[betty boop]

The current enthusiasms for "justice" and "rights" is almost as bad if not worse to the degree that modern concepts of these terms, thanks largely to Hobbes, can undermine any possibility of either dignity or transcendence.

Aquinas was much wiser — the state can only deal with certain obviously dangerous external crimes that would undermine the possibility of civil living, those that the generality of men can observe. The rest we should leave to freedom and virtue and the practical and fallible prudence of existing states, a prudence not all have, to be sure. Ultimate justice is found only in the transcendent order.

More beautiful insights of Father Schall....

We have seen what lodging justice in the courts, rather than in a transcendent order, has done for human dignity and liberty.

[beckett]

Aquinas was much wiser — the state can only deal with certain obviously dangerous external crimes that would undermine the possibility of civil living, those that the generality of men can observe. The rest we should leave to freedom and virtue and the practical and fallible prudence of existing states, a prudence not all have, to be sure. Ultimate justice is found only in the transcendent order.

BB: More beautiful insights of Father Schall....

Samuel Johnson said it another way that I've always favored, BB:

How small, of all that human hearts endure
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!