True Law is Not Relative

Stuff that works, stuff that holds up
The kind of stuff you don't hang on the wall
Stuff that's real, stuff you feel
The kind of stuff you reach for when you fall
--Guy Clark

Prior to the start of class one day, I recall a fellow student asking my high school humanities teacher, "Is everything relative?" Raising his eyes in a dry gaze, the teacher replied, "Certainly not."

Progressives like to argue that, because the Constitution was developed in a different era, it is not relevant to modern times. 'Progress' requires governance crafted for today, for situations that the founders did not anticipate.

The Progressive argument is a flavor of positivism, a legal philosophy grounded in the notion that a law is valid if it can be enforced. Law is left to the discretion of the enforcers. Law, according to Progressives, is a relative thing.

But durable law is not relative. Rather, it is grounded in natural law that does not change with the direction of the wind. The founders understood this truth. Their experience with the discretionary rule of England merely validated what they had learned from their study of history.

Their study of Rome included the writings of Cicero, the great defender of the Roman republic and master of political philosophy. Cicero wrote:

"True law is right reason, consonant in nature, spread through all people. Is is constant and eternal...There will not be one law at Rome and another at Athens, one now and another later; but all nations at all times will be bound by the one eternal and unchangeable law..."

Cicero knew that effective law is timeless.

Reference

Cicero, M.T. "On the Commonwealth." In J.E.G. Zerzel (ed.), On the commonwealth and On the laws. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 71-72.