Chuck, I don't understand, Do you wax Rousseaean: Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains? jks
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Yeah, pretty much, and at fifty-nine, I am really, really tired of it. And obviously I've watched the legal system since I was about sixteen, and its mirror of cultural variation---but after Reagan, pretty much become an instrument of oppression of the people, rather than an instrument used to limit government and corporations---and liberate the people.
Since I don't believe Man is born free, but made `free' by society, then the public institutions of society must needs be the very expression of that attitude. As a result of these shifts toward conservatism or reactionary oppressions, my kid's generation is actually more conservative than me or friends my age---so repression works. Bummer.
Anyway the handcuffs comment wasn't intended to be a personal attack. As for forgetting the Law, what I mean is you must realise not only the coercive but pre-emptive effect. Once law is declared, anything but highly formal and very limited means remain to change or re-negociate those effects, and they therefore lend a great deal of weight to oppression and coercion. I think this core realization is exactly why the Bill of Rights was immediately enacted as almost the first content of the government.
Chuck