Legality without morality

The world today worships the rule of law.  Everyone espouses it as a necessity for democratic governance and civilized society.  Yet, laws without a moral foundation are but words on paper and meaningless jargon to people suffering from those who interpret their actions based on such laws. 

The Russian President annexes Crimea and invades Ukraine illegally, but uses the basis of international law as the reason why it is allowed.  He arms the Russian terrorists and criminals he sent to manage the invasion, which leads to the shooting down of a passenger plane killing 298 innocent people, 80 of whom are children.

There is clear evidence, at least enough to arrest the people who did the shooting.  Instead, these criminals are left to destroy whatever evidence exists that implicates them, and there is no international police force that exists to intervene or arrest them.

They continue their terrorist activities and Russia feeds them more and better arms to kill more people.  They claim to be obeying international law, but which laws and to whom do they belong.

Israel once again invades Palestine, killing and maiming thousands of innocent men, women and children.  They claim they have the right to protect their sovereignty under international law.  It is difficult to understand how innocent people, especially babies and children are a threat to their sovereignty.

What laws exist that allow people to murder and destroy innocent people?  Are there really such laws?  If such laws do exist, on what moral basis have they been created and by whose values?

There are many in the world, who would like to build a society based on laws they would create in order to have complete control.  The kind of society that would exist would be neither civil, nor civilized.  Such societies currently exist and can be witnessed in the countries with regimes that operate in a similar manner; more vivid examples are located in the places now controlled by terrorists.

The foundation for any civilized society has to have respect for the sanctity of human life.  That is an imperative.  Every civilized society must be built on moral values, which affords everyone the right to life, the ability to sustain themselves and the dignity of contributing.

It is only from the basis of these principles that a meaningful legal framework for governance be created.

All advanced societies in history have developed around similar principles.  Unfortunately these societies collapsed, because the people forgot the foundations of their existence, as we appear to be doing currently.  The societies eventually were taken over by ideologues with no values, much less beliefs or principles.

Once again humanity is on the precipice of a real probability that civilized society will collapse, taken over by bandits, criminals and terrorists without morals or values and who take control by sheer brutality.

It appears that legal systems throughout the world have become disconnected from morality of any sort.  There are even those who espouse that morality has no place in the rule of law.

This is how terrorists manage to wield such control and why they are able to plunder, rape and kill without penalty.  They brazenly promote their carnage to the whole world though social media sites and news networks and there is no one to hold them accountable.

It is also why, in supposedly civilized societies, corporate crime can flourish and go unpunished.  We have witnessed bankers looting banks, auto manufacturers selling inferior products that kill and injure and arms manufacturers selling products and financing wars to make more profit.  Their only penalty is to receive more money and largess from governments to subsidize their criminal activity.

The fundamental issue is that we have legality without morality, justice without compassion and laws that are meaningless, without value and any means to prosecute the people who commit crimes against humanity.

Much more importantly, many of our institutions have been overtaken by the very same criminal elements who would destroy civilized society for their own benefit.

Humanity is at a crossroads.  Hard decisions have to be taken and real leadership shown to regain balance.

The world has come full circle.  One hundred years ago the world went to war, a war supposedly to end all wars; it didn’t.  Wars appear everywhere, as control is sought by extremists of all types.

The question arises whether humanity collectively has made enough intellectual and moral progress in 100 years to avoid another world tragedy; or will our children and grand children have to pay the price in human tragedy.

Unfortunately, in many countries, people, their children and grandchildren are already paying the price of the demise of civilization.

Written by Bill Pardy

July 30th, 2014

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