The frontier town may be struggling to establish justice in difficult circumstances, but we are given little hope that it is having clear success. Into the midst of these proceedings 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) comes–confident, brisk and precocious–looking for help. She intends to bring her father’s killer, Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), to justice or to take justice to him.

Social Security has been successful at fostering greater dependency on the government. Fewer and fewer Americans remain unafraid enough to live and speak as the independent freemen envisioned by the Founders. More and more elections are decided by fear of losing yet more money. Those who work fear taxes while those who don’t fear reduced benefits. Other issues, such as national security, get displaced by anxiety over what our own government might do.

Most Germans who cooperated with the Nazis did so out of the careerist ambitions and insecurities that are everywhere in plain sight today. They were just obeying directives, pleasing superiors, looking for promotions and raises, protecting their jobs, and trying to get through the day.

Goodness is something much larger and more important than a list of rules. Mainly, it is a vision of the world as it has been and can be, a vision of people living in all the little and big ways that support happiness. Fully realized, the vision is a vast and complex ecological order, quite beyond the comprehension of children.