According to this PDF from the court, the "Wisdom" sculpture is "an old man." It doesn't say it's Moses. Just some old guy. But the "Force" sculpture, we're told "is a composite of General Ulysses S. Grant, General Nelson A. Miles, and Admiral Francis M. Bunce." Actually, there is a Moses statue elsewhere on the building, at the roof line:
There are various other historical figures, like Zoroaster and Confucius, and I see in the PDF that Muhammad was one of them until his image was removed and destroyed back in 1955, at the request of the governments of Egypt, Pakistan, and Indonesia.
Be that as it may, it's the inscriptions that fascinate me. I think that these are original aphorisms, composed for these sculptures, and that they were intended to paraphrase widely understood propositions of American law. Nevertheless, the precise words, taken literally, are quite extreme. I was surprised to see them on the courthouse. How differently cases would come out if these 2 phrases were binding law, taken seriously?
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१६ टिप्पण्या:
If every law not based on wisdom is a menace to the state, we'd have to throw out a solid 70% of the laws on the books. On the low side.
And from whom is this WISDOM to come?
A menace to the state or a menace to the people by the state?
I think the inside of the Supreme Court features sculptures of Moses, Zoroaster, Confucious, Hammurabi, and Mohammed (among others).
Anyways, that is a sobering pair of statements about law, force, and wisdom.
Is there any way that we can have Congress-people and Presidents repeat these statements to themselves every day?
"Every law not based on WISDOM is a menace to the state"
Whatever happened to RATIONALITY review?
"We must not use FORCE till just laws are defied."
Post those words on Facebook in reference to the Obama administration's open defiance of the law and they'll come to confiscate your guns.
"And from whom is this WISDOM to come?"
Barack Obama today, Hillary Clinton for 8 years starting in 2017.
Obviously one thing that would need to happen is that WISDOM principle would need the same sort of articulation as the "reasonable person" principle.
Whatever. Trite bromides,like signing statements, have no force of law, nor are they binding on jurists, and never have been. Are you facinated by fortune cookie sayings too? I'm not sure what what you value you find in these words. Exlain?
Amichel said...
If every law not based on wisdom is a menace to the state, we'd have to throw out a solid 70% of the laws on the books. On the low side.
I think you are missing the point. The idea is to throw out the lawmakers. In the case of open defiance of the law by the lawmakers, force is justified to throw them out, if they illegally thwart other means. (And they do not get to be the sole deciders of what is illegal.)
That's what's so seemingly radical about the inscriptions. But it's nothing new. The tree of liberty being watered by the blood of patriots (and traitors) is a founding American principle.
"According to this PDF from the court, the "Wisdom" sculpture is "an old man."
Sexists.
"How differently cases would come out if these 2 phrases were binding law, taken seriously?"
Well, if someone thought that the above, as law, were not based on wisdom, not much would change.
Not quiet a self-refutation, but could be looked at that way if one was of a mind to.
Oliver Wendell Holmes has a more pragmatic view:
"The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience."
Holmes' view is not as idealistic or inspiring, but is is far more realistic. Judges, as Holmes also observes, are merely people with prejudices, and they often render decisions independent of the facts and the law, and fully in accordance with their personal prejudices.
I'm not sure this is totally on-topic, but it is a bizarre judgment maybe based on wisdom. Public school system tenure deemed illegal in Ca.
http://studentsmatter.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Tenative-Decision.pdf
"Every law not based on WISDOM is a menace to the state"
Laws are written by politicians. Wisdom among politicians is quite scarce, almost nonexistent. Off hand, I can't recall a single wise politician in office today or even recently.
Regulations, which can have the force of law, are written by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats. There isn't much wisdom there, either.
Laws are intrepreted by judges, a significant percentage of whom are little more than failed lawyers with sufficient connections to get a job on the bench. Wisdom? Not so much.
Barack Obama today, Hillary Clinton for 8 years starting in 2017.
I don't think that Hillary will live that long, do you?
God gave Moses the Law.
He gave Solomon wisdom.
He gave the Force to Luke Skywalker.
References to the "State" on wise laws and menacing laws and Force in reaction to unjust laws are proper assertions by a New York City appellate court; whereas New York is unique in its foundation as a Dutch trading post, and that its original New Amsterdam laws and customs were uniquely respected during its British New York Colony period(s), which laid the foundation for it being home for American investment firms, the Federal Reserve, and the United Nations; each having international implications that require a proper and dependable respect for foreign laws, customs, and standards consistent with said respect being traditional since its foundation; And benefiting New York State's economic position in the United States and America's economic position on the global stage.
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