Lindsay Mitchell, in expressing her anger over the wilful obtuseness of the Prime Minister in his rejecting a Section 59 law change, reminds us that this peculiar and notorious piece of law will add to a growing list of laws which are already ignored by the agencies of State.
The list includes:
Cannabis use. You can even light up in the grounds of parliament and get ignored.
Truancy. Kids stay home and get ignored because frankly it is a relief not to have them disrupting other children.
Censorship law. Kids are prohibited from buying, borrowing or playing Xbox and Playstation games that wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the market the same kids provide.
Benefit Fraud. Thou shalt not shack up and claim a benefit. The habit is now so pervasive most people have forgotten it is against the law.
Under-age sex. Oh, let's not even go there.
What are we to make of this wilful ignoring of the law by state authorities?
In this particular charade we are confronted by the view of law that inevitably emerges in Unbelief. As our society moves from its historical Christian roots to the enthronement of man as god, the place and function of law and justice starts to skew in a radically different direction.
Modern Unbelief seizes upon law as a redemptive tool. It looks to the law to remove sins and societal problems, prevent diseases, and make the community "righteous". As this happens we see the garb of society's new god emerging. For it always behoves a god to make things right. And gods, being powerful, can make things right by a word of command. As our community separates itself from the true God and "replaces" Him with man as the measure of all things, it is inevitable that society will begin to function as if it had the prerogatives and power of deity.
It is natural, therefore, that modern society would look to the promulgation of laws--the pronouncing of verbal, then codified commands--to rid the world of evils. This shift may be subtle at first, but it represents a sea change, with far reaching, deleterious consequences. The law moves from the administration of justice against evil within society to an administration of preventing evil in the first place. The law begins to function as a tool of redemption--which is to say, the law begins to fail miserably. It simply cannot bear the idolatrous expectations placed upon it. The outcome: the law is allowed to be openly disregarded, as grim reality sets in.
But Unbelief changes the role and function of law in another way. Unbelief has no way to distinguish between that which is evil and that which should be proscribed by law. After all, sins do not necessarily constitute crimes; although the reverse is not true. All crimes should by definition be sins (although as we shall see below, that too is rapidly changing). So, Unbelief inevitably drives to conflate sins and crimes: all shortcomings, all imperfections, all peccadilloes are potential crimes--and can be declared so at the stroke of a pen.
Because short comings and imperfections exist everywhere in human society, the law code within Unbelieving societies expands both rapidly and inexorably to codify almost every sphere of human activity and culture. It comes to regulate and codify what is taught in schools, what foods may be eaten, holidays, work hours, safety practices, how children are to be raised, making of phone calls while driving, the speed at which a car may be driven, regular inspections of vehicles to ensure roadworthiness, etc: the list is endless and grows relentlessly every year. The law code and its accompanying regulations becomes so vast it is impossible to know, let alone administer.
In Unbelieving society, ignorance of the law is inescapable: no-one can keep up with it. The code is so vast and all-embracing that it cannot be policed or applied consistently. So a de facto tolerance of lawbreaking and a turning of blind eyes is inevitable. The application of the law reduces to the whim of the authorities. It has to. The law increasingly becomes an ass, unless the authorities of the day on a whim decide that it is not, an begin to focus on one particular section or part of the code for a time. De facto lawbreaking by the vast majority of citizens becomes a normal way of life. The whole community in an Unbelieving society secretly believes the law is an ass; it is merely a matter of what one can get away with.
The final stage is the law as propaganda. Here Unbelieving societies move to the stage of seeing the law as a mechanism of political education or a tool for "getting a message across." The inconsequential matter of justice has long since left the room. The application of the law is not the issue. It is the law as "teaching point" that is central. Increasingly in Unbelieving societies the law becomes a tool to "send people a message".
Thus, in the child smacking debate, it matters not at all as to whether the law on smacking is applied or not. It "sends a message" to parents about family violence and that message is definitely more important than the medium of the law. The upshot is that the law is disrespected, trashed, and cynically used and abused.
In the end, Unbelief runs full cycle over the law. Enthroning man over God, the law is cut off from its Christian roots. Unbelief instead makes law a messianic and redemptive tool, but, of course, it cannot sustain that weight. So, Unbelieving societies end up trashing and cynically ignoring the law at their whim and convenience. This pervasively appears in both the highest and lowest ranks in society--as we have just had displayed. The Government is now telling us it will turn a "blind eye" over parents smacking their children for purposes of correction and discipline--despite the law defining it as a criminal act.
This, we are gravely told, is the law working as intended. No. This is Unbelief working its wilful self-destruction upon its own. "Those who hate God's wisdom," says the Scripture, "love death".
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