Herein I review Ian Kennedy Martin’s, “The Last Crime,” a near future dystopia that combines Orwell and Huxley’s insights into a single story. The story also reveals the true basis of the State and why almost every revolution is as bad, if not worse, than what it replaced.
Tag: Stephen L. Carter
When We Should Break The Law
From our earliest days, when the Prophet Joseph and Patriarch Hyrum suffered in Liberty Jail and died in Carthage Jail, to the Saints spending nearly 30 years resisting Federal anti-polygamy laws, practicing civil disobedience and being willing to go to prison in order to serve God, on down to the modern day we have examples of the lives of great Saints who have repeatedly broken the laws of the land in order to do what is right and to serve God. Latter-day Saint history is full of rebels and rogues, people who would rather be exiled from the nation, who would rather be killed, than disobey the Lord. So how is it that so many of us have become so milquetoast about standing up the government tyranny? Why is it that so many of us think that the Saints should “strictly obey the laws of the government in which they live,” even when such laws aren’t just wrong or immoral, but even when said laws actively compel us either to disobey God or punish us for obeying Him? While there are numerous reasons, one of the largest is because Latter-day Saints have misinterpreted the Twelfth Article of Faith, D&C 58:21, and D&C 134:5 as giving commandments to the Saints to obey the law and to comply even with evil laws. A close examination of these scriptures though, as I attempt here, show that such interpretations are, by the large, gross nonsense.
What Is The Government And How Does It Work?
Government is one of those subjects that most people know woefully little about. And no, I don’t mean the byzantine systems of law creation or frankly mind numbing committee meetings, though those are often much more important than is typically understood. What I mean is most people have no understanding about the ideas that government is based upon and how those ideas create much of the violence and corruption we see in the world today. Here I address the ideas of government, what beliefs most modern nations are founded upon, and the alternative that would help decrease the violence in the world and create a place of greater liberty, prosperity, and equality for all peoples.
The True Nature of The Legal System
Most people never take time to think deeply about exactly what the law is or how it is enforced. They neither want to hear nor wish to acknowledge the reality that the entire system is based on the exercise of crushing violence against the populace through the police and other similar agents of law enforcement and when you try to explain the truth to them they treat you like you’re crazy. As a result, the defender of human liberty and prosperity needs evidence explaining the truth from the experts others claim to believe. This article, by Dr. Stephen L. Carter of Yale Law School, is just such evidence. His explanation of how the legal system is inherently violent and is based on the use of force to compel obedience from the public on pains of assault or even death and the way that overcriminalization puts the safety, lives, and liberty of everyone at risk would utterly shock most people who ignorantly imagine the government as a force of benevolence. With the current events going on in the world, this knowledge is more important than ever.