Obey the Law

Last updated on: May 9, 2012 at 8:33 pm by Niki Whiting

Obey the Law 2012-05-09T20:33:20-08:00 Niki Whiting

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Today’s Delphic Maxim is ‘Obey the law.’ You can read Star Foster’s take on this here.

This is a tricky one for me. It’s not that I break the law all that often (and who doesn’t speed occasionally, at the very least?), it’s that I hate being told what to do. It’s a good thing I am generally a person who likes to get along and finds the status quo pretty comfortable, because I tend only to follow rules/laws that I like.

I recognize that rules and laws are important for all of us to get along in this world. I certainly like traffic laws – when we all know how to drive it’s safer for everyone. But so many laws/rules are created for the lowest common denominator and that frustrates me.

Spiritually, I fall into the Pagan camp that believes in honing one’s Will – discerning what that is and enacting it wisely. This lands squarely on the anarchist spectrum (if there is such a thing). I hope that my Will would not cause others undue harm or suffering. I would also hope that enacting my Will in the world would not put my children at risk.

This is something that my partner and a few of my friends have talked about: how to engage in peaceful, democratic resistance to the laws I object to without putting my children at risk? If all the families that feel an affinity with the Occupy Movement/s went out to the protests perhaps the Powers That Be might take the movement more ‘seriously,’ not be able to write it off as just the rabble-rousers and violently quash the protests (as my friends in Oakland have experienced). Just a thought. As it stands, it’s scary to think about taking my littles to an Occupy protest.

I don’t think observing the law is a spiritual virtue in and of itself, but one of the benefits of living in a democracy is that we get vote, we get a chance to speak up and get involved. These are ways to enact one’s Will in the world AND observe the law.

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A note: I am hoping to use the Delphic Maxims as writing prompts. I may not write on every single one, as there are 147 of them! These posts will also cover topics that I haven’t written about before, such as politics. We’ll see what else comes up!

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