Monthly Archive

It’s the Law - And Other Things People Say to Avoid Thinking

I often hear people say, “Well, it’s the law,” as if that ends the discussion. I’m reminded of Samuel Pepys (and later Dickens) who remarked, “Then, sir, the law is an ass.” I couldn’t agree more.

Let me go further: lawyers, in general, are not the noble defenders of justice they’re often made out to be. They are, in my view, the grease in the machinery of injustice—drafting the very laws that protect the powerful, and then helping the wealthy find the escape hatches they so carefully designed.

You don’t have to look far for examples.

Law as a Weapon of the Powerful

Take Donald Trump. He has used the legal system not only to delay accountability but to bludgeon his opponents with lawsuits, non-disclosure agreements, and calculated loopholes. The same applies to Benjamin Netanyahu, who has used his position to reshape Israeli laws to shield himself from corruption charges. Viktor Orbán in Hungary has hollowed out democratic checks and balances through entirely legal mechanisms—restructuring courts, media oversight bodies, and electoral law to cement his power.

They didn’t do it through tanks and coups. They did it through legislation. Through the law.

When Corporations Write the Rules

Let’s step into another arena: taxation. International companies like Amazon, Apple, or Google avoid billions in taxes each year—not by breaking the law, but by using it. Shell companies, double Irish with a Dutch sandwich, intellectual property havens—these are not illegal. They're designed by law firms and financial consultants precisely to be legal.

Switzerland is not exempt. Quite the opposite—it’s a world-class enabler. Glencore, based in Zug, is a perfect case. It has profited enormously from the extraction of resources in countries where laws are weak or easily influenced. Human rights violations and environmental devastation follow in its wake, but the company thrives within legal frameworks. Who writes these frameworks? Who makes sure they remain porous? Lawyers.

“It’s Legal” Is Not the Same as “It’s Just”

Slavery was legal. Apartheid was legal. Colonial exploitation? Legal. Women being denied the vote? Legal. Legality is not morality. Yet people still say, “Well, it’s the law,” as if that’s some kind of ethical North Star. In truth, it’s often a tool of convenience—used to shut down thought, dodge responsibility, or justify silence.

The phrase has become a way to abdicate moral responsibility. But if history has shown us anything, it’s that injustice thrives not only when laws are broken, but when unjust laws are followed without question.

When Breaking the Law Was the Right Thing to Do

We shouldn’t forget: the law has often been an obstacle to progress.

• Suffragettes broke the law to win women the right to vote.

• Anti-apartheid activists in South Africa were jailed for defying a legal system built on racial oppression.

• Civil rights marchers in the U.S. broke segregation laws that were immoral, but fully legal.

• Gandhi’s Salt March openly violated British law in India—and changed the world.

Even the Berlin Wall didn’t fall because a law changed. It fell because people acted from conscience.

What’s called “civil disobedience” is often just moral clarity in the face of immoral authority. In hindsight, history praises those who stood up—but at the time, they were called criminals.

So What’s the Alternative?

Some lawyers are exceptions—they fight for justice, speak up for the vulnerable, and challenge broken systems. But they are rare, and often underfunded. Most operate within a system that rewards compliance with power, not conscience.

So what can we do?

We can stop mistaking legality for legitimacy. We can stop repeating “it’s the law” like a hypnotic mantra. Not only that, but we can start using our own discernment—our ability to know right from wrong, regardless of what the rulebook says.

The law is only as good as the hands that shape it. Right now, too many of those hands belong to people whose interests are not yours or mine.

Clarity and the Crisis of Leadership: Why Our Leaders Need to See Beyond the Noise

Clarity is a rare and precious quality. It’s the ability to cut through the noise — the distractions, the agendas, the endless clamour of competing interests — and see what truly matters. Yet, today, clarity is missing where it is needed most: in leadership.

Leaders, especially politicians, often start with good intentions. Perhaps a desire to serve, to make a difference, to improve society. But the realities of politics quickly erode that clarity. The constant pressure to compromise, to negotiate, to protect alliances, and to secure funding, all muddy the waters.

The first sacrifice is often ethics and morality. What starts as principled conviction too frequently bends to expediency. Over time, this compromises not just policy, but the leader’s very integrity.

Consider former U.S. President Donald Trump, who rose with a populist message promising to "drain the swamp," only to become embroiled in numerous controversies and legal battles that called his ethics into question. Or look at Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, whose long tenure has been shadowed by corruption charges even as he maintained a strong political base.

Closer to home, in Switzerland and Europe, leaders face similar temptations — subtle but no less real — as they balance national interests with corporate lobbying and economic pressures. Glencore, one of the world’s largest commodity traders domiciled in Switzerland, has been implicated repeatedly in ethical controversies, and political leaders often face the challenge of regulating such companies while fostering economic growth.

Beyond individual examples, this pattern repeats globally. The hunger for power and influence too often replaces the hunger for genuine service. Political leadership sometimes becomes less about serving the people and more about preserving personal or party advantage. This is the “snout in the trough” phenomenon — leaders feeding at the expense of those they are supposed to represent.

And then there is the arrogance — the belief that leaders know better than the people what is good for them. This paternalism erodes trust and fuels cynicism. It creates a gulf between those who govern and those who are governed.

True clarity in leadership means something very different. It requires an unshakeable connection to purpose — a vision rooted in the common good — and a refusal to be distracted by noise or corrupted by power. It means leaders who listen deeply, act honestly, and serve humbly.

If clarity is a light in the darkness, then the absence of clarity is what fuels the crises we face today — political polarization, social unrest, environmental degradation, and widening inequality.

The question then is: how do we cultivate clarity within ourselves, and how do we demand it from those who lead us? It begins with each of us choosing to look beyond the surface noise and to hold leaders accountable, not just for their words but for their integrity and actions.

Clarity isn’t a lofty ideal; it’s a practical necessity for a healthier society and a more compassionate world. It is both the inner compass and the collective demand that can guide us through the complexities of our time.

The Turning Point

 At the Turning Point: Transition, Resistance, and the Hope for Awakening

We are living through a great transition. You can feel it in the air—an unsettling, unstable pull between the old and the new. Some call it the Age of Aquarius, others a shift in consciousness, or simply a changing world. Whatever the name, the signs are everywhere: something is breaking down, and something else is trying to be born.

But transitions are never gentle. They stir up the dust, they shake the foundations, and they often reveal just how attached we are to what is familiar—even if what’s familiar no longer serves us. In these moments, resistance reaches its peak. That resistance comes dressed in many forms: political backlash, conspiracy theories, religious rigidity, the craving for “strong leaders,” the refusal to listen, the denial of truth.

It’s no surprise. Every dying paradigm fights to preserve itself. Like a cornered animal, it lashes out—not out of strength, but fear.

Watching Prem Rawat speak recently from Westlake, California, I saw this truth not just in the world around me, but in his eyes. As he spoke about the preciousness of life, of each breath, and the coming certainty of death, his voice cracked with emotion. He almost broke into tears—not out of sentimentality, but out of a deep, aching love. A frustration, perhaps, that so few of us grasp what is truly at stake. We argue about everything, chase illusions, divide ourselves endlessly—and all the while, the most extraordinary gift is right under our noses: we are alive.

The low point of any transition is the moment when it seems nothing will change. When consciousness appears to have lost the battle to noise, distraction, and stupidity. But maybe, just maybe, this is the very point where the tide begins to turn. When enough people become so disillusioned with the chaos that they finally turn inward and begin to listen—to themselves, to their breath, to what matters.

Hope, in this context, isn’t blind optimism. It’s the quiet strength that emerges from awareness. The hope that comes from knowing: even if the world is asleep, I can be awake. Even if others choose noise, I can choose clarity. And if I can, perhaps others will too.

This is the real work now—not fighting the old, but nurturing the new. Honouring the transition, facing the resistance, and holding a space where consciousness can root itself and grow. Before we destroy ourselves with cleverness and forget the simple joy of being.

We’re at the turning point. And what turns now, turns everything.