitude now sound rather antique to us, I
think it's because we no longer recognize them when we see them, even if they
apply to us. George III was called a tyrant for far less than the U.S.
Government does every day.
Now the bar for despotism has been raised; we're content with anything
less onerous than Hitler and Stalin, and our discontents are assuaged by
assurances that, after all, we enjoy the privilege of living in a democracy.
Maybe democracy really is, as Churchill said, the worst form of
government except for all the others that have been tried. You can see his
point. I hope you can also see the point he didn't realize he was making.
Joseph Sobran
Copyright © 2006 by the Griffin Internet Syndicate,
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