We Should Abolish The Legal System (Or Admit We Have More Than Just A Sin Problem)

(Credit: Beth Cortez-Neavel, Flickr Creative Commons)

The Internet is a funny thing.

On the one hand, our Internet powered smartphones allows us to carry the totality of human knowledge in our pocket.

Which is incredible.

On the other hand, social media has all but eradicated our critical thinking skills. Instead of searching out all available information (which is easier to do now than at any point in human history) and spending time formulating a well thought out and well informed opinion (which, again, is easier now than at any point in human history given our comparatively large amount of leisure time), we instead default to reposting ridiculous memes and parroting catchy one-liners which we’ve convinced ourselves are the ultimate rhetorical trump card in any debate, but which in reality are stunningly oversimplified nonsense – if they’re in any way factual to begin with.

Which is also incredible, just not in the same way.

Of course, there was never any golden age in which everyone everywhere spent countless hours doing research and then reflecting intently and critically until they reached a well reasoned conclusion. Sure, there were plenty of great minds and a few lesser ones throughout history and even today who have done and continue to do so, but as a whole, humanity tends to lean more towards knee-jerk reactions and groupthink.

Which isn’t the end of the world, I suppose, in so much as those groups are/were small, localized, and unable to share their irrationality (or worse) with the wider world.

Which was the case throughout most of recorded history.

Sure, the printing press allowed bad ideas (and a few good ones) to proliferate like never before, but the printed word doesn’t hold a candle to the Internet’s ability to spread stupidity around the world like some sort of ideological super virus.

Unfortunately, my beloved Church has not yet found a way to vaccinate itself from the global digital dumbing down epidemic and, like the rest of the world, we flock to shallow memes and meaningless one-liners like me to a plate of fried chicken.

There is, perhaps, no greater (worse?) example of this phenomenon in recent months than the notion that “we don’t have a ________ problem, we have a sin problem.”

For Gov. Mike Huckabee, we don’t have a skin problem, we have a sin problem.

For legions of the Fox News faithful, we don’t have a gun problem, we have a sin problem.

In both cases, the sentiment is nonsense.

Racism exists. Racism is a sin. Pretending the sin of racism isn’t inherently connected to skin color is both incredibly absurd and utterly dishonest.

Gun violence exists. Using guns to harm innocent people is a sin. Pretending the epidemic of sinful gun violence plaguing our nation isn’t inherently connected to weapons specifically designed to make the perpetrating of violence easier is both incredibly absurd and utterly dishonest.

Obviously sin is involved in gun violence just as it is in racism and theft and drunk driving and a whole host of other crimes for which we don’t hesitate to pass laws intended to protect the innocent. And yet our American lust for violence prevents us for doing the same when it comes to guns. Which is what makes the “we don’t have a racism/gun problem, we have a sin problem” rhetoric so ridiculous. For when we take that rhetoric to its logical conclusion and extend it to every other crime (since every other crime is also inherently sinful), we are faced with an unavoidable conclusion.

We should abolish the legal system.

For, if the manifestation of sin and the objects used in its exercise are irrelevant because sin itself is the only real problem that needs to be addressed (as the rhetoric implies), then there is no real point to any law or regulation because no law or regulation can change people’s hearts or eradicate their sin.

But, of course, one one is calling for this sort of anarchy because even those who embrace the sin problem rhetoric know that if we did abolish the legal system, replaced judges and cops with pastor and priests, and sent criminals to counseling sessions and altar calls, even then sin would still be present in the world because people are present in the world and that fatally flawed relationship will not be fully healed until the eschaton.

It is this recognition that leads us to support a whole host of laws and regulations intended to mitigate the effects, if not prevent altogether the manifestation of a myriad of other sins. It’s an inconsistency that becomes ever more glaring every time another tragedy occurs and someone responds by saying “we don’t have a ________ problem, we have a sin problem.”

Take, for example, the car comparison so many anti-gun control advocates like to make. Unless it’s a Google car, without a human operator a car will sit idly in its parking spot doing absolutely nothing and harming no one. But once a person gets behind the steering wheeling, that car can become dangerous and when that person is intoxicated, that car becomes even more dangerous still and as too many of us know all too well, there are few sins more tragic than the murder (and, yes, it is murder) of a loved one, particularly a child, at the hands of a drunk driver.

Therefore, in order to operate a car, we as a society have decided to pass laws and regulations preventing just anyone from getting behind the steering wheel anytime they want. To operate a drive, you first must have training, then you must acquire a license, and once that license is acquired there are a seemingly infinite list of laws and regulations you must follow while driving that car if you don’t want to risk being ticketed, losing your license, and/or spending time in jail.

It’s true that like cars, a gun sitting by itself can do no harm for it can’t pull its own trigger. However, unlike cars, which were invented to make life better, the primary purpose of a gun is to make causing harm as easy as possible. That’s why the weapon of choice in the never ending stream of mass murders in our country isn’t a knife or a baseball bat or a rock or even a car. Mass murderers choose guns because guns are inherently designed to inflict as much destruction as possible with the mere twitch of a finger.

If we highly regulate the access to and use of far less inherently dangerous things like cars, and if we pass laws and make regulations to mitigate the effects, if not prevent altogether the manifestation of a myriad of other sins, then it makes absolutely no sense that we would not to the same for something as inherently dangerous as a gun.

And that’s to say nothing of the racism that plagues our country.

Sure, racism is a far more complex issue to address than guns in so much as it’s an abstract concept rather than a material object, but it is an abstract concept with very real and easily identifiable effects in the world such as workplace discrimination, Jim Crow laws, minority directed violence, and slavery just to name a few.

Perhaps even more than the gun rhetoric, the idea that skin color is not involved in the sin of racism is astonishingly absurd.

In either case, dismissing gun violence and/or racism as just sin problems somehow disconnected from their material manifestation does nothing more than empower the plague of their continued existence.

Something must change and despite our deep disagreements, I have little doubt that those who embrace the “we don’t have a ________ problem, we have a sin problem” also want to see a better world. But that better world is not going to come about by ignoring the very real factors at place while waiting on a miraculous global change of heart.

That’s not to say I don’t support efforts to change hearts and minds. Of course, we should pursue that path as well. Our efforts to address racism and gun violence should absolutely be a multi-prong approach, but dismissing the fundamental role things like skin color and guns play in the manifestation of sin destroys any chance we have for success in combating those sins before we even get started.

So, unless you’re willing to follow the theology of Fox News to its logical conclusion and demand we replace the legal system with counseling sessions and altar calls, I implore you to stop deflecting from the real issues.

Admit we have more than just a sin problem.

And help make the world a better place for all us to live in.

So what would I do about the problem of gun violence in country? I know you’re wondering because I’m asked all the time. Tune in Wednesday to find out. SPOILER ALERT: I won’t be a calling for a total ban on guns.