Decades ago, when I went to law school, students were drilled about the importance of "process values" to the legal system and to society.  Citizens needed to be confident that a cause, win or lose, was heard with attention by competent and disinterested judges acting according to those general principles called "the rule of law."  Defeat would still sting, but not fester. Inter arma enim silent lex is a familiar Latin aphorism meaning "amidst arms, law falls silent." We need an aphorism expressing the complementary truth: "If law falls silent, arms will decide," because if process values are systematically ignored, then all hell can break loose.  In a recent article, the Serbian-American author said "as someone who (barely) lived through a civil war, [I know that they] begin when a faction decides it can no longer pursue its goals through the political, legal or economic means, as they have all been...(Read Full Article)