Have you ever heard “its the principle” before?
You won’t hear that in matters of law.
Law is based on cultural values, principles, agreed upon standards of behavior and then incredibly enforced by negotiated agreement due to logistical constraints.
A very strange situation this is, because everything we are taught regarding “do the right thing” and “be honest” and “stand up for what is right” and “call a spade a spade” and “protect your rights” and “do unto others” goes out the window when you enter this strange world of adrenalin junky legal types who have no real grasp of any of that any more and the highest bidder wins.
Its the principle of the matter that gets me.
Ach nein
that is how it often goes, but not always. in my opinion, there are enough laws in the books and there is enough “precedent” to allow judges and juries to rule how they want and then find the appropriate case or law to site as their reasoning, except for in the most most clear-cut of cases. so a good judge won’t be swayed by the side that is better resourced every time. but as they say, if it ain’t crooked, it ain’t north fork.
Philosophically speaking, law is not enforced at face value.
Law is enforced by negotiating who is most likely to prevail, followed by the perceived “loser” paying off the perceived “winner”.
If justice existed then the legal system wouldn’t, and would be a justice system.
That is the folly of the the legal system, that truth and justice are not longer prevalent or even present.
Law is not important at all when in fact law could be more important than man, as in the Australian aboriginal cultures.
Perhaps truth and justice are merely perspectives. And the legal system is a commingling of perspectives. Sometimes the perspectives are in alignment with you, sometimes they ain’t.
Principles? Merely your perspective versus mine…
The reference here is agreed upon principles. Truth and justice exist entirely without us to think about them.
We don’t live in a vacuum. Society as a whole has a set of principles upon which are founded our culture, principles that spring from our shared values.
Would but that principles were strictly personal, conveniently written off as “in alignment” or “unaligned” with whatever, whater, unfortunately we are forced to toe the line of group rules known as “law” and all too often the framework becomes meaningless.
Accountablility and enforcement have been diluted to that point here in the US.