The Roots of American Order

I began reading this book today. I have not made it very far into the book but I was impressed upon by the discussion about order and how it is vital to our beings. Order is deemed even more important than food and shelter in this book. In some ways, I would have to agree. Maybe it is not more important, but I see it on the same plane as food and shelter. As stated in the book, "If our souls are disordered, we fall into abnormality, unable to control our impulses." So basically, it appears that this "order," is what seperates us from the animal kingdom.

So my question is, how do we maintain order? My answer is two part, but one answer is...through government. If basic laws (I am talking Bill of Rights here) are mandated, then order is maintained. But what about an overabundance of laws? My argument is that this creates chaos. So a simple set of laws basic enough for everyday people without law degress to understand is what enables us to be free enough to lives our lives, without infringing on the rights of others. Jefferson* was an advocate of the verbage of laws to be simple enough for the commom man to understand. Look at the interpretation needed today in regards to the laws and bills passed....this does not create order. It creates confusion. I do not know where the book is going on this, but this is where my mind went upon reading about order. I will let you know further insight I receive from my readings!

As a side note, the second answer to my above question is through the righteousness of the people. A corrupt people, no matter how strict and elaborate the laws, cannot be governed.

*"I thought it would be useful...to reform the style of the later British statutes and of our own acts of assembly, which from their verbosity, their endless tautologies, their involutions of case within case and parenthesis, and their multiplied efforts at certainty by saids and aforesaids, by ors and by ands, to make them more plain, are really rendered more perplexed and incomprehensible, not only to common readers but to the lawyers themselves." Thomas Jefferson (in autobiography by Bergh)