"There oughtta' be a law"

If a person chooses not to educate their children in a manner consistent with regulations of the state then officers of said state may come upon them armed with guns (and tasers, pepper spray, and/or with a slew of any number of other lovelies at their disposal) to haul them off to a cage before presenting them before other representatives of the state. Often ones wearing black gowns and sitting on high chairs.

The gun is present in all matters of law in the U.S. as all police (the hands-on enforcers) have them. They are the 'force' in enforcement.

The fact that declaring something a law concurrently initiates a process of force is unfortunately (IMHO) often overlooked.

Threat of imprisonment by armed agents of the state backs even the most trivial law. If one feels they were within their rights to have acted contrary to a given statute and refuses to comply with demands to adapt their behavior and/or to concede to fines being extor... err... levied against them then the state reserves the privilege to send armed mercenaries to seize person and property with deadly force.

What would it take for most of us to pick up a gun and walk over to a neighbors house and demand that the neighbor make some change to their behavior? Or to organize an armed posse of neighbors to collectively do so?

And yet think about how freely many throw around the phrase "there oughtta' be a law" without realizing that they are essentially making the same proposition. Except that the 'dirty work' gets outsourced to specialists. Those that hire a hitman do not have to scrub the blood from under their nails, and yet society chooses to regard them as murderers. Perhaps it would serve us well to think twice before saying "there oughtta' be law". And thrice, and ...

When something which was once taken seriously* comes to appear trivial due to familiarity I think it's worth asking to what extent what has changed. The 'thing' or us?

*[In this case cautious use of the power of law and state force. Does 1776 ring any bells? The government was much less extensive and intrusive and yet found by many to be intolerable. Enough so to enact a change. Things were much more wild then I suppose. Now the farm rabbits of 'Watership Down' come to mind.]