"Obedience To Law Is Liberty"

Located at Hampden County Courthouse

Let's just sit back and contemplate this for a moment. Quite astounding in its audacity isn't it? So where did they come with this? No, a bunch of bureaucratic paper-pushers and jailers are much too lazy and stupid to come up with this on their own probably. This is however a quote from history attributed to Roman "philosopher" Boethius.

Here is some more context from the man himself in The Consolation of Philosophy:

Boethius takes many ques from the pagan philosophers while maintaining a Christian stance.

Hence goodness which is obedience to God is essentially a service of freedom an act of power an enjoyment of the heart even when it is preceded by a struggle against evil.

That all goodness and virtue consists in obedience to external law and the goodness of Christian in obedience to the law of Christ.

 Here is the whole duty of obedience You substitute for the vain feeble inordinate desires of man desires which can never deceive and never change because they are sanctioned by God.

Do they date their authority from man? If so you must follow them at your own risk. In obedience there is no virtue for you are not obeying God. There is even sin for you cannot follow two masters and in following those whom God has not sent you must be deserting those whom He has sent.

It is quite telling that there is about 28 or so references to 'obedience' and 69 or so references to 'authority' in his book. This is the slavish, non-philosophical mentality this guy found consolation in.

The ironic thing is that this Christian was put in jail and executed by the Christian State. So what does he do with this cognitive dissonance? He plays this sleight of hand game with authority where he just transfers his idea of legitimate authority from the government to god.

If you have read my previous posts on using your own judgment you will have figured out the logical error in both positing that there is this authority in government and/or god. Boethius seems to think that god is now the authority by which one should owe obedience (i.e., god is an authority figure that can override your own judgment) but not the State which has the power of violence that put him away. What is the central flaw in his thinking? That's right, he used his own judgment to decide that instead of government, god would be this authority he judges that he should follow and that goodness comes from this authority which can override your judgment.

His argumentation is also an absurd all-win for him when he argues that the only legitimate authority in man (government) is one chosen by god. Or in other words, one that manifests in a State that doesn't put him in harms way. There is no objective way to verify which State is a legitimate Government as anointed by god because, as I have argued before, such authority does not exist.

So given that irony, what is left over when this courthouse puts this rendered quote on their building? The secular Statist meaning of this 'paradox' of 'civil liberty' is where one must sacrifice their individual freedom to the enjoyment meaningful, morally regulated freedom. Or in other words, you must surrender your freedom to the dictates of people with guns or else there will not be any freedom at all. You must accept that the State can override your own judgment because it exists as authority called government. In other words, you must judge that it is preferable to give up all your rights in the service of the State based on their judgments, which if they are an authority called government, override your own. Otherwise you cannot achieve freedom.

But this is just silly. The slogan is there just for the people who still believe there is such a thing as authority that exists. They want people to believe that they, a minority of individuals, are authority and that the majority should substitute their judgment for these small group of people. The real power comes from men and women in that building that have the violent means to blow shit up, kill and kidnap people then put them in cages for whatever reason they deem fit. That is not authority nor liberty, that is just "might makes right".

There is no such thing as god or governments. There are churches who claim there is a god and a bunch of authoritarian people in goofy costumes that claim there is this authority called god and that they have a direct line of communication from god, but there is no authority here. There are States that comprise of politicians, lawyers, bureaucrats and military thugs in goofy costumes claiming to comprise an authority called Government, but they are just a minority of thugs operating a protection racket while trying to convince the majority of people that they are an authority. Their laws (their opinions backed by a gun) are not a substitute for anybody's judgment anymore than the dictates of some pope is the substitute for anybody's judgment whether they be believer or atheist.

Ultimately this slogan is false; there is no liberty to be found by pretending somebody is an authority. You use your judgment because you have free will and in this you can find liberty, especially when this is applied to ethics. If the slogan were literally true how could that lead to liberty? It's about as absurd as making the argument that god is all-powerful and all-knowing, which means he has predetermined everything that you will ever do; thus you have no free will and no liberty. So you cannot find liberty by trying to give up your ability to use your own judgment to other human beings who also have the same ability.

Now you know why I put philosopher in quotes up there; anybody corrupt enough to suggest such a proposition that ends up having the opposite effect is quite frankly a dangerous asshole, but rest assured Boethius that modern day tyrants thank you for your contribution to humanity!

Okay, before I close this post I want to take one last kick at this dead horse in the event that what I have written on this already has not fully convinced you of the absurdity of this. Assuming you fully agreed with what you saw on that building. Now what? Well, this slogan may as well have shown up on any damn State building in the entire world throughout history. Now how does that feel? You're in some communist/socialist hellhole and you read "Obedience to Law is Liberty". Yeah, that sure has worked out for the millions of people who have been killed, put in gulags and so fourth. How is that for liberty? How about Germany during the Nazi period?

Even if you agreed with that when it is in America. So what? Laws within and outside of America all contradict one another so which damn law/politician are you supposed to obey? The result is all the same: there is no liberty to be found. But what is to be found is the violence of the State and the people who want so badly for you to just shut up and obey what they think you should do.