These were not simply rules or views of people like my parents or teachers, but something more. Laws were things that somehow defined the moral, and immutable set of rules for life. If you broke laws there were police that would take you away and lock you up.
Over time one realises that laws are not quite so concrete. For a start, they change, and new laws come in and old laws are repealed or changed.
The idea that something today may be illegal tomorrow, or the other way around, is crazy. It is how it works, but that is, well, just mental, how can a thing change from "right" to "wrong" or "wrong" to "right" just because we have moved on in time?
What I later learned is that these laws we all follow are created by, well, just people. And they are not people that have a lot of training, and learning, and credentials, and academic achievement or qualifications in their field. They are created by people that happened to win a local popularity contest in their constituency, working with others that have the same credibility. There is no qualification needed to make laws. There is no test. There is no exam. You literally have to win a local popularity contest to be an MP, and MPs can literally make new laws.
That, in itself, in insane, sorry. I mean some of them are sensible, and some even qualified. I have known some MPs that seriously know what they are doing. But "running the country" and, importantly, "making laws" has no qualifications needed. It is amateurs that won a local popularity contest, that is it.
So is there a better system?
You forgot the part where after writing the laws, they have to be approved by people that were appointed, for life, by a very small subset of the people that won the aforementioned popularity contest
ReplyDeleteAny system is going to have flaws, and by definition any system that involves people even more so. If all people could be trusted we wouldn't need laws to begin with...!
Unfortunately, no. Of course, some small improvements to the details of our system could be made. For example PR rather than FPTP - which (by observation of countries which have it) would reduce or slow down law making, at the cost of allowing a few more extreme weirdos to have a say (which might not be a bad thing - some might have some good ideas, and others would at least let some extremists feel they at least have someone expressing their views).
ReplyDeleteOh, and... "The idea that something today may be illegal tomorrow, or the other way around, is crazy." - no. Laws are compromises between the views and priorities of many people. Those people change their minds, external conditions (like the value of the country's resources and skills, and the actions of other countries) change, inspirational leaders convince people of the error of their ways, etc. Laws are not set in stone - they are defined by conditions at a particular time and place - just consider how the 10 Commandments have fared in today's world!
Delete‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’ - Churchill
ReplyDeleteIn situations like this it's often advisable to look to the scriptures...
ReplyDelete“Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.”
― Terry Pratchett, Mort
... or maybe not
"And they are not people that have a lot of training, and learning, and credentials, and academic achievement or qualifications in their field."
ReplyDeleteYou speak of this as if it's a weakness of the democratic system, when in fact it is a strength. The fact that ordinary people like us get to vote for other (relatively) ordinary people like us, who in turn make the laws, is what gives the laws legitimacy. Otherwise we're just being ruled over by an unaccountable elite, like in a medieval absolute monarchy, and we know from history how often those tend to descend into civil war when the ordinary people feel they're being governed unfairly.
Requiring expertise and qualifications makes sense in fields like engineering or medicine, where there are well-defined correct and incorrect approaches, and making the wrong decision can cost lives. But there are no "experts" when it comes to deciding what is right and what is wrong. There may be educated people who've read a lot of history and philosophy, but they all have very different ideas, with no objective scientific way to establish or define which is "correct". Democracy is the best tool we currently have to ensure that the legal definitions of right and wrong broadly reflect the values of society as a whole.
Just wait until you hear about sortition!
ReplyDeleteIt's statistically the fairest, most unbiased way of electing people and doesn't lead to career politicians: the names of people are drawn from the names of the whole population and then they serve a single term.
So all good and fair.
...but definitely no qualifications needed.
On the other hand, the justice system does require a bit more qualification, at least on the face of it (although magistrates and juries are supposed to be your peers), but the major point of it is for it to be seen to be done, with a process, etc, rather than really prioritising absolute correctness in every case.