Frank Borelli
Editor In Chief
New American Truth
Our children know right from wrong by the time they’re five. After that we’re just helping them learn better judgment.
That’s a statement I’m guilty of making time and time again. I’ve seen it repeatedly demonstrated in my own children. By the time kids are five years old they know when they are doing something wrong – or that will earn mom and dad’s disapproval, but they just want to so bad! It’s a pretty simple thing, isn’t it? Knowing right from wrong?
Yeah, I can see some of you shaking your head. Knowing right from wrong really isn’t always that simple. I have previously written about it’s easy for we humans to make things legal or illegal – that’s just a matter of passing a law – but legislating right and wrong is an entirely different and impossible thing to do. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t tried…
In fact, we continue to do so. As we do, remember that LEGAL and ILLEGAL are a matter of legislation. RIGHT and WRONG are a matter of personal morals and ethics. What I think is right you may think is wrong and vice versa.
Let’s use paying taxes as our example since it affects every adult citizen of the United States. In fact, we don’t have to go past that statement: adult citizen of the U.S.. The implication, and my belief, is that illegal immigrants don’t pay taxes according to the tax law. That is illegal but whether or not it’s wrong can be debated. But let’s take it a step further. What if a citizen files their taxes, checking off that little box that asks the IRS to finish completing them? You know… you fill in how much you made, attach all your W2s and 1099s and then let the IRS figure out your taxes. They do, you get a bill and you pay your taxes or get your refund. All of that is legal. Then, three years later you get a notice saying that you underpaid your taxes three years ago and now the IRS wants to bill you fines and penalties and YOU are held responsible for your tax return – even though the IRS completed it for you. Now, is that LEGAL? Yes. Is it RIGHT? Oh, hell no. BUT that’s where our legislative system has gotten us.
In our current collection of Congressmen and Senators we have a high number of people whose first profession was one of law. They are lawyers. Once a lawyer, always a lawyer. It’s like the Marine Corps only with a lot less honor or pride. There are criminal lawyers who defend clients who freely admit to being guilty but pay big dollars to “get off” on some technicality or whatever. Some lawyer takes their money and makes an argument about some point of law… some detail… some item of the current laws, precedents and case law (decisions) that hasn’t been detailed down to the most finite minutia so there is still some “wiggle room” – and that’s what the lawyer argues. It’s his (or her) job. It’s what they do to get paid.
Such a profession surely sees the benefit in legislating even the slightest of the most minor details. Surely, lawyers can understand the benefit of legislating until RIGHT and WRONG are as clear as LEGAL and ILLEGAL.
Let’s be honest: they’re just as aware as the rest of us that it can never happen. Why? Because we’ll never all agree on morals and ethics. The basic differences in belief structure is what (largely) separates liberals from conservatives; democrats from republicans and libertarians from all the above.
Reality in our country today is that lawyers are indispensable and our legislators continue to make the laws more and more complicated – far beyond the understanding or even interpretation of the common man. Hell, as we’ve recently seen, a single law can be 1,000+ pages long and the elected representatives don’t even READ it before voting on it. So what the heck are they voting on? A CONCEPT; a BELIEF; what someone else told them.
THAT is not responsible government. THAT is not what those folks were elected to do. That is OUR money – our tax dollars – they are so cavalierly voting to spend. Oh, and as much as they’re agreeing to spend, it’s also the tax dollars of our children, grandchildren and (probably) great-grandchildren at this point. But don’t worry about it they said. We know what’s best they explain.
Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I believe that only I know what’s best to do with MY tax dollars. I certainly don’t think anyone else knows what’s better for my family than I DO.
Am I saying that we should abolish all laws? Heck, no. BUT, I DO believe that all laws should be simple enough that anyone with a 6th grade education can understand them. ONE Law shouldn’t take 1,000+ pages of paper to detail. The debate over whether or not a crime has been committed shouldn’t take months and months while details are argued. Guilt or innocence are common sense. THAT is why we trust such judgments to “a jury of our peers”. If the jury finds you guilty it’s because the case has been made – beyond a reasonable doubt – that you committed whatever crime you stood accused of. But what if your actions were ILLEGAL but also RIGHT? Isn’t that the topic of the movie A Time To Kill? A father kills two men who tortured, raped and attempted to kill his 8-year-old daughter. By law, it was an illegal act. By moral value? I’d say he did the right thing. Others disagree. In the movie, the jury took his side and found him not-guilty. THAT is in the service of justice, but it should be noted that they didn’t act within the confines of the LAW.
I’m ranting I know. I just strongly believe that our laws should be understandable by simple people; people like me who don’t have a law degree and ten years of court room experience debating minutia. I don’t believe our legislators should waste their time and our tax dollars trying to legislate right and wrong when they are completely incapable of changing the basic morals and values of those who elected them. I think it’s a further waste of time and tax dollars to create redundant laws and laws that no constituent (citizen) has asked for.
What say you?
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