As much as every person has their own appetites guiding their perceptions, every person’s perception of righteousness is incomplete and flawed.

That condition remains no matter how diligently we strive to make a graven image of righteousness so that we can own it.

Even so God appears to have written the greater law in our hearts – so that when taken as a democratic whole we, the people, have been able to make huge advances towards righteousness in a relatively short period of time in spite of each individual’s apparently limited ability to know righteousness.  This progress appears inevitable as the rule of the People’s Law upon themselves replaces the subjugation of men by other men. 

Perhaps righteousness can own us even if we cannot own righteousness.