To me, this was a strange passage. I personally enjoy discussing the dilemmas between the law and morality so as flowery as the diction of this passage was I did find it interesting. When it comes to the dilemma of laws versus morals I think the perspective deals greatly with the person. For instance, if you have a person lacking a moral code then they are going to manipulate the law to give them what they want, they will find loopholes to make sure that they do not technically break any laws. On the other hand, someone with a strong moral compass will do their best to follow the law in a way that benefits all parties involved.
As stated in the article “ law by no means is confined to its own sphere.”(52) I think this is important when dealing with how people interpret it, because of the way laws are written there is room for interpretation. For instance, let us use the law,
“Section 2902. A. Except as otherwise provided by subsection H of Section 3658 of this title pursuant to which the exemption authorized by this section may not be claimed, a qualifying manufacturing concern, as defined by Section 6B of Article X of the Oklahoma Constitution, and as further defined herein, shall be exempt from the levy of any ad valorem taxes upon new, expanded or acquired manufacturing facilities including facilities engaged in research and development, for a period of five (5) years. The provisions of Section 6B of Article X of the Oklahoma Constitution requiring an existing facility to have been unoccupied for a period of twelve (12) months prior to acquisition shall be construed as a qualification for a facility to initially receive an exemption, and shall not be deemed to be a qualification for that facility to continue to receive an exemption in each of the four (4) years following the initial year for which the exemption was granted. Such facilities are hereby classified for the purposes of taxation as provided in Section 22 of Article X of the Oklahoma Constitution.”(OK state court notes)
This is only a section of the full text for this law and as you can see there are quite a lot of words. Those who draft laws do this specifically for the reason that judges specifically can interpret the law. This also means that lawyers and people can interpret the laws, to an extent of course, which is where the moral issues come into play. In my opinion, a moral person will take this law at face value and won’t try to finagle the text to mean something to benefit their own agenda. On the other hand, a morally gray person will do everything they can so that the law comes across in a way that will ultimately leave them on top, but here’s the kicker because so many of them are so good at this it is often seen that while what they do is extremely shady because they stayed within the law there is no way to force repercussions on them.
Another thing that I thought was interesting about how the author later goes into the issue of plundering and socialism. In this context, plundering is defined as “When law and force keep a man within the bounds of justice, they impose nothing upon him but a mere negation.”(64) I think this is interesting for two reason. The first reason being that on the first read trough this statement makes me think of the law possessing a power over humanity. And while we have made it to have meaning I still think it is interesting because even though we created our laws we also have a notion that they can be used to keep us under a figurative thumb to make sure we abide by the rules we have set in place. When you think about it this way it seemes weird that people would get mad at words that we ourselves gave meaning, but our world is proof that as long as certain people have power others will be enraged that all are not equal. Another thing that this statement made me think of is that when people argue with the law it isw all that they can do for their benefit. This passage makes it seem like the law is a groing thing that humanity controls almost as if it were a pet that we care for and in return it helps us to dictate the terms of how we live.
Works cited
Kanopiadmin. (2014, August 18). The bastiat collection: Claude Frédéric Bastiat. Mises Institute. Retrieved February 5, 2023, from https://mises.org/library/bastiat-collection
[HB 4451] - revenue and taxation. OSCN. (n.d.). Retrieved February 5, 2023, from https://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/DeliverDocument.asp?CiteID=490490
