CDR: Giving the Devil the Benefit of Law (was: RE: Jim Bell arrested d ocuments online)

[Trei, Peter]

I really find AP depressing. I find the arguments that it would only
be used against 'those that needed killing' faulty, in that everyone
has a different list. There are a lot of folk who would put crypto
anarchists on their list (as well as, say, Major League Baseball
umpires :-).

"Law", and 'legal systems', when they operate correctly, do provide
a brake on unpredictable and arbitrary violence. There is no question
that they can be, and are, severely misused by the rich and powerful
to their own ends. But not all the time, and not in all cases. 

Reading this thread makes me remember on of my favorite dramatic
scenes:

>From "A Man for all Seasons" by Robert Bolt.

Sir Thomas More, a lawyer.
Alice: His wife.
Margaret: His daughter.
Roper: His son-in-law.

They are discussing a man whom they regard as suspicious:

Margaret: "Father, the man is bad."
More:  "There's no law against that."
Roper: "There is a law against it. God's law."
More: "Then God can arrest him."
Roper: "Sophistication upon sophistication!"
More: "No. Sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the law. I know 
	what's legal, but I don't always know what's right. And 
	I'm sticking with what's legal.
Roper: "Then you set man's law against God's?"
More: "No. Far below. But let me draw your attention to a fact. 
	I am not God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong, 
	which you find such plain sailing, I can't navigate. I'm 
	no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, there I am a
	forester. I doubt if there's a man alive who could follow 
	me there, thank God."
Alice: "While you talk, he is gone."
More: "And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he 
	broke the law."
Roper: "So now you'd give the Devil the benefit of law!"
More: "Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law 
	to get to the Devil?"
Roper: "I'd cut down every law in England to do that!"
More: "Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 
	round on you -- where would you hide, Roper, the laws all 
	being flat. This country's planted thick with laws from 
	coast to coast -- man's laws, not God's -- and if you cut 
	them down -- and you're just the man to do it -- do you 
	really think you could stand upright in the winds that 
	would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of the 
	law, for my own safety's sake."

-------------------

There are too many Ropers on this list.

Peter