On Law & Order: Order Cannot Be Mandated — It Must Be Freely Given

As the country struggles with unrest, the concept of law & order has been pushed to the forefront of American discourse. At the center of it is President Trump, who as tweeted his heavy-handed desire for law & order more than a dozen times.

It was during one such tweet-storm that I realized what Trump is missing in his insistence that law and order be restored: law is administered by the state, on to the people, where order is the willingness, the consent, of those people to abide by the laws issued by the state.

In other words, order is the reaction to just law. If order is not freely given, it is not truly order, but oppression. And that’s the mistake Trump and police forces across this nation are making on a nightly basis: trying to beat back our deliberate disorder protesting excessive state force with additional state-sponsored force.

Not all laws are just, and the total collective of laws does not guarantee justice by their very nature. Sometimes this is nuanced — is it more just to have strict border laws and send aid to countries in need, or is it more just to allow free immigration to those in need? Other times, it is not nuanced at all, such as the case of legalized slavery. While it may be the law, it is in no way just.