Law and Order, the Essentials

 

 Tombstone teaches a lot, but one takeaway is what happens when a city trades law and order for vice.

Jason Priestly plays a character called Billy Breakenridge. It’s such a small part that I had to look him up on IMDB. He’s the agent of change representing a love for culture and freedom (indulgence?) that sees how fleeting both can be without law and order. His friend, and likely lover, Mr. Fabian the stage actor is shot by a band of “Cowboys” led by Curly Bill.

Breakenridge instantly turns from friend of the outlaws to supporter of Earp. He ends his crusade right there and lets the men know “Sorry Sir, But we got to have some law”. He’s been hunting Earp for killing some of the local “Cowboys” that run Tombstone like a gangland.  The realization comes on like a flood when he sees Fabian dead from a vindictive cowboy.

Law and order is the chassis on which Western civilization rides. Every vehicle needs one. No one sees it except the builders but without a chassis the car falls apart. You can do a lot with the shape and style. Engines can be tooled for racing, hauling or just getting groceries around town. Body styles come in sleek and tough, classic and custom, but without the chassis the car is just a glossy frame.

The group called CHOP, in Seattle, installed a hasty government, erected a fence around the downtown area and put enforcers in charge. It’s ironic that the lawless Antifa types threw off the local authorities, to be free of it no doubt, and immediately established one of their own. Governing is tough enough when you have the will of the people. But when the inevitable crime wave happens who will enforce the existing law? What is the existing law in this newly established hovel? Are robbery and rape even crimes? What about murder? If so, by what moral principle is anything good or bad? What is the process by which a victim appeals to an established judge, or a court for retribution? Are the revolutionaries that run the place even looking out for each other?

The problems with our system of law and order are well known. It’s much easier for wealthy people to avoid prosecution and get by with committing crime. Money buys good lawyers and teams of investigators that can muddy the waters of a case even when the defendant is guilty. Slip and fall lawyers can wring dollars out of businesses like dank water from a mop. In states with no limits on damages, companies can get sued on even the slightest technicalities. Poor neighborhoods (not just minorities) have a likelier chance of encountering the police and being apprehended. Most legal infractions (misdemeanors and felonies) require some payment of fee to get out of, not to mention the court fees. The poor are disproportionately affected. The fees aren’t unjust per se, but it’s tough to climb out of debt with legal bills. Miss a payment, add another layer of fees.  

None of this is to say it’s an awful system but we do need to reform it on the margins. Sometimes it means voting for a person or bill designed to sort out some perceived wrong. But I don’t believe it’s a ‘systemically’ racist legal system. This is the standard Black Lives Matter line, not to mention countless Marxist groups in the country. American jurisprudence is rooted in the English common law tradition where property is protected and disputes are settled by a judge, or unbiased party. That decision is used as a reference for similar cases that follow.

 This business about our legal framework is a blog post for another day, but you get the point. So what does it mean that the institutions are systemically racist? If you mean discriminatory, exclusionary and unequal than you’re right. But if by ‘systemic’ you mean that the foundations (first principles) are rooted in an immoral understanding of rights and liberties, I’d call nonsense. The inequities are mostly in personal biases and an unwillingness to provide everyone in society with the same opportunities that the nation’s founding always provided for.

In Dr. King’s famous “I have a dream” speech he refers to this specifically as a bad promissory note for black Americans.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

If King thought the founding was systemically racist he wouldn’t reference the Constitution or the Declaration as standards of legitimacy. Instead, he calls white society to live up to them. Law is something we interpret through the courts, but courts can go sideways for years with poor philosophy, bias, neglect and racism. Like a banged up chassis causing poor steering, bad law can damage a society. A dramatic correction is needed, as Martin Luther King well knew.

 Societies need standards of behavior and consistent protections in order to survive. Even decadent ones like the radicals in Seattle will soon discover “We got to have some law!”