That’s actually a good question from Mr. Mandvi in the above meme: “Why have any law?”  Of course, he’s talking about gun laws.

But it’s far more important to ask that question about matters other than gun regulations.  What about the economic crimes of the banks and corporations that have cost millions of people their homes (almost 15 million foreclosure filings since just 2009), their jobs (nearly 95 MILLION people not in the labor force), their livelihoods, driven them to suicide, almost destroyed the world economy (which is still very likely to happen), cost trillions of dollars in bailouts ($29 trillion) and quantitative easing ($3.5 trillion), etc.?  There are laws against all of this, yet they were not followed, in the vast majority of cases.

Laws don’t matter for the rich–remember “Too Big To Jail” and “deferred prosecution agreements?”

Indeed, why have laws at all?  The answer: to keep us rabble in line.  To make sure that you and I don’t have a gun to protect ourselves, or to have any savings or money to keep us from being thrown out into the streets, homeless.  HSBC launders money for terrorists and drug cartels, and they get a slap on the wrist of a fine ($1.9 billion, a fraction of the bank’s profit for one quarter).  No one goes to jail.  Yet a marijuana dealer gets 81 years.  Hell, Mary McCulley was bilked by US Bank, and SHE was sent to jail for investigating said bilking. No one at US Bank went to jail.

Indeed, Aasif Mandvi, why have any laws?

If the laws were applied fairly, we might not be having this discussion.  But we all know they aren’t.  So the question really isn’t “why have any laws” but rather, “why don’t we make the laws apply to everyone equally, regardless of economic status?”

The answer: because we are a nation of men, not of laws, even though we are constantly told that the opposite is true.