“Law reflects, but in no sense determines the moral worth of a society…. The better the society, the less law there will be. In Heaven, there will be no law, and the lion will lie down with the lamb…. The worse the society, the more law there will be. In Hell, there will be nothing but law, and due process will be meticulously observed.”
Grant Gilmore
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Publius Cornelius Tacitus
In Hell, there will be “substantive due process.”
Our problem is the secular decline of the character of people in authority and people of prominence. I very seldom encounter deception and mendacity in everyday life. Ordinary people are not liars. “Journalists” are liars, educational administrators are liars, teachers are liars, prosecutors and judges are liars, senior corporation executives are liars, bishops are liars. We’re all suffering under a sociopathic overclass.
Art- Either you are uniquely blessed in your acquaintances or I have been especially unfortunate in mine, because I wholeheartedly disagree.
Our society is riddled through with deception and dishonesty. It manifests in voluminous white lies, convenient lies, euphemism, hypocrisy and more virulent diseases of the truth. We regularly accept ideas that are directly contrary to each other. We willingly participate in, cover up, and fail to contradict the lies with which we are confronted.
And I kick myself, every time I do it.
I agree with Don’s post – no amount of law or ethics trainings will change a man’s wickedness from without. Even if inspired from without, the change must always be from within. Neither the law nor codes of ethics do much to inspire such change. You may obey a stick, but it is not usually an inspiration!
Our society is riddled through with deception and dishonesty. It manifests in voluminous white lies, convenient lies, euphemism, hypocrisy and more virulent diseases of the truth. We regularly accept ideas that are directly contrary to each other. We willingly participate in, cover up, and fail to contradict the lies with which we are confronted.
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Who do you have in mind? The string of deliverymen who arrive at my door during the week? The two sets of tenants who have lived in the apartment downstairs? My landlord and his agent? The nurse I spoke to the other night about a relation’s condition? The respiratory therapist I spoke to as well? The employees at the local Kroger? Those at the CVS? The CNAs looking after another relation at the local nursing home?
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The one person I’ve dealt with one-on-one who did me dirt in the last few years was a lawyer (an elder law specialist). Even the IRS agent we spoke to about a demented relation’s tangled business affairs was pleasant and forthright. I’ve met a mess of disappointing clergymen in my time, but the last one given to artifice to a degree sufficient to induce me to just walk away from him was someone I spoke to in 2004.