I was driving my 6 year old to school this morning. We somehow got into a conversation about how laws were made. I started explaining to him the distinction between law formed by courts, and law artificially made by legislation. This led into a brief explanation of the British system, the role of the king or queen and parliament, how parliament is bicameral, and Britain’s “unwritten” constitution, and to a contrast with our own system with a President instead of king, a bicameral congress, and a written constitution. And so on.
During this Ethan blurts out, “I wish they would make a law against war.” So, this led to a discussion of the United Nations and treaties, and the attempt to limit warmaking in the UN charter. He asked me if it worked. I told him it hasn’t worked very well. He says, why? I say, well, if you are a powerful nation then you are sometimes tempted to use that power to get your way, and so on. So we still have wars.
Ethan is silent for a minute, and then mutters, “The earth is not as peaceful as it looks.” It kind of creeped me out.
I presume he is about to get his Ph.D. in law soon and considers getting another in Political Sciences. Are you sure that you did not miswrote his age?
But I agree with the punchline – kids say how it is, no bullshit from them.
Yeah, Ethan called that one right on the money, didn’t he?