Wisedigs

Imagine you are in your car driving at 120km/h and you realize your brakes don’t work. Eventually you run out of road and you have to make a choice: smash into that tree or fall off the edge of a cliff to certain death? A functional human-being in full possession of their mental faculties would choose the tree trunk. Depending on how clever you are, you might only suffer from minor injuries or no injuries at all.

The driver is the law maker. Law makers have two primary objectives: a) ensure the country is secure enough to a level that corruption isn’t apparent or widespread, b) ensure the laws are ambiguous enough such that the final decision on any matter is left up to the judges. Why is this the case? Laws once in place are hard to change. As a law maker you know you are a human being and you know that one day you, your family, your friends, or someone you know might be prosecuted under this law. In order to protect yourself and the people you care about there has to be a fail-safe, a backdoor. This is where the ambiguity in laws comes in. Judges judge by the laws of the nation, if the law allows for multiple interpretations the interpretation most suitable to the case presented is selected by the judge in an unbiased and fair manner. Judges unfortunately are not unbiased, they are not always just. Judges are merely humans appointed by their leaders. The jury system? Oh please. Do not get me started.

Breaking news: This just in – judges can be influenced by others!

If you were a law maker, would you shoot yourself in the foot? Let’s say you are caught murdering or raping, would you want to be executed? Would you want to be sent to prison for life? As a law maker, you don’t ever expect to turn into a serial-anything because you are not a psycho path and the laws are strict enough to prevent these types of people from getting away. Supposedly. But you might find yourself breaking a law or two, as is common in human nature.

Should we really blame them? Yes and no. No: because if we were the drivers we would make the exact same choices. Yes: because they have chosen to accept man made laws to govern their lives.

Whether you are convinced of the above reality or not, never forget that the statement “ignorance is bliss” is only true for so long; this bliss has an expiry date.