Letters.

• Position: Letter to the Editor

Uncovering Hidden Law

In "Conventional Wisdom" (February), Jonathan Rauch praises "hidden law," a web of convention and informal norms that he says regulates society more humanely than today's culture of law, court action, and open debate. I beg to differ.

Consider euthanasia. Rauch celebrates the days when doctors simply slipped suffering terminal patients a fatal dose and nothing more was said. When patients were ready to die and doctors were willing, hidden law was kind and convenient. But what about doctors who valued life at any cost and refused to end suffering? Imagine a trigger-happy doctor, quick to dispatch patients not yet ready to die--under the concealing blanket of hidden law, how could they ever be caught?

Hidden law confers substantial authority (but less responsibility) on parties other than the consumer. In the old days, doctors were guided solely by their own values regarding euthanasia. Patients could only hope their physician's views mirrored their own. Some learned otherwise only by lingering in agony, helpless in the hands of a doctor who would do nothing to ease their passing. Today, thanks to Jack Kevorkian, the courts, and legislatures, we're moving closer to a system in which physicians can openly discuss their willingness to euthanize; the process is open and accountable; and the healthcare consumer is the final decision maker.

As for marriage, Rauch praises a system in which society held startling power to regulate individuals' intimate relationships. Fear of "what the neighbors would think" trapped millions in toxic relationships. Libertarians should look askance at any system that vests such power in a faceless, unaccountable "community," not in the individuals living out their relationships. Today's system in which individuals hold untrammeled power over their own love lives is far preferable.

Scratch a communitarian--even a soft one--and you always find a central planner eager to disenfranchise people from their lives and hand over power to insulated elites. Whether exerted by kings, elected officials, or the neighbors, social control always implies coercion. It must be resisted by those who truly love liberty.

Tom Flynn

Buffalo, NY

tomwflynn@aol.com

In "Conventional Wisdom" Jonathan Rauch says "The further good news is that gradually, quietly, Americans are becoming aware of the existence of hidden law." This makes me wonder where Mr. Rauch has been for the last 40 years or so. I rather doubt that in the...