Quote of the day—Margaret Gruter

Law is . . . not simply a set of spoken, written or formalized rules that people blindly follow. Rather, law represents the formalization of behavioral rules, about which a high percentage of people agree, that reflect behavioral propensities and that offer potential benefits to those who follow them.

Margaret Gruter
1991
Law and the Mind: Biological Origins of Human Behavior
[I found this quote in the book The Mystery Of Capital Why Capitalism Succeeds In The West And Fails Everywhere Else in chapter 6. It is an interesting book in more than the domain it was intended.

There is a lot of discussion regarding the formulation of law in developing countries, former communist countries and how certain laws came to be the U.S. and some other western countries. In many cases the rulers set down some law and the common folk ignored it and created their own alternate law which served the people better. In the examples given the rulers frequently gave up even after, in some cases, the military was brought in, burned peoples houses down and drove them off. When the people, as a whole, disagree with a law the rulers frequently adopt, at least in part, the law of the people and give up on their own decrees.

I could not help but make the connection to the gun sanctuary movement in this country.—Joe]

Share

4 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Margaret Gruter

  1. What the West (such as it ever was) had, that the rest of the world didn’t have, was Protestantism (the understanding of Biblical Christianity as being totally opposite to the Romish, gangster-esque, fascist, mock-Christianity), but that history is being ignored in favor of any semi-plausible alternative to it which can be found or concocted.

    In our lack of understanding of that history, we’re back-sliding into a New Dark Age. Everything old is new again. By the time the West re-learns its history and regains its understating of all this, it will have been too late to save it. It’s already past the point of no return. We’re looking past the history of the Reformation, to Greek and Roman philosophies, economic theories, agenda-driven, government-funded “science” and all manner of side issues and distractions posing as intellectualism.

    Like as not, we’ll end up in some sort of French Revolution, rejecting the fake, tyrannical Christianity in favor of a whore-goddess named “Liberty”, and then letting the guillotines roar. It’s what a lot of people want already. They’ll see it as “justice” or some such, and supporters of both political parties in the U.S. have their version of it.

  2. Gun Sanctuary laws were inevitable given the popularity of Immigration Law Sanctuary laws and state marijuana laws. When one side makes up the rules as it goes along to benefit itself, they can’t expect the other side to play by elementary school playground rules forever.

  3. Laws are what humans resort to when social custom, personal restraint, family pressure and shaming either fail, or as is the case in modern America, have been abandoned. In the past people behaved because they would be shamed, shunned and castigated by people that mattered. That no longer happens. Thus we resort to the sledgehammer that is big government and laws. It’s a form of killing flies with a hammer. It works but the collateral damage is immense.

Comments are closed.