"It's the Law:" The Mantra of the Brainwashed

When I write about the injustice of the drug war and the immorality of persecuting drug users, I often see someone say that we have to do those things because "its the law" as though that is synonymous with "it is right." This logic is a prime example of putting the cart before the horse. Laws are supposed to be based on the pursuit of justice but a thing does not become just because it was written into law. This concept seems simple enough, so why does such a great number of people ignore its truth? Some people don't like to question things but this is an insufficient explanation for how prolific the view point actually is. The real cause goes beyond simple ignorance. We have handed over our education to systems of authority who benefit from the "its the law" attitude. Through this influence, we have allowed ourselves to become slaves to the system and we justify our own oppression with this mantra of the brainwashed. If we ever wish to free ourselves from our willingly worn bonds, we must reject the "its the law" belief and stand against false "justice" and oppression by questioning whether our laws actually have merit and opposing the ones that don't.

Despite how common the belief is, the idea that a thing is just simply because it is the law is highly flawed and ignores countless lessons from history. No one worth listening to would argue that slavery was just, yet countless systems of "justice" upheld the practice. We rightly view people who opposed that system as heroes but, in their own time, they were "criminals." If we say that the law is just because it is the law, we should agree that it was right when those heroes where prosecuted and punished for their "crimes." That, of course, is ridiculous but many people seem to fail to apply the same principal to our current systems of law (drug laws are what I have in mind but this is true of quite a few other things too) In truth, what the law is and what justice is are not related at all. We must teach ourselves to evaluate laws and judge them based on their value to society and on whether they violate the natural rights of the population.

This problem with people's perception of the justness of the law stems from the system in which we live. We have allowed the structures of authority to control education and, in doing so, we let them dictate our social norms. From the time we are sent to public school, our indoctrination begins. We are told that rules must be followed and if we question those rules, we have broken a rule (that is how I remember elementary school, anyway). After twelve years of this, many people forget to question whether those rules make any sense and when they reach adulthood, they go on forgetting to question the laws that they are told to follow. When one of these people sees someone being locked in a cage because they possessed a drug, he or she says "its the law" and stands there, blind to the injustice that is taking place before his or her seeing eyes. This form of brainwashing happens every day in front our faces but most people accept it because it seems to be normal. It is no accident that this process of indoctrination serves to strengthen the systems of authority who control it. These control structures function more easily without inconvenient questions and they use their power over education to remove peoples will to think critically about these issues by falsely equating the law with the just.

The solution is simple but its implementation is not. Weighing the justness of a law is not particularly difficult. It is a mere matter of examination but teaching people that this sort of examination is necessary is the real task. Those of us with a voice must make our push for truth. We needn't convince these people of anything, we must only plant a seed of doubt in their minds. I find that asking a person questions about his or her belief in these laws and letting that person unravel the truth on his or her own is productive. When that person begins to question his or her beliefs, the battle is won. If people don't know why they believe a thing and they realize that they don't know why they believe it, they will likely stop believing that thing. This is the reason that the most dangerous word to those in power is "why."

Peace.

All the images in this post are sourced from the free image website, unsplash.com.