The most important need is that law should protect the personalfreedom of the people so that they may go about their lives free fromfear.
AS A PEOPLE we are noted for our law-abiding qualities orrecognition of the need for order. As Odinists we realize even more theneed for order if we are to flourish. Nature is ordered, a fact whichescapes many hippy-type heathens. If order breaks down chaos descends.So what is order?
There are no doubt many answers to this question butessentially it could be described as the balance of different forcesnecessary for advancement. We see it manifest throughout the multiverseand in people as a reflection of the multiverse. The most effective manis one who can balance his spiritual, intellectual and physicalenergies. So it is clear that order is of the utmost importance.
Law could be described as the mechanism for imposing order on apeople. Our ancestors recognised the need for this. We pay heed to itat the Festival of Settlement when we say ‘andthrough it all they observed the law, pitiless and potent, everunswerving and ever ordaining, greater than the motes of men whofulfilled it or were crushed by it.
Why is it then that some Odinists have great contempt for the system oflaw in this land? I believe it is because it does not follow a’natural’ path but, like many other things, has been deviated to suchan extent that in many instances it is in fact unjust and deservingcontempt.
To be effective the law must be accepted as right by themajority of people and to achieve this it must reflect several things.It must serve to enforce the people’s instinctive knowledge of what isright and wrong and stop whatever is bad. It must punish those whobreak the codes in a fitting way and it must also protect the peoplewho stand up for it.
Despite appearances, mostpeople do possess this instinctive knowledge of what is acceptable andwhat is not and a desire for order. In our ancestors’ day a thief was apariah, unacceptable to the rest of society because he damaged itseffective running. But because many of today’s laws protect the guiltymore than the innocent, respect for them has faded. People are appalledwhen a vicious and violent criminal whose actions have ruined people’slives often escapes justice by being given a paltry sentence or a fine,while someone who may have hurt no one can be treated harshly. Thereare men in gaol today whose only crimes were to speak up for theirpeople in ways they thought fit, while thugs terrorise the old andweak.
The law in our ancestors’ daywas 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 bedone. Nowadays it is taken out of their hands and left to so-calledexperts, who seem intent on guarding only certain sections of thepopulation.
Our ancestors were more practical. A child molester or akiller, for instance, was quite rightly seen as defective and was notpermitted to exist whereas today, even though the vast majority ofpeople still loathe these degenerate scum, those who decide and whoadminister the law protect them from natural justice and often put themback into society (some even claiming to have become ‘good Christians’- which they may well be). Another factor is that we now have largenumbers of strangers whose culture and background are completelydifferent to our own. Because of this they feel hostility towards ourlaws. But instead of forcing these strangers to obey our laws new lawsare enacted to aid them to remain different and outside our laws.
The most important need is that law should protect the personalfreedom of the people so that they may go about their lives free fromfear. But it now increasingly restricts our own freedom. So what are weto do?While we must still strive for law, order and justice we will have tobe more selective in our support. Above all we must bring the law backinto 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 theirown hands when they are denied natural justice.