When the Law is Right

The psychology and theology of religious extremism and persecution that emerged with the Reformation can uniquely transform our perception of contemporary totalitarian belief systemssuch as the national security statethe mass mediaand communism.Contemporary courts have faced the significant difficultyerasing a public moral senseof intransparent interference by political authorities in court proceedings. Governmental authority defines freedoms so as to suit its own interestsoften disguised by a need for national securitywhile using ambivalent interpretations in court judgments to convince people that they must live with the ordered illusions that these manipulated freedoms define.Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume completed the Reformation’s project to give political impact to the original Christian principles of regeneration and Golden Rule.Hume’s model provides a blueprint for any political program today that is concerned with abolishing political repression:guarantee of equal freedomobjective equality of access to civil libertiesself-legislating morally valid lawuniversal betterment of the human conditionsuch that no person is left out of the social process.