Ask Lemmy

I have always had issues with any and all legal systems because they are rooted in human language and human language can be endlessly reinterpreted. In fact, that's pretty much the half the reason lawyers exist, to argue that a certain interpretation that benefits their client. As we've seen time and time again, the language of the oppressed gets co-opted and repackaged (recuperated) by the dominant and controlling parts of society. Those who already have control are unlikely to let that control of others go, and they will sink to any depth and any reinterpretation to justify it.

At least academics who focus on interpreting literature are honest about how they're pulling the interpretations out of their own ass.

Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

-Jean-Paul Sartre

Thus, as much as we need legal systems, I think they are always prone to failure and authoritarianism.