Law vs Intent
Law was intended to be, and once truly was, a tool serving justice.
Its purpose was simple and
noble: to restrain evil, to vindicate the innocent, to uphold what is
right. That era has long passed. The law no longer first serves
justice; it now first serves the preservation of the legal system that
administers it.
There was a time when law
was tied to morality, when its legitimacy rested on a higher standard.
That, too, ended long ago. In its place stands a new creed: success
measured not in justice served, but in courtroom victories, career
trajectories, and political advancement. The question is no longer What
is right? but What can be won?
Law has become self‑referential.
It is the law not because
it reflects truth or righteousness, but because it has been enacted by
a political body increasingly detached from any morality. Its authority
is procedural, not principled. Its power is bureaucratic, not moral. It
justifies itself by itself, a closed loop insulated from the very
people it claims to serve.
The law is the law simply because it is the law, something that it was never intended to be.
And that, my friend, is the
emerging shape of what is called an Electocracy, a system where
legitimacy is not rooted in justice or virtue, but from the fact of
being elected, credentialed, or admitted into the professional into a
ruling class rather that that of public servant. The people have a
voice, until the election is over, and not again until their vote is
once again needed, then only met with false promises and lies.
The tragedy is not simply that law has drifted.
The tragedy is that it now
demands reverence for its own sake, as though procedure were
righteousness and power were wisdom. What was meant to serve all has
become a mechanism serving the few, not only the wealthy, but the
credentialed, the connected, the institutional elite. This is the world
we inhabit: a nation still better than the any of the alternatives man
has devised, yet increasingly hollowed by spiritual wickedness in high
places. We live under the color of freedom, just as our currency bears
the color of value. The forms remain; the substance fades. It is
still worth fighting for.
Even so, we wait for the day when the Only True and Just Judge will set all things right.
A.K. Pritchard — 2016