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An Unjust Law Is No Law At All: Why Obamacare Must Fall
Kelly OConnell Sunday, July 1, 2012
Specifically, the Western Natural Law tradition is predicated upon the notion that Nature or God so ordered the universe that a set of rules exists beyond human laws which then are there available to inform humans of the manner of proper conduct and legislation. The greatest thinkers in Western history agree on this, including Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, John Locke and many others. It is the duty of all free men and women to rise up and fight against unjust laws because all bad rules are an attack against liberty. Further, if we do not do this now, the opportunity to establish freedom may be lost for all future generations.
I. Western Legal Foundation: Natural Law
The legal story of the West has a rich history. Heinrich A. Rommen in The Natural Law: A Study in Legal and Social History and Philosophy, describes Natural Law by using the great Hugo Grotius’ definition:
The law of nature [ius naturale] is a dictate of right reason which points out that an act, according as it is or is not in conformity with rational [and social] nature, has in it a quality of moral baseness or moral necessity; and that, in consequence, such an act is either forbidden or enjoined by the author of nature, God.
The best research traces the ideas behind modern Natural Law and rights to William of Ockham, according to Brian Tierney in The Idea of Natural Rights. Modern rights language can be traced to a debate which occurred between Pope John XXII and the Franciscan Order. According to Tierney, the intrinsic implications for liberty within the Bible for Natural Law became externalized at some point. Ockham provided the language which helped form the tradition.
What Natural Law represents more than any other idea is the notion of a true set of precepts existing above any human laws which can be used to model and correct human law. And bad laws were not considered morally binding. Augustine in On Free Choice Of The Will, Book 1, § 5,, says on this: “An unjust law is no law at all.”
