“What do you mean by “make it so”?”
I cannot give the order and have it followed by the cops. I don’t have the authority to give the order.
“But you need neither “the power to enforce this edict” nor any law at all to kill”
To kill with impunity I do.
“Without moral justification and hence popular acceptance, you have neither law nor compliance, only victims”
Moral justification isn’t required to gain popular acceptance for murder. All one needs is fear. If people were truly afraid of libertarians, it would seem worth it to kill all of you just to make sure you didn’t do anything we didn’t want you to do. I’m not able to manipulate the majority’s mind so well that I can inspire fear like that because I don’t have enough power or influence. But moral justification is definitely not necessary to get popular acceptance for murder.
“If compliance is a measure of practical significance then surely such a law would be considered a failure”
Only if I failed to kill all of you. But if I managed it, it would be a success.
“Is this not true of all bad laws?”
No law is ever going to get 100 percent compliance. But even the so-called “immoral” ones get applied sometimes and that’s good enough for me.
“I suppose my point is that it is morality that differentiates law from coercion”
Well, it’s moral justifications that make people feel ok about being coerced. But law is coercion. It’s telling people what to do and what not to do. People just need to feel like there’s a reason for it so intellectuals spend a great deal of time justifying things to make people feel better about being pushed around. Either way, they’re still getting pushed around.
“Why have two words for the same thing?”
I dunno, Law implies codified rules of coercion. It’s coercion all the same though, it’s just structured and institutionalized.
“They’d all just obey the law”
Oh no, definitely not, some people’s values will always disagree with the values of the law. And they’ll resist. That’s inevitable.
“What about the concept of law as the expression of popular morality?”
I think there’s some truth to that but of course “popular” doesn’t mean everyone agrees it just means a lot of people agree. The people who don’t agree, if they have no power, have no influence over the law. Their values are not represented by the law but it doesn’t matter. Therefore, law cannot be only an expression of “popular morality.”
All you’ve pointed out is that reality is spun in such a way as to make people feel comfortable. But the law is still based on power. But lawmakers can’t just say that, it would disturb people. So we sugarcoat things and tell people there’s a justification when in reality none is really needed.