Of bootleggers and the law

There is probably almost no law which does not interfere with what someone or the other wants to do. Well, if no-one wanted to do a thing, why would you need a law to prohibit him from doing so? Like, say, a law that prohibits people from poking their own eyes out? And, if everyone wants to do something, why would you need a law insisting on their doing so? Like, say, a law to make it mandatory to drink water when you are thirsty? It is only when there is even a possibility of someone wanting to do something, or not wanting to do something, that you feel the need to promulgate a law.

What, then, happens if a law is put in place which interferes with what a wide cross-section of society wants to do? Well, it is a salutary lesson to look up the law prohibiting sale and use of alcohol which the US Govt, in its wisdom, put in place in 1920. And, as is the case with all Govt.s, took nearly 13 years to repeal, even though the questionable wisdom of that act was probably apparent right from the inception. Governments are elephantine, that way. They take ages to make a U-Turn.

When you have a Society which consists primarily of people who want to drink, people who may be able to do without but see nothing wrong with drinking, and only a few outliers who actually think of drinking as an evil to be eliminated...well, when you have such a society and you get a Government that decides it is going to force people to do what it thinks is good for them, you get laws like that. AND you end up making the smuggler of liquor - the bootlegger - every man's best friend and the law enforcement agencies become every man's villain. So, as Govt, YOU call the bootlegger the criminal and the law enforcement guys the good guys; and Society thinks of them in the opposite terms.

How true it is I do not know but the rise of organized crime in the USA is partly attributed to the Prohibition. No matter how unfair the law, it takes a criminal mindset to take to law-breaking as a business enterprise; and when the criminal has more social acceptance in Society than the lawmen, the Government has direly failed Society.

Unfortunately, though, not all such laws, which are unacceptable for a majority of Society, are necessarily laws that should not be put in place. Through our history, myth and religion, we have an idea of a social morality which will have a lot of elements which are not moral or ethical. So, a law mitigating those elements may not have social sanction but will nonetheless be required. It is these where law enforcement has to be taught that their duty is to enforce those laws; whether or not they agree with them is irrelevant. AND Society needs to be educated to accept and adopt a change in their attitudes to morality.

The problem in making laws to eliminate unfairness to one section of society is that, if it leans too far in that direction, it will seem to be unfair to another section. THAT retards the spread of social acceptance. Not every rich man, say, who agrees with the fact that wealth should be more uniformly distributed will accept a situation that seems bent on impoverishing him and enriching others. Sad, but true, that altruism, or even egalitarianism, for almost all of us stops short of suffering for it ourselves.

It is, probably, that which makes the tax laws the least acceptable throughout History, in all nations. Invariably, and regardless of how well it is administered, it is the taxman who is the villain and the chap who helps you evade taxes, who is your best friend.

All of us may prefer an orderly Society but we are all united in being unwilling to pay for it!