The Law versus Justice

Been thinking of this for a couple of weeks - what's the distinction?
~
For me the law is the written books & recordings of precedents describing how behavior is to be judged as civil & or criminal;  derived from antiquity in Blackstone & Common Law since the Magna Carta & before.
~
Justice on the other hand is that Plus the Living Wisdom & Heart of living humans in judges & juries. How does the adversary system & the cost of lawyers produce more justice?
~
Do demonstrations, cop killings  & riots improve justice?  Do attorneys general & presidents who politicize & nullify the law improve justice?  Does the M$M hyping race & prurient details improve justice.  Does the slow pace of going to court improve justice?
 

Tags

  1. justice
  2. the law
  3. rules
  4. law
  5. karma
  6. BlackLivesMatter
  7. GoldenRuleWorks
  8. political-hyperspace

Comments


Mark de LA says
(;-)) 2015-09-03 07:06:31 18772
seth 2015-09-02 21:22:26 18772
Civilization uses  pushes and pulls from interested parties to establishing consequences (legislative), implement them (policing), and to arrive at final judgements (judicial). How could the system work without the pushes and pulls?
Let the court note that the witness is non-responsive & has supplied pellick as an answer.
To point to the obvious & the Tao does not inform beyond what is always thereZZzz..

Mark de LA says
seth 2015-09-03 08:06:44 18772
Incidentally the awareness of "cops killing citizens without due reason and without suffering dire consequences", has lead to a reaction that "should" change that situation to a better balance.  Hopefully it will. 

Yet this new reaction of "citizens killing cops without due reason" might well have some nasty reprecussions.  Seems like it will lead to a war between cops and citizens.  I doubt that anyone, in their right mind, wants that to happen .... yet that is the direction those actions are leading. 

Perhaps we need a straight forward meme that would say in a cute way, "you don't kille me willy nilly, and i won't kill you willy nilly, and we will be civilized". 

So which side of the Tao are you going to advocate for?
This is not a binary Tao sort of thing except to say that the "Path of the Mean safely spans the rift" hex #15 line 3.
Personally I would call out the national guard as they did in the Rodney King thingy in LA & clean out the gangs & those who incite to riot & murder.
Still this is about the being & Spirit of Justice & NOT twitterings on the news & slogans shouted by angry mobs.


Mark de LA says
seth 2015-09-03 08:53:27 18772
Well i had originally though that you were trying to draw some distinction between law and justice ... and had a response to that.  Which would have gone something like the following ...
there is a process of following rules.  both individuals and societies go through roughly the same process.  that process has several steps
  1. recognizing good rules to follow from intentions and purposes
  2. writing down the  rule and the consequences of following them (or not)
  3. following the rules (or not)
  4. experiencing the consequences of following (or not)
  5. analyzing the situation ... going back to (1)
I guess in that process (2) is law, and (4) is justice. 

Is that the distinction that you are pointing out ... or is it something entirely different?
In 5 you left out the Living Wisdom & Heart thingy I already mentioned.  I am looking for the being of Justice in evidence in the World not more words which go right back to the law.


Mark de LA says
seth 2015-09-03 07:55:59 18772
Ok, good point, and yes it does not inform. 

But then it sounded to me that your questions were asking about not allowing one side of the Tao,
How does the adversary system & the cost of lawyers produce more justice?
~
Do demonstrations, cop killings  & riots improve justice?  Do attorneys general & presidents who politicize & nullify the law improve justice?  Does the M$M hyping race & prurient details improve justice.  Does the slow pace of going to court improve justice?
 
... hence, according to that interpertion of your questions, i just said, "yes, we need those". 

But how should i interpret your questions?
The point was to get a grasp on the difference between "the law" & "justice" ... the cop-killings recently in the news apparently was a red herring for you.  I did not mention the silly notion that "black lives matter" as opposed to ALL LIVES MATTER which would also lead off into the bushes.


Mark de LA says
seth 2015-09-03 09:05:42 18772
Or, maybe "justice" is that you do experience the consequences (refered to in 4 above) .... and not experiencing the consequence is "not justice".

Is there any more to it than that?
That the consequences be considered is part of the law but only after the trial has been concluded with guilty or not-guilty. I think a more human thingy would to be consider them during the trial.
Sill the main question is how does the Equality member of the triad (Liberty, Equality & Fraternity) foster more Justice. How does politics get excluded from "the law" - at least in the bad aspects of the law. etc...

Mark de LA says
(;-)) 2015-09-03 08:41:15 18772
Other essays on the mean can be had here:

Exceed not -weep not; the Golden mean keep # 1 line 6
Limping but upright, tread the Golden Mean. # 2 line 3
The Path of the Mean safely spans the rift. # 15 line 3
Pursue the due mean despite those who oppose. # 33 line 2
Due-mean's vernal offerings reconcile. # 40 line 2
Golden Mean, befriend the Living Spring! # 44 line 5

Sorry the links only go back to the concordance but you can look them up here.

Mark de LA says
seth 2015-09-03 09:10:24 18772
source: mark

In 5 you left out the Living Wisdom & Heart thingy I already mentioned.  I am looking for the being of Justice in evidence in the World not more words which go right back to the law.
... i'm not sure what you mean here.   Could you be more explicit?
An intellectual step by step mental computer program is just as devoid of human wisdom as a robot.  I remember Star Trek episode where a computer divined the truth of the statements made during the inquiry. The Judge must be a human & have some Wisdom.


Mark de LA says
seth 2015-09-03 09:50:46 18772
(;-)) 2015-09-03 09:19:46 18772
seth 2015-09-03 09:14:38 18772
What does "being of Justice in evidence in the World" mean?
What do you think it means?

Well thing is: Karma (or consequences actually experienced) is the ultimate justice "in the world". 

The whole law-and-order rule following mechanism that civilization is trying to do is artificially imposed by humans on top of that.  The success of that artificial process is why we have a civilization and not just a realm of chaos. 

Pretty much the same goes for an individual following his own rules, laws, and principles.

Myself i tend to try not to do the artificial rule making and breaking and imposing artificial consequences in my personal life.  Rather i like to live, what i am going to call organically, relying on the "ultimate justice in the world" to impose whatever consequences the world actually imposes on me.

What are you suggesting?
Well karma is a bitch, but not the one I'm looking at here. Karma is too misunderstood & probably strives for a postive outcome for the whole Universe.
One might ascend to the level above the written laws & mechanics, however organic, to grok Wisdom in the Justice - not just procedure - what might be expected from all parties observing the Golden Rule.  If one tries to pin it down with just words then one has just ended up with dead words. A living word with Wisdom & Heart is what I need to be able to say "I behold Justice" - she is neither blind nor muzzled - maybe what MLK could only dreampt of.



Mark de LA says
seth 2015-09-04 09:08:37 18772
Probably not. In toto, for justice, one would have to consider how SCOTUS managed to throw out thousands of years of what marriage means. OTOH it is like enforcing a law. She should have been fired or made to step aside, imho & life would have moved on. One would also have to consider how church values are against the law. Some other clerk could have done the job. Otherwise, as I have posted before, I don't care what people do with their genitals consensually nor what within the human species wants to unite in a marriage contract - including polygamy, polyandry & polyamory.


Mark de LA says
seth 2015-09-04 10:30:00 18772
(;-)) 2015-09-04 10:22:39 18772
seth 2015-09-04 10:03:37 18772
(;-)) 2015-09-04 09:40:54 18772
seth 2015-09-04 09:08:37 18772
Probably not. In toto, for justice, one would have to consider how SCOTUS managed to throw out thousands of years of what marriage means. OTOH it is like enforcing a law. She should have been fired or made to step aside, imho & life would have moved on. One would also have to consider how church values are against the law. Some other clerk could have done the job. Otherwise, as I have posted before, I don't care what people do with their genitals consensually nor what within the human species wants to unite in a marriage contract - including polygamy, polyandry & polyamory.


well sure justice hairs into the all that happened and is happening.  nevertheless we have here gone the whole cycle (see 5 phases above) and arrived here at resolution.  one certainly can emote about any of the things that got us here, perhaps subsequent cycles can make those better ... nevertheless we have here resolved to justice. 
Nope! We have resorted to "the strong arm of the law" which seems to be cropping up in many places in this era.


well if there are no consequences for breaking the law, then there is no law there at all. 

seems to me you are supposing some ideal situation where people would always just do what society considered to be the right thing with not consequences if they do not.   that situations simply does not exist yet and perhaps never will. 

How could/should that ideal bear on our current reality?
Perhaps consider the non-racism, racism in you #BlackLivesMatter schtick where the consequences can be death.  Chris Rock explained it for the low-information consumer of news.
Current reality is #political-hyperspace agitated by the coming election, the coming million man march & a POTUS who is half-black even having no solution & apparently so far unwilling to talk to the people & resolve it in the style of MLK, JFK, Ronald Reagan or even Teddy Roosevelt.
#GoldenRuleWorks

Mark de LA says
Justice (via G+)


Mark de LA says
seth 2015-09-07 10:13:12 18772
(;-)) 2015-09-07 10:03:58 18772
seth 2015-09-07 09:50:15 18772
(;-)) 2015-09-07 09:39:36 18772
seth 2015-09-07 09:15:36 18772

justice for one crime is never served by diverting attention to another one.  It is wise that a laywer can object when inquiry goes in a direction irrelevant to the actual crime being tried. 
pretty much banal pellick. btw, they do - it is an adversarial relationship judges lawyers & defendents.

well fact is the judge will disallow distractions.  that is part of justice.  A lawyer can object on the grounds of irrelevance and the judge rules one way or the other.  That irrelevant matters are not allowed in deliberations is one of the assumptions of our adversarial system. 

incidentally i have no idea how your moral reasoning is being rational here.  i can not follow it. What you have said above appears to me, to be irrelevant to the fact about justice that i have brought to your attention.
None of this has anything to do with justice as I have defined it in the body of the item. It is all procedure or written procedure in law schools.


Well if the heart is diverted to matters irrelevant to judging the behavior in question, how is that justice?  Even by your definition of justice?  ... which i can not ever find in your item body.
Try the first 2 paragraphs & wake up! Be inclusive.
This whole item was started when I had recently to stand to be selected for jury duty.  The two lawyers & the judge asked me if there was anything that I would like to say that could affect my ability to be impartial. They had previously narrowed the question about what was to be considered by the jury to such a fine line that I had to say that the procedure (being on a jury of the defendent's peers) in my mind (which they couldn't read) was not something I wanted to participate in; , i.e. there being (obvious to me)  more to the case than the charges being tried.  Strangely enough the prosecutor had previously suggested the jury use some common sense. I had to think about the meanings of justice & the law - mostly afterwards.


Mark de LA says
Some political arguments show the same imbalance.  These days one hears most often from the pundocrats "... it is not about ABC it's about XYZ .." thereby hoping to focus on their own line of reasoning & ignore what may be on the table already. Such is rampant in the politicians themselves. To make the questions narrow ignores a lot of the picture.


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