When the law’s an ass created by donkeys, why obey it?
Topic is Law and order, Politics, Society by Brian Mackie | Print it |Folks, we have a problem. There are far too many law-abiding people in this country.
But in Wellington, there’s also someone who insists on riding his bicycle without wearing a helmet. He’s continually being pulled up by the cops and told to walk his bike on the pavement. A few weeks ago, he complained in the DominionPost that the police had drawn up alongside him, and instead of having a pleasant warning chat, they’d made all sorts of gestures from the safety of their car. And they didn’t even have the decency to wind down the window and talk to him.
His complaining letter was followed by another highly abusive epistle, from someone who really should get out on his bike more often. The author said that our errant cyclist should simply obey the law – like everyone else.
Like everyone else who has been paying over the odds for years for their electricity, perhaps? Power companies have been rorting us and we’ve overpaid to the tune of $4 billion. But the Commerce Commission says they were not acting illegally. So that’s OK, because it’s within the law, is it? (Politicians, who see the income from power companies as little more than a secret tax, would no doubt agree.)
Like gun-owners who studied the laws, passed the tests and paid for the privilege to own a weapon and now find themselves in the firing line following the mad Napier siege? Half-witted reactionaries now want to force honest people to register all their arms – ignoring the plain fact that criminals don’t obey the rules and the only victims of more bad law will be honest people.
In democratic Iraq, they do this to naughty people. It is perfectly legal
The official explanation for all this State-sanctioned robbery is that nobody broke the law. But nobody in Britain (outside Parliament) is fooled, because they know who makes the laws and who finds ways around them.
The fact is: Why should anyone, anywhere, obey laws laid down by idiots?
For example: It is a criminal offence to die within the British Houses of Parliament. God only knows why, because most Britons would be better off if they were relieved of the burden of MPs. No one has yet been convicted of this offence, and those who die within the precincts must have it stated on their death certificate: “Expired on the way to a hospital”. This insane law was passed by people who were democratically elected mostly by the lazy and stupid.
Anything can be a hanging offence. It all depends on who's running the show
Why should you remain in house arrest for 13 years? Because you’re Aung San Suu Kyi, and you live in Myanmar, and it’s the law. Why am I going to be executed? Because you live in Texas or Pakistan or China, and it’s the law. Why have I been convicted of assaulting my child? Because you fell foul of Sue Bradford’s Law that only came into force because Helen Clark needed a majority in Parliament. Why have I lost all my money? Because you invested in New Zealand, which is an uncontrolled casino. It was all perfectly legal.
The Burmese... law-abiding people hung up by the lawless
Now, our own government is introducing new laws that would crush perfectly good cars – instead of giving them to honest but poor people – simply because they have been driven by boy racers. And we’re going to ban cars “cruising” city streets, whatever that’s supposed to mean. And there will be a $50 levy on anyone convicted – and we know that it will be paid only by otherwise law-abiding people. In the meantime, a senior architect of this chaos (Sir Geoffrey Palmer) relaxes after a lifetime mostly spent buggering up our legal system, as he laments the poor state of the law and sheds many a crocodile tear. It should also come as no surprise that our legal profession remains steadfastly silent about this new legislation. After all, lawyers stand to make a fortune from the confusion that will ensue.
However, there comes a time when the people who elected the people who make bad legislation say: “Enough is enough”. And unless those who are supposed to properly govern society start to make wiser decisions, the people will begin to ignore the law, they will lose faith in the system, and they will set about destroying their own society by either disobeying the rules or taking the law into their own hands.
Tagged as Boy racers, Bryan Gould, Cycle helmets, Geoffrey Palmer, Myanmar, Politics, Society, Vigilantes
May 26th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Corruptissima res publica, plurimae leges, wrote Tacitus – the more corrupt the State, the more laws there are. Not a lot has changed in the intervening 2000 years or so. Our legislators clearly have too much time on their hands, with not enough real work to do.
May 27th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
The public’s attitude towards law and order is baffling. On the one hand, we have a two-legged mosquito who caused four months’ worth of robbery and mayhem in Canterbury being hailed as some sort of Ned Kelly hero and a couple who fled along with several million dollars from a mis-keyed bank overdraft being admired as latter-day Train Robbers or Robin Hoods. On the other, power companies deprive consumers of $4 billion in excess profits, and there’s hardly a public murmur. But in all these cases, it was real people’s property or cash that was being stolen.
June 5th, 2009 at 10:21 am
The problem may lay in the welcome departure from a religious-based state. There once existed a symbiotic relationship between morals and laws. Our moral bases stemmed from a broadly Christian upbringing; it brought a degree of certainty in the grey areas of human behaviour but stifled individuality and creativity. Absent coherent cultural norms governing behaviour, a secular state fills the hiatus by the futile route of proscribing unacceptable behaviour in detailed lawmaking. Sadly, we will continue with too many laws until we as a country identify some basic non-legal norms in the way we relate as groupings and individuals. Successful individuals manage this. Successful families manage this. One day, maybe, successful political leadership will manage this.
In the meantime, we expect our Judges to be our Bishops.
June 15th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
I would disagree with Russell’s view that the Church has somehow become irrelevant in the morality wars; the Church has always been (and continues to be) in step with the State. Let’s not forget that the two institutions comprise aspirational individuals with agendas, much of whose contents are immoral.
This is clearly seen in the Roman Catholic Church’s choice of candidate to head abuse investigations: The former commissioner of police and dangerous political wannabe John Jamieson, sold to the public and unsuspecting victims of abuse by various Catholic orders and diocesan priests, on his outstanding record as a policeman. He has been appointed to head the Church’s National Office for Professional Standards (NOPS) in Wellington. Of course, Jamieson was the perfect candidate, but it had nothing to do with his investigative skill and devout Christian beliefs. Rather it was to do with a superb track record, not dissimilar to that of the bishops Russell refers to, and whitewashes and the mystical absolution of the sins, incompetence and the outright malfeasance of his minions.
However, outside the hallowed walls of the orthodox churches and parliament, great spiritual philosophers and leaders such as Henry David Thoreau, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Martin Luther King have long been beacons of hope, with their shared view that it is every citizen’s duty in a democracy to disobey unjust or unnecessary laws.
July 16th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Bring back the Privy Council. Whether people in this country believe it or not, there are innocent people going to jail. There is now nowhere to go to fight this, as the lawyers and the Appeal Court are all tarred with the same brush. You can’t complain about an incompetent lawyer, as it is not allowed, so what do you do?
July 17th, 2009 at 9:29 am
The Privy Council proved it was only accessible by the influential or the wealthy. Our Supreme Court has delivered more justice to New Zealanders in the last 5 years than the Privy Council delivered in 150 years. Proof of this can be found from the Supreme Court website which publishes all its decisions and the lawyers’ arguments.
July 18th, 2009 at 12:37 am
So look what they did to David Bain. We still need something outside New Zealand. David Bain would still be rotting in jail if he didn’t have the Privy Council. When something like this happens in your own family and you see how the so-called justice works in this country, it’s terrible and I have no more faith in the system. We have friends who are ex-cops and they have said they have never seen anything like this in all their years on the force.
July 18th, 2009 at 9:46 am
The David Bain verdict polarises opinion, without much regard to the actual facts. One of the beauties of a jury system is that a jury is supposed to apply a fact-based, logical analysis to its verdict, but juries also bring in that extra element of “fairness” and that is the rationale for the verdict that attracts me. In this respect, we can draw parallels with the Michael Jackson and OJ Simpson trials in America.
The Bain appeal team chose to take their argument to the Privy Council; they could have chosen the Supreme Court route and it is speculation to decide which is better – even after reading the Privy Council judgment. What we do know is that our Supreme Court suppressed evidence about the initial phone call which, on the prosecution version, was very damning to David Bain and, on another issue, the Privy Council refused David Bain’s later petition to have the re-trial stopped.
The Bain case demonstrates the present system has operated as it should have when an individual has a well-resourced team behind him. Not all wrongly convicted individuals in New Zealand are so attractive to the media.
July 29th, 2009 at 1:53 am
I think the bottom line is there are innocent people going to prison in this country, and people need to know this. Where do you go to get a lawyer who even cares?