The quote, “The more corrupt the State, the more numerous its laws,” is attributed to Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56 - 120 AD). From the sheer volume of legal documents, briefs and revisions that is being passed through the hands of Indian editors, it is apparent that we are moving in the wrong direction. Rather than streamlining our legal system, we are tying ourselves into knots.
I am currently reading “Samskara: A Rite for a Dead Man” by U. R. Anantha Murthy. The plot involves a Brahmin who dies under irregular circumstances. Since his station demands that his body be touched only by Brahmins, and the irregularity prohibits any Brahmin from performing the rites of cremation, the body is left to rot in the agarahara (Brahmin‘s quarters, district or village). The Vedic texts also prohibit Brahmins from eating until the body had been properly disposed of.
It is a quandary in which we now also find ourselves. Our nation is literally starving. Our economy is essentially dead. When Americans voted for Obama, they essentially voted for dictatorship. Dictatorship does not make the dictator infallible. Though the signs (even then) were obvious, Americans believed that there was something immutable that would mitigate any wayward impulse by a president: America. They did not foresee the possibility that America itself could actually be dismantled bit by bit.
America is the dead Brahmin in Murthy’s story. We are doomed to suffer its rotting corpse at least until our laws permit us to proceed with a proper burial. It is not until Obama is removed from office that we can move forward and re-make America into the entity we so desperately desire(d).
In Murthy’s story, the acharya (head of the Brahmin colony) consults the Vedic texts over and over again, yet he can find no solution. The strictures are difficult and numerous, but precise and unyielding. Expedience cannot be a factor - neither can common sense. Even when rats begin to overwhelm the agarahara, it is not enough to break the stalemate.
Our problem is simple to define. Obama is killing the country. Most people get it. Yet, our own laws - that we passed to serve us - proscribe his removal for at least two more years.
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