The limits of law

We live in a litigious society. Lawsuits are filed for everything from trifling offenses to the most outrageous of acts. Lawyers now are becoming more than just our legal representatives in the court of law, but advocates in the public court of opinion. As a result of this, lawyers are now becoming celebrities in their own right.

Some take this as a sign of our country becoming more civilized. Where we used to settle our scores in the streets with our fists or weapons, we now employ warriors in three piece suits to wage our wars.

Law has become increasingly powerful in this country, so much so that wars now are waged in close adherence to the law. Law is ubiquitous and omnipotent--or so it seems.

How real is the power that lawyers wield?

History and current events tell us that law only matters if it is backed by force in a stable environment. As evidenced by the chaos of Somalia and our Old West, law means nothing without some centralized power monopolizating theuse of force.

In Somalia fo example, there exists a state of lawlessness that finds the nation infested by roving gangs terrorizing the populace.Somalia's government is too weak to successfully crush these groups,who basically have divided rule of the nation amongst themselves. This has lead some to try to establish a Somalia-style Taliban called Al-Shabab in an effort to bring some level of stability to that disordered state.

In the US history, sheriffs ruled the Old West through the liberal application of the Colt revolver,Winchester rifle, and the noose. Formal legality mattered little in lands where towns were hundreds of miles away from the nearest cities and military installations.

In nations where there is a powerful centralized government, it is at times necessary to quell internal revolts through force--or the threat of force--because law alone was insufficient to solve the issue. Bite needed to be applied in order to make the bark relevant.

If President Kennedy had not sent federal troops into Oxford, Mississippi, in September of 1962, what could have law done to force the South to integrate? What could have lawyers done against Hitler's Panzers? Or Bin Laden's suicide bombers?

Brute force, not words on parchment, are what keeps our society from descending into chaos. It is fear of lethal retribution that prevents armed mobs from doing as they please. It is in acknowledgement of government's monopolization of armed force that forestalls any organic movement for violence on a mass scale.

A lawyer's power finds its source in the soldiers and law enforcement officers who are trained to use to deadly force if called upon to do so. It is this most elemental aspect of law that is often lost today on Americans. The power the lawyers have is but an illusion. They only have as much power as we wish them to have. We could crush them tomorrow if we so desired.There is no man who can deny a bullet's power to silence the most effective of attorneys.

As a student of World War II, I have come to learn the absurdity of laws when confronted by men backed by immensely powerful militaries. It is not law or morality that prevents us from doing evil, but the people who have the physical clout to impose the law upon the recalcitrant.