Discovering True Laws

Column by Bob Wallace, posted on July 01, 2011
in

Column by Bob Wallace.

Exclusive to STR

It is unfortunate there has to be a distinction between “true law” and “false law.”  True law is discovered; false law is made up.
 
No one trained in any hard science believes law can be made up.  None of them will tell you that you can take cyanide without harm, or jump out of an airplane without a parachute.  That’s because they know law is discovered.
 
The same thing applies to economics, political science and law (all of which are inextricably related).  All of them are composed of true laws, some of which have been discovered, some of which still have to be discovered.
 
I define the State as being nothing but false laws.  And the State being nothing but false laws is a True Law.
 
Let’s take the misnamed “War on Drugs.”  What we have gotten from it are drug smugglers making hundreds of millions of dollars a year, millions of people in prison who shouldn’t be there, many innocent people being killed, and the police being militarized.  In other words, nothing good has come from the War on Drugs.
 
The reason why nothing good has come from it is because the State is trying to enforce false laws. Now let’s do a thought experiment and remove the State and its false laws from drugs.  Then we can find out what True Law is.
 
The first thing that would happen is that hundreds of millions of dollars involved in illegal drugs would disappear overnight.  In fact, the drug cartels would disappear overnight. Murders would go down; millions would be released from prison; there would be no reason for the police to be militarized.  And all the Drug Warrior bureaucrats would be fired.
 
Would the use of legal drugs increase?  Probably.  No one knows.  Let’s say it did. That would be the trade-off of all drugs being legal.  As Thomas Sowell has pointed out, there are very few solutions to things, just trade-offs.  And, I’ll add, Sowell’s observation is a True Law.
 
The State, unfortunately, thinks there are solutions to everything, involving force and fraud. And it’s a True Law that all States are based on force and fraud.
 
Lawyers at one time, back when they were respected, believed law was discovered, not created.  Now many apparently think law is anything the State passes, and many of them try to use political power to enrich themselves, as in the case of a 275-pound guy I know who got $2,000 in a class action lawsuit against Hooters because they wouldn’t hire him.  How much do you imagine the “lawyers” in the case got?  I guarantee you it was a lot more than a paltry $2,000.
 
Another True Law is that the State should never have control of the money supply.  The Federal Reserve Bank, for example, is not federal, has no reserves, and is not a bank.  It is in fact a counterfeiter.  And because of it, the dollar has lost 99% of its value in a little less than 100 years.
 
Another True Law?  The bigger the State gets, the more civilization, families, neighborhoods and the culture are damaged.
 
The Founding Fathers believed law is discovered, not invented. That’s why the Bill of Rights enumerates our rights, not grants them. That’s why you should never say the Bill of Rights grants us our rights; it only lists them.
 
It’s a shame when it’s got to the point where even lawyers no longer understand True Law is something to be discovered. Fortunately, just about anyone can discover True Law by studying and thinking. And that, too, is a True Law.

7.75
Your rating: None Average: 7.8 (4 votes)
Bob Wallace's picture
Columnist Bob Wallace
Columns on STR: 89

Bob Wallace is the author of I Write What I See. Please visit his Shameless Book Promotion Page. And here is his Page Full o' Fun. And this is where he blogs.

Comments

Suverans2's picture
Suverans2, posted on July 18, 2011

Natural law is "a system of rules and principles for the guidance of human conduct which, independent of enacted law or of the systems peculiar to any one people,' [are] 'discovered by the rational intelligence of man, and' [are] 'found to grow out of and conform to his nature, meaning by that word his whole mental, moral, and physical constitution". ~ A Dictionary of the Law (Black’s 2ND c. 1910), pg. 804

    "Nowadays, the study of natural law virtually has been banned from the training of lawyers. What remains of it in the academic curriculum of most law schools is no more than a little bit of 'intellectual history', which is devoted mainly to the works of a handful of ancient, medieval and early modern writers and philosophers. Often, students get the impression that natural law is something that can be found only in books (in the same way that statutory law, the verdicts of courts and international treaties are mere texts). They are led to believe that the natural law is nothing but a collection of theories of natural law. It is not. Nor, of course, is the physical universe nothing but a collection of theories of physics."

    "The natural law and the positive law are not alternative systems of rules that apply to the same thing. The natural law is the law of natural persons and positive law is a law of artificial persons." ~ Natural Law by Frank van Dun, Ph.D., Dr.Jur. - Senior lecturer Philosophy of Law.

 

 Reprint Rights