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Hello and welcome back to the 
Tiny Pod. 

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This week I want to talk about 
law. 

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The word law comes from the old 
N word lorg, meaning something 

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fixed, established, laid down 
and agreed upon. 

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Law is what has been fixed by 
those with the power to fix it. 

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It is not truth, not what is 
right, not what is moral, and it

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is not the same as justice. 
The tension between law and 

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justice has existed forever. 
Law is not morality or justice. 

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It is whatever a society has 
collectively laid down and 

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agreed to enforce. 
A lot of the earliest biblical 

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law was about creating a moral 
framework for living together 

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peacefully. 
It wasn't founded on punishment.

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It was concerned with how people
treat each other, how we repair 

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harm, and how we stop the 
powerful from crushing the 

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vulnerable. 
Law was originally trying to 

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shape community, not simply 
police it. 

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Jesus was attacked, condemned, 
and executed completely legally 

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by the legal system of the day. 
The law found him guilty, while 

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the moral reality was wholly 
opposite. 

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Biblical law offered spiritual 
guidance, morality, and 

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humanity. 
Modern law is often totally 

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bereft of moral law and basic 
humanity. 

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Law was what men in power chose 
to legislate and hold in place, 

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even after societal values 
evolved in direct conflict with 

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these laws. 
Slavery was lawful. 

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Colonialism was lawful. 
Women couldn't vote lawfully. 

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Apartheid was lawful. 
Marital rape was lawful in 

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England until 1991. 
Humans created laws. 

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Humanity in action changes laws.
Some of history's greatest 

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heroes were criminals according 
to the law of their day. 

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Martin Luther King and Nelson 
Mandela broke laws because they 

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believed there was a higher law 
and that humanity mattered more 

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than legislation. 
People who protected Jewish 

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families from the Nazis were 
acting illegally, and today 

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those same principles of 
protection that led people to 

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destroy weapons for Israel's use
against innocent families in 

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Gaza have been condemned by law 
as terrorism. 

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Law often leads to injustice 
when the people ruling what is 

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right act without a moral 
framework and outside of guiding

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principles. 
If we all had a moral law within

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us, we would not need external 
laws. 

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When children are raised with 
values, accountability, fairness

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and morality, enforcement of 
external laws is not necessary. 

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But when we raise children with 
shame, control, judgement and 

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violent punishment, they learn 
to be ashamed of their actions 

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rather than accountable. 
A toxic parent often operates 

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like the judge, jury, 
accountant, historian, and 

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prosecutor of the family. 
Everything is scored, counted, 

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entered into a Ledger. 
Every gift becomes evidence, 

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Every mistake becomes precedent.
Every kindness becomes a debt, 

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while the actual purpose of 
relationship, love, connection, 

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repair, compassion and 
understanding is missed. 

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It is disconnecting and 
disempowering. 

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Being raised by parents who 
cannot relate as a loving guide 

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and teacher and instead act as a
tribunal focused on who owes 

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what, keeping everyone trapped 
in the Ledger. 

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People who are truly generous 
are not interested in keeping 

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score. 
A person of character doesn't 

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have to keep announcing their 
generosity. 

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The evidence is in the 
relationship itself. 

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Ledger law is bookkeeping, not 
love. 

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Love keeps no accounts. 
Family systems built on power 

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and control are not interested 
in fairness, justice, and 

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accountability. 
They demand compliance and 

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obedience at the cost of human 
connection, truth, and values. 

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A child raised with control 
learns not to upset authority, 

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anger or embarrass the family, 
not to get caught, and to fear 

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accountability and telling the 
truth. 

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These children learn to live by 
an external monitor based on 

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conformity, compliance, and fear
of being found out. 

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A child raised with love and 
values learns to tell the truth 

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because truth matters, to be 
kind because people matter, to 

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be accountable and to take 
responsibility because their 

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actions impact others. 
They develop an internal moral 

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compass guided by what the right
thing to do is. 

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These are completely different 
psychological operating systems,

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and it is why some people can 
follow every rule and still 

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behave terribly because they 
learned obedience, not morality.

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And it is also why some people 
occasionally break the rules for

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deeply moral reasons. 
They have developed a conscience

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stronger than their fear of 
authority. 

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Law exists because moral 
development is glaringly uneven 

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and punishment of children 
disproportionate to their 

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behaviour. 
If everyone genuinely treated 

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others with dignity, honesty, 
fairness and restraint, there 

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would be no need for a legal 
system to tell people not to 

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steal, assault, exploit or 
defraud. 

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The law would be largely 
redundant because people would 

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be self governing. 
Law is humanity's endless 

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attempt to codify fairness in a 
world where fairness is often 

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subjective, contested and 
incomplete. 

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There is a distinction between 
law on paper and how it is used 

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in practise. 
Human beings are conditioned to 

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believe law and justice are 
connected. 

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But just because something is 
technically allowed, it does not

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make it morally right. 
Law is often used to protect 

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injustice and power rather than 
people and truth. 

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Most people think law is about 
rules and assume law exists to 

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create justice. 
But at its deepest level, law is

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about power. 
Powerful people often hide 

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behind legality. 
Something can be legal and 

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deplorably immoral. 
Segregation was legal. 

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Israel's state terrorism and 
death penalty is legal, while 

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Palestine action is illegal. 
The law often trails morality by

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decades or even centuries. 
The gap between legal and moral 

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is often only visible over time.
History reveals the constant 

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battle between 3 laws, Moral 
law, what we believe is right 

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and wrong, natural law, truths 
that exist regardless of 

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government, such as human 
dignity, freedom, fairness, and 

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the actual laws written down by 
governments. 

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Moral law and government law are
not the same thing and never 

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have been. 
Hiding Jewish families in Nazi 

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Germany, opposing apartheid, and
most recently, destroying 

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Israeli weapons were all illegal
and entirely moral. 

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Law often exists to create 
order, not justice. 

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A government can maintain 
perfect order while producing 

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enormous injustice. 
A prison is orderly. 

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A dictatorship can be orderly, 
and a deeply unequal society can

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seem orderly. 
Justice holds a much higher 

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standard. 
Every major social movement in 

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history started as lawbreakers. 
The suffragettes broke laws. 

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Civil rights activists broke 
laws. 

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Abolitionists hiding escaped 
slaves broke laws. 

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People sheltering persecuted 
groups throughout history broke 

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laws during times of great 
oppression and injustice. 

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Obedience to law becomes 
subservient and is often born 

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out of fear and cowardice. 
It takes courage to oppose 

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unjust laws. 
The activists recently sentenced

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under law as terrorists for 
trying to prevent further harm 

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to innocent families in Gaza 
were courageous. 

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They took action. 
Described by the Filton 25 

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Defence Committee is not 
terrorism. 

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It is a duty. 
By taking direct action, they 

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saved lives. 
Law is psychologically and 

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spiritually far more complicated
and nuanced than words codified 

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onto paper. 
People use law emotionally. 

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Many people don't actually want 
justice. 

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They want validation and the law
to tell them they were right. 

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They want a judge, a parent, a 
government, a church, a boss, a 

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husband, a wife, somebody in 
authority to finally declare 

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they were right. 
They want to win at any cost. 

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But law is broader than simply 
right or wrong. 

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Sometimes justice arrives, and 
often it doesn't. 

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Being right can carry the cost 
of happiness, connection and 

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peace. 
The law can settle disputes. 

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It cannot heal wounds. 
A court can divide an estate 

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order compensation, grant a 
divorce sentence a criminal. 

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But a court cannot make somebody
love you. 

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See, understand. 
Apologise or tell the truth. 

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Law cannot make somebody become 
who you wish they were, and that

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distinction between legal 
resolution and emotional 

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resolution can be enormous. 
The tension between internal law

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and external law is ancient. 
The legal system asks what can 

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be enforced. 
Conscience asks what is right. 

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Law is practised on accounting 
obligations, entitlements, 

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technicalities and ledgers. 
Humanity and morality are 

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founded on fairness, justice, 
relationship and meaning. 

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Law asks what am I required to 
do? 

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Humanity asks what is the loving
thing to do? 

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Law produces compliance, 
Morality produces character, and

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character is ultimately what 
makes laws less necessary. 

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The more that people are 
governed from within, the less 

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they need to be governed from 
outside. 

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The irony is that people with 
the least moral character end up

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imposing the laws the most 
strongly. 

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Whether a toxic parent or a 
toxic politician, the people 

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most attached to rules, 
authority, and enforcement are 

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often the most unable to embody 
the values those rules are 

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supposed to serve. 
People become obsessed with 

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compliance while neglecting 
integrity. 

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They can tell you every rule, 
quote every policy, explain why 

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they're technically right, yet 
they show very little 

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generosity, humility, mercy, 
curiosity, compassion, 

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flexibility, or self reflection.
A society needs traffic laws, 

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fraud laws, violence laws, 
contract laws to offer fairness 

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and a framework for people to 
coexist safely. 

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But when law is applied 
selectively, it isn't law, it is

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power. 
Using law to justify inequality 

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power shifts the law away from 
fairness to legal justification 

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for unfairness. 
There is no neutral law. 

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Law is always political, even 
when it pretends not to be. 

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Every law reflects the values 
and interests of whoever had the

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power to make it. 
The question is, whose values? 

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Whose interests have been made 
permanent through legislation? 

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The answer is evident when 
leaders break laws visibly 

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without consequence, and the law
continues to be enforced against

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everyone else. 
That's not lawlessness. 

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It is a visible demonstration of
who the law was actually for the

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legal concept of a global 
universal jurisdiction, such as 

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the United Nations. 
The idea that genocide, war 

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crimes and crimes against 
humanity are so serious that any

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country can prosecute them, 
regardless of where they 

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happened exists. 
But as we see all too often, it 

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is rarely enforced against 
powerful states or their allies.

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That gap between what 
international law says and what 

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actually happens is the clearest
demonstration of how law serves 

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power. 
The tension between 

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international law and political 
reality reveals that justice 

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doesn't just depend on legal 
frameworks alone, but on the 

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willingness of states to enforce
them. 

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Silence and inaction carry 
consequences as harmful as the 

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crimes themselves. 
The law documents what is 

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dangerous and unacceptable in 
society, usually decades after 

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the harm became visible and only
because ordinary humans united 

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and spoke truth to power. 
The laws on domestic abuse, 

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marital rape, child labour 
arrived long after the harm was 

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named by people outside the 
legal system. 

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Social change leads and law 
follows slowly. 

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Law and justice are not the 
same. 

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You can comply with every law 
while participating in profound 

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injustice. 
You can break the law and act 

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with complete moral integrity. 
The abolitionists, the civil 

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rights movement, the 
suffragettes, the Filton 25 all 

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understood this dichotomy. 
When we look beneath societal 

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conditioning, fear, control and 
compliance, we are able to live 

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freely, morally, lovingly and in
harmony with one another, 

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internally governed by moral and
spiritual laws in a way that is 

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far safer, truer, and more 
lawful than any external law 

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could ever establish. 
Slavish compliance to outdated 

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laws keeps us disempowered, 
controlled and stuck. 

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Self governance empowers, 
liberates, heals and unites. 

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Thank you so much for your 
support friends. 

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I'll see you next week.
