Western Jurisprudence

The title sounds heavy, and it is. I was going to do my third video about this topic and still may. But right now my new thoughts have to be committed to paper because these thoughts have been running around in my mind for a while and they make noise. I wish I had more time to write this, or I could get BH to make it funny, because it could be funny, but coming from this dry philosopher, it won't be.
  Imagine you are on a construction site.
  You are on the third floor and watching an argument between the carpenter and the plumber. The plumber had just went downstairs from the second floor to cut a pipe for this apartment on the third floor (slightly out of breath) and meets the carpenter putting the final touches on the kitchen counter. He goes to stick his pipe in and finds it 2 inches too short from the wall. He looks over at the carpenter to explain that his counter was off 2 inches. The carpenter picks up his measuring tape and checks the distance between the counter and water heater and says his distance is right on. So the process repeats all the way up and down the building with tradesmen arguing. The arguments intensify.
  Numerous court cases are filed for time and money lost. Who is going to win and who is going to lose? With the state of politics in our present situation, I would have to say that whoever is best "connected", or of the superior race would win. 
  In this particular scenario, there would be no other yardstick from which to rule. There is nothing solid that the judge can go to to make a truly objective determination.
  The court will rely on numerous judgements and statements made by the tradespeople, all subjective in nature because the measurements were taken from where the guys thought they should be taken.


  So what actually solves this problem? If the building had a cornerstone, the correctness or incorrectness of all measurements could be taken. Everyone's errors could be measured from the cornerstone and all responsibility would be laid bare. The judge would be unburdened from making a subjective judgement . The cornerstone makes the judges life easy and makes the tradesmen's life fair.
  The law is in a sense is similar to a building, each code depends to a certain extent on each and every other code. It can be the subject of much subjective interpretation. 
  One could argue a case in self defence where someone blew a guys head off at 100 yards with a .303 while the guy was carrying a knife and walking in the opposite direction. These kinds of questions are what juries are for and I have to clarify that this is not what I'm talking about.
  This is certainly a problem within the law but it's not really an every day kind of problem.
  Just the number of codes and regulations creates problems and attorneys go in and argue their interpretations of this and that act or statute. There is probate as well. They become like the tradespeople, each arguing from a perspective.

  Jurisprudence became a science in Rome and it is the first thing called a "science" and it came about with jurists looking for a cornerstone. 
  Socrates essentially asks what this cornerstone could be in Plato's Republic and finds the Golden Rule. The Romans refined jurisprudence with the all seeing God Jupiter and this same essential law is codified in the New Testament (single commandment: "do unto others as you would have done to yourself), along with rational guidelines for its preservation (Tree of Knowledge, Water and Wine..). This is Christianity.
  Christianity is the common law and forms the underlying structure of both governments and courts, whether they choose to admit that or not. Common law is Christianity and it is completely rational. Christianity brings rationalism into religion and codifies and preserves it.
  Not many Christians understand this or even the basic doctrines and lessons of the Bible.
  In the story above, without a connection to a jurist cornerstone, the judge is burdened with making a subjective judgement or reading and interpreting thousands of lines of code and then making a subjective judgement. With a cornerstone in place, the judge may find one side clearly in error, in which case, in fact, he has no choice. The judgement is independent of the judge.
  So there is a fundamental difference between a system of laws that has a cornerstone and one that does not. Christianity has the cornerstone, no other system has this cornerstone. Judaism depends on its Rabbi's, Islam has the Imam's and Atheists have their scientists. The Monkey religion has its faith in its rulers. These are all known as statutory religions. They exist for the will of their rulers and have no universal principle.

  With better laws, comes better productivity and that is how the West became powerful, not genetic superiority. The idea of genetic superiority explaining this is a result of an empirical determination of cause. The rational explanation of cause has the advantage in that it is universal.
  The Bible tells us not to be concerned with geneologies. Going back just 64 generations, each of us has 2^64 grandparents. I hope the ones on my branch decided not to "keep it in the family". 

  It is the destruction of this beautiful Common Law itself that will result in the destruction of the West.

Reason & Natural Right

Today, in my daily Kantian study session my mind began to wander and consider the relationship between natural right and reason (I'm still studying the Critique of Pure Reason and will be for the forseeable future). I began to think of the Enlightenment, where man began to use reason to break the shackles of authoritarian control.

So I wondered, what would Kant say about the Enlightenment and  read his essay called "An Answer To The Question: What Is Enlightenment ?", here is the first few paragraphs of this great essay - see how it parallels the freedom movement of today while written in 1784, the Sage of Königsberg had this to say:

(from the Great Ideas Penguin Books series)

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An Answer To The Question: What Is Enlightenment ?


Enlightenment in mans emergence from his self incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use ones own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self incurred if its cause is not the lack of understanding, but the lack of resolution and courage to use it without guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore Sapere aude ! [Dare to be wise !] Have courage to use your own understanding !

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large proportion of men, even when nature has long emancipated them from alien guidance (naturaliter maiorennes [Those who have come of age by virtue of nature]) nevertheless  gladly remain immature for life. For the same reasons, it is all to easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so convenient to be immature ! If I have a book to have understanding in place of me, a spiritual adviser to have conscience for me, a doctor to judge my diet for me, and so on, I need not mae any efforts at all. I need not think, so long as I can pay; others will soon enough take the tiresone job over for me. The guardians who have kindly taken upon themselves the work of supervision will soon see to it that by far the largest part of mankind (including the entire fair sex) should consider the step forward to maturity not only as difficult but also as highly dangerous. Having first infatuated their domestic animals, and carefully prevented the docile creatures from daring to take a single step without the leading strings to which they are tied, they next show them the danger which threatens them if they walk unaided. Now this danger is not in fact so very great, for they would certainly learn to walk after a few falls. But an example of this kind is intimidating, and usually frightens them off from further attempts.

Thus it is difficult for each separate individual to work his way out of the immaturity which has become almost second nature to him. He has even grown fond of it and is really incapable for the time being of using his own understanding, because he was never allowed to make an attempt. Dogmas and formulas, those mechanical instruments for rational use (or rather misuse) of his natural endowments, are the ball and chain of his permanent immaturity. And if anyone did throw them off, he would still be uncertain about jumping over even the narrowest of trenches, for he would be unaccustomed to free movement of this kind. Thus, only a few, by cultivating their own minds, have succeeded in freeing themselves from immaturity and in continuing boldly on their way.

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This has been 1 pages of a 3 page essay that can be found here: What Is Enlightenment ?

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This is the embodiment of the message of the freeman movement, none of these people that started this movement have ever quoted Kant to my knowledge, what is written in this 18th century essay is in the hearts and minds of people today who wish to remove themselves from the shackles of government slavery, to not be the cause of wars, pestilence and disease and not to be victimized by the forces of sophistry, licentiousness and intimidation, the three pillars that hold up the institution of modern slavery.