Fear

From fear comes prejudice, and the guilt drives hatred. Then the need to be superior in some way to vindicate the now-hidden fears -- to brutality.
That is why the Law is brutal. It is the canonization of fears into the form of a society. A society with too many laws is sick. When the fear (or the power) of the law surpasses the responsibility for one's own actions -- personal morality -- all in that group will suffer.

America had Jim Crowe laws that blatantly limited the rights of blacks. Those laws were simply prejudice.

I sometimes think that America would be better off scrapping all the laws and returning to simply the Constitution and Bill of Rights. I've heard that suggestion all my life. It's surprising how I return to ponder that concept late in my life.

The saddest fact of fear is that it is mostly imaginary. The saddest fact of the law is that many laws are written to protect us from our own imaginations.

As George Carlin said about religious wars, "They're really about who has the best imaginary friend."