LAW, JUSTICE, FREEDOM
AS A PEOPLE we are noted for our law-abiding qualities or recognition of the need for order. As Odinists we realise even more the need for order if we are to flourish. Nature is ordered, a fact which escapes many hippy-type heathens. If order breaks down chaos descends. So what is order?
There are no doubt many answers to this question but essentially it could be described as the balance of different forces necessary for advancement. We see it manifest throughout the multiverse and in people as a reflection of the multiverse. The most effective man is one who can balance his spiritual, intellectual and physical energies. So it is clear that order is of the utmost importance.
Law could be described as the mechanism for imposing order on a people. Our ancestors recognised the need for this. We pay heed to it at the Festival of Settlement when we say ‘and through it all they observed the law, pitiless and potent, ever unswerving and ever ordaining, greater than the motes of men who fulfilled it or were crushed by it.
Why is it then that some Odinists have great contempt for the system of law in this land? I believe it is because it does not follow a ‘natural’ path but, like many other things, has been deviated to such an extent that in many instances it is in fact unjust and deserving contempt.
To be effective the law must be accepted as right by the majority of people and to achieve this it must reflect several things. It must serve to enforce the people’s instinctive knowledge of what is right and wrong and stop whatever is bad. It must punish those who break the codes in a fitting way and it must also protect the people who stand up for it.
Despite appearances, most people do possess this instinctive knowledge of what is acceptable and what is not and a desire for order. In our ancestors’ day a thief was a pariah, unacceptable to the rest of society because he damaged its effective running. But because many of today’s laws protect the guilty more than the innocent, respect for them has faded. People are appalled when a vicious and violent criminal whose actions have ruined people’s lives often escapes justice by being given a paltry sentence or a fine, while someone who may have hurt no one can be treated harshly. There are men in gaol today whose only crimes were to speak up for their people in ways they thought fit, while thugs terrorise the old and weak.
The law in our ancestors’ day was much more in the hands of the people and reflected their wants, even to the extent of victims sometimes having a say in what should be done. Nowadays it is taken out of their hands and left to so-called experts, who seem intent on guarding only certain sections of the population.
Our ancestors were more practical. A child molester or a killer, for instance, was quite rightly seen as defective and was not permitted to exist whereas today, even though the vast majority of people still loathe these degenerate scum, those who decide and who administer the law protect them from natural justice and often put them back into society (some even claiming to have become ‘good Christians’ – which they may well be). Another factor is that we now have large numbers of strangers whose culture and background are completely different to our own. Because of this they feel hostility towards our laws. But instead of forcing these strangers to obey our laws new laws are enacted to aid them to remain different and outside our laws.
The most important need is that law should protect the personal freedom of the people so that they may go about their lives free from fear. But it now increasingly restricts our own freedom. So what are we to do? While we must still strive for law, order and justice we will have to be more selective in our support. Above all we must bring the law back into our own hands. In the meantime, and as things get steadily worse, it may well be that we shall see more people taking the law into their own hands when they are denied natural justice.
